A new ATV bylaw in Chatham-Kent still has some life in it, after council voted to revisit the issue.
Chatham Coun. Darrin Canniff entered a successful motion to bring the idea back to the council table for discussion at Monday night’s meeting.
“I originally didn’t support the bylaw,” Canniff said. “For a lot of the reason we brought up in the discussions… I think safety was a big one. Safety for the ATV drivers and safety for the general public. We need to address that and make sure that is dealt with in any bylaw we put forward.”
“We need to look at options to eliminate/reduce the liability to Chatham-Kent and to everyone. The whole idea of this bylaw is not to trample over the rights of land owners, the question is will they do it anyway, with or without the bylaw. The idea of the bylaw is something that allows law-abiding citizens a way to do it legally.”
Canniff entered another successful motion, by a vote of 8-7, for staff to make the following changes to the previous bylaw they created:
– Consider implementing a license fee and liability waiver.
– Investigate the possibility of increase fines for trespassing.
– Prohibit use on all main streets in towns and cities (may cross the streets but not travel on).
– Prohibit use on all major highways including 2,3,21 & 40 and other roads identified by staff (may cross the highways but not travel on)
– Only in Chatham for snow plowing on day of snow event and the day after the snow event
– Create measurable criteria to evaluate the merits of the bylaw at the end of the trial period.
– One year trial period after which the bylaw automatically expires.
“The first bylaw, it was coming pretty fast and hard and we didn’t really have a handle on things,” Canniff said. “The whole idea of this is, let’s look at it again and ask does this make sense with a little more research on things, and can we mitigate some things.”
Chatham Coun. Brock McGregor also made a successful motion for administration to produce an interim report to council, prior to making the adjustments and conducting the work necessary for the new by-law.
McGregor’s motion requested the report look at three points from Caniff’s motion: the possibility of a license fee and liability waiver, the possibility of increased fines, and creating measurable criteria to evaluate the by-law after a one-year trial period.
Wallaceburg Coun. Jeff Wesley said he wants to see staff look at other communities and measures they have taken to keep cost down while implementing an ATV bylaw.
“There are a lot of communities out there that already have it in place,” he said. “Why does it have to be a big issue here, why does it have to be an expensive issue here. Lets look to those communities, see what they did and see if there is some strategies they adopted that we can put into use here. I know we have more highways and roadways here, but if other communities can do it I don’t see why that is an impediment to us.”
The interim ATV report will be presented to council at a future meeting.
