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Colwood council sets end date for Esquimalt Lagoon sauna

Wild Wood Saunas has had a deadline of March 31 set for their temporary use permit
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Wild Wood Saunas will have to move off the Esquimalt Lagoon by the end of March after Colwood council responded to a request for direction from city staff Monday (March 13). (Justin Samanski-Langille)

A mobile sauna which has been set up on the Esquimalt Lagoon will have to move by the end of March following an ask from Colwood city staff for council to provide direction.

Since January, Wild Wood Saunas has operated a trailer-mounted wood sauna on Ocean Boulevard under a temporary use permit issued to allow the city to evaluate community interest and whether to allow the enterprise to setup more permanently.

At MondayB次元官网网址檚 (March 13) council meeting, staff asked council to provide direction on what to do next, as no expiration date for the temporary use permit had been established.

At the onset of the discussion, council raised concerns about allowing commercial enterprises on the lagoon for anything other than special events with short operating times, given the potential impact on traffic, noise and the migratory bird sanctuary which forms part of the Colwood waterfront area.

Despite this, council was nearly unanimous in praising Wild Wood Saunas for their business model and concept, and noted there had been a fair amount of positive feedback from the community, as well as some negative feedback.

After nearly an hour of debate, much of which moved away from the issue of the sauna specifically and focused more broadly on the need to decide whether any commercial enterprise should be permitted on the lagoon, council decided an end date must be set for the saunaB次元官网网址檚 temporary use permit.

The prevailing belief was that while the sauna was a good business idea for the community, Esquimalt Lagoon was simply not the right location for it.

More debate saw council go back and forth on whether the city owed it to the sauna operators to help them find a new waterfront location in the city for their sauna to setup, before ultimately unanimously passing a motion setting March 31 as the end date for the saunaB次元官网网址檚 permission to operate on the lagoon.

The larger issue of what the cityB次元官网网址檚 policy should be with regards to commercial businesses operating on the lagoon outside of special events will be discussed during an April meeting of the Waterfront Stewardship Committee, which was already scheduled to discuss the topic and eventually provide a recommendation to council.

READ MORE: Colwood council votes to narrow sidewalk to protect B次元官网网址榮ignificantB次元官网网址 sequoia tree



justin.samanski-langille@goldstreamgazette.com

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Justin Samanski-Langille

About the Author: Justin Samanski-Langille

I moved coast-to-coast to discover and share the stories of the West Shore, joining Black Press in 2021 after four years as a reporter in New Brunswick.
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