Oakville council pushes for new lighthouse at Bronte Harbour
Published March 4, 2022 at 4:04 pm
Bronte Harbour could soon have its lighthouse back.
At its most recent meeting, Oakville Council unanimously supported a call on the federal government to work with the Town on replacing the current box and beacon at the 12 Mile Creek with a lighthouse and beacon similar to the one installed on the 16 Mile Creek.
Ward 1 Regional and Town Councillor Sean O’Meara, who brought up the motion, says the piers who have some sort of a lighthouse structure become more of a “gem and icon and tourist attraction.”
“When they removed it last year, obviously we had a number of residents, constituents who were very curious about why it was being removed and why did we sort of lose our symbol of what Bronte Harbour was,” said O’Meara.
“It’s important to the tourists, it’s important to our marketing,” added the Ward 1 councillor who also chairs the Visit Oakville Board. “It’s important to people who want the look and feel of a town on a harbour.
The Canadian Coast Guard started replacing the navigation beacons a number of years ago, replacing the current structures by just placing the beacons in a box.
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The pier is federally owned and regulated.
“Sometimes the trees get lost in the forest a little bit, which is totally understandable, but that’s why we have members of parliament and councillors and people who are looking out and say, ‘Hey, don’t forget the look and feel of things and just the formality of it,'” said O’Meara. “I think that’s one of the things maybe that got swept under the rug a little bit.
“I have every confidence that working with (Oakville MP Anita Anand and Oakville-North MP Pam Damoff) and our Town that we’re going to have an awesome lighthouse there in the very near future.”
While O’Meara isn’t sure what the exact cost of putting a new lighthouse at Bronte Harbour would be, he believes it’s minimal.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a lot of money,” he said. “It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on a number of things.”
O’Meara is confident that Bronte Harbour will have “an awesome lighthouse in the very near future.”
“It’s a little blip in terms of what our waterfront looks like and it happened and it’s something we need to make sure everybody is aware of what happened,” he said. “It something that means a hell of a lot to the residents of Bronte.”
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