Cottagers: Stay away from Haldimand-Norfolk

Cottagers whose primary residence is outside of Haldimand-Norfolk have been ordered not to visit their Lake Erie vacation homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Long Point Ratepayers' Association (LPRA) members are up in arms over the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit order which forbids them from visiting their vacation properties.

It's just a shock, and we're all very upset," said Sandy Travers, whose lakeside cottage at Long Point has been in her husband's family since 1948.

There's close to 9,000 cottagers that are not going to be able to utilize their vacation homes," Travers said.

The health unit order puts rented cottages, condominiums, beach houses, chalets, and vacation homes off limits if their owners' primary residence is outside Haldimand-Norfolk.

Violators could be fined $5,000 per day.

Travers said it makes no sense to allow residents from Haldimand to come to Long Point and other lakeside towns like Turkey Point and Port Ryerse but to prevent longtime seasonal residents like her family from enjoying their property.

It is, I feel, excessive. It's a little over the top," she said on Friday while packing up perishables and essential items from the cottage to take back to her home in Baden, Ont.

She said it would be easy for her and her husband to use their vacation home even during the pandemic.

We leave our house in Baden, we drive to Long Point, we don't stop anywhere - nowhere is open anyway - and we stay there, self-isolated," she said.

We don't need to use the town. We look at the lake and then we go home."

They would fill up on gas before they leave Baden and pack all the groceries they would want. And should one of them fall ill, Travers said, they would head back.

We won't go to Norfolk hospital," she said.

Dr. Shanker Nesathurai, Haldimand-Norfolk's chief medical officer of health, said cottage visits are among the non-essential trips the health unit is trying to discourage to limit the spread of COVID-19.

The public health service and I wrote an order asking people that if their primary residence is not in Haldimand or Norfolk county, that they are required not to occupy their vacation home," he said. The reason for this is the traffic back and forth."

Nesathurai noted that the province has closed campgrounds, trailer parks and marinas for the same reason - to reduce the temptation for people to leave their homes.

People going to their vacation homes, back and forth, that is problematic," Nesathurai said. As difficult as this is, I think this is one more strategy" to reduce transmission of the virus.

LPRA president Karen Deans sees it differently. She said her family opens their Long Point cottage on the Victoria Day weekend and essentially stays there until Thanksgiving.

That is our home," she said of the cottage, which has been in the family since 1938. We have a seasonal residence in London for the winter months and our seasonal residence in the summer is in Long Point."

The health unit order was issued on April 23, but Deans only learned of it while watching a live stream of Tuesday's Haldimand-Norfolk Board of Health meeting. The news passed without comment from councillors, but it led to a flurry of calls and emails to Deans from association members worried they'd be cut off from their cottages.

We pay taxes, dearly. Our taxes are very high for what we get. We don't get a lot of services," Deans said.

We bring our own groceries during the pandemic. We will self-distance and follow the protocols. We just want to go down and chill at our cottage. We get a short time to do it."

Norfolk Mayor Kristal Chopp has stated that measures like closing the trail system and restricting fishing access, though unpopular with some residents, were put in place to prevent tourists and residents alike from moving about Haldimand-Norfolk.

I could never have imagined that we'd be going into the spring and asking people to stay away," Chopp said.

It goes back to the fact that we don't have the same health-care capacity as these urban centres. You end up making rules for the small segment of the population that can't figure it out."

Travers says it's inconsistent that the province has said golf courses and marinas can now start preparing to open, but the local health unit has clamped down on taxpayers who happen to live elsewhere during the colder months.

We're being kicked off our own property," she said. We don't know why they're doing it. Why now, when the province is starting to open things up?"

J.P. Antonacci's reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows him to report on stories about the regions of Haldimand and Norfolk.