Action may finally be in the works for crumbling old boathouse on Lawrence Pond

By Craig Westcott/August 26, 2022

It took three years of picking at it, but Gerard Philpott may have finally found the right fellow to help him get rid of what he considers an eyesore on the other side of the water from him on Lawrence Pond.

That fellow appears to be CBS Mayor Darrin Bent.

“Give the devil his due, Darrin Bent came down,” said Philpott. “He’s the first person to ever acknowledge it in three years. He came down and we had a conversation about it.”

The “it” is a dilapidated old boathouse falling into a pond that happens to be one of the most popular summer recreation spots in CBS.

“Everything goes on here – jet skiing, boating, water skiing, everything,” said Philpott, who spends a lot of time on the water’s edge himself, puttering around his immaculately kept private wharf.

“I’m up here now 40 years. My wife grew up here… It’s a beautiful spot, but over there look,” he said, pointing to the crumbling old boathouse…. And everybody here is talking about it and talking about it and talking about it, but they don’t seem to do much about it.”

Philpott said he has spent the past three years calling the Town Hall, which has directed him to the provincial Department of Environment, which has either ignored his calls, or redirected him back to the Town.

“Last year they said, ‘No, it’s a CBS problem. CBS said, ‘No, it’s an environmental problem.’ Back and forth, back and forth,” said Phillpott. “Now in the back of my mind, I think this is a CBS problem. It’s within the municipal boundary. If you’ve got a hazard with the boundaries, I believe it’s your problem… That’s foundering out now into the water about four years. All those shingles are out in the pond, if you want to talk about the environment, and all the pieces of wood are falling off it and drifting up the pond to the beach. It’s gradually falling and falling and falling in…  Would that be left hanging out over Manuels River? That wouldn’t be left hanging out over the river down there. Or over the Yacht Club, or in what they call downtown Long Pond now, would it? Not likely. That would be gone in a flash.”

Philpott said the most aggravating thing is when people don’t return your call.

“I worked with the City of Mount Pearl for 25 years in parks and community services and things like that. When I got a call, I always made sure I got back to that person,” said Philpott. “Because if you don’t get back to them, you’re in deep crap. Even if it’s to tell you, ‘Yes I can do it for you,’ or ‘No I can’t.’ And you phone them. But this crowd up here, it doesn’t seem like they acknowledge anything.”

Philpott said he doesn’t know who owns the property. He believes the original owners sold it years ago, but left an easement down to the pond for their grandchildren. The boathouse itself, he reckoned, dates back to the era of his father-in-law when people from St. John’s built summer cabins and wharves around Lawrence Pond.

“My main concern is the hazard of it,” said Philpott. “And then talk about environmental issues – sure it’s out in the pond, righ?. Why don’t the two bodies get together and say, ‘Boys, this has got to come out of there.’ There’s no trouble for the boys (from council) to come down and chop, chop, chop with the saw and that’s all gone. Drag it up on the pond on a little old boom or something and put it aboard a truck and it’ll be gone. Someone has to do something about it.”

One day earlier this summer while hunting around the Town of CBS telephone directory for someone to call, he spotted the mayor’s number and decided to give it a try.

He was surprised by the response.

“It’s the first time anyone ever came up and said, ‘Where is it to? Let me have a look,’” Philpott said. 

Bent, who was recovering from a bout of Covid when reached for an interview, acknowledged the boathouse is a problem.

“Every time you go up there everybody mentions the boathouse,” Bent said. “I know that council has heard from at least one other resident about the boathouse asking what’s going on with it. It’s a big thing because a lot of people in the summer use Lawrence Pond, of course, for sea-dooing and kayaking and all that, so it’s on display, and people see it and say, ‘What’s going on with that, how come that’s left there?'”

Bent said both the Town and the Province have jurisdiction over the pond.

“The Town has been working with the property owner over there in an effort to get this boathouse removed once and for all,” said the mayor. “My understanding is the property owner has to get a permit from (the provincial Environment Department’s division of) Water Resources in order to move forward. And the property owner, from my understanding, has been very cooperative with us over the past number of months. I can’t speak to it before my time, but it seems to be moving forward. What I’m told is that the property owner has an application in to Water Resources for a permit to be able to do the work to remove it. Our building inspectors have been in touch with the homeowner and the homeowner has been very cooperative and we’re hoping this will get to an end sooner rather than later. But however long it takes to go through that permitting process, I couldn’t tell you.”

Bent said it just so happened that after he met with Phillpott and asked for information from Town staff, he learned a building inspector was already dealing with the issue and expecting an appointment with the property owner within a matter of days.

“This was in July,” said the mayor. “And when I asked for the update yesterday, that’s what they said, that the property owner has an application for a permit into Water Resources and we can’t do anything until that permit is in place, of course, because they have jurisdiction over inland waters. But we’ve been in contact with the property owner on a regular basis, I’m told, over the past while with an effort to get this to an end. So that’s good, I hope.”

Bent admitted he isn’t sure what the Town could actually do if the property owner doesn’t get the permit.

“I think Water Resources would have to sign off on anything to begin with,” he allowed. “Whether the Town would have the jurisdiction to apply for that, I’m not sure… It’s been a concern for some residents and it’s something we would like to see finished off and we’ve got staff working with the property owner to move forward with that. At some point there’s probably action you can take like with any property to have something removed. But this property owner, from what I’m told, is being very cooperative and we’re working with them to get this finished… It’s an old boathouse, so I’m assuming there’s probably not much of an environmental issue up there, but things have to be removed in a proper way and that’s why it’s got to go through the Province. It’s something that’s been there a long time that people would like to see removed, and council would as well.”