Boaters who live year-round in a Queen’s Quay marina are getting tossed due to COVID-19. Harbourfront’s abrupt move has left some high and dry for the winter

For most of the past 16 years Kris Coward has lived aboard a 30-foot sailboat, cramming his life into a space smaller than the smallest bachelor apartment in Toronto.

He cooks in a galley kitchen and washes dishes with water drawn from a tank using a foot pump. He sleeps below-deck in the bow, in front of the hanging locker where he keeps his clothes and behind that, his wet suit and soldering iron — yes, soldering iron — because owning a boat is for people with a maintenance fetish, said Coward, a PhD mathematician and father of one.

“Everything on a boat is always breaking all the time, so you’re constantly fixing it,” said Coward, 40. “I’ve definitely got a maintenance fetish. I totally like fixing and tinkering with my own stuff.”

There are benefits. He gets to live both close to nature and in the heart of the city — he spends summers on the Toronto Islands and winters in a cozy floating neighbourhood, referred to as Marina Four, below the Simcoe WaveDeck on Queen’s Quay West.

It’s a popular sight with tourists, who like to walk the Amsterdam footbridge arching over the neighbourhood and take selfies with the gleaming white boats and the CN Tower in the background.

What the tourists don’t know — in fact, most residents don’t know — is that people live on those boats, winter and summer; have raised kids on those boats who attend local schools; volunteer in the neighbourhood and patronize the grocery stores and restaurants along Queen’s Quay.

Coward is one of them, and after 16 winters, he is facing eviction from Marina Four with no other place to go.

Boaters at the marina received an email from Harbourfront Centre on Aug. 26, explaining that Marina Four would be closed for the winter — perhaps permanently. They were told that in order to secure a winter berth at nearby Marina Quay West (MQW), also operated by Harbourfront Centre, they had to be able to quarantine on their boats if necessary, in the event they were to come down with COVID-19.

Boaters at MQW, near the old Canada Malting Co. silos, also had to re-apply for a berth.

To be considered self-sufficient during a quarantine, boaters must have on-board showers and flush toilets, neither of which Coward has on his sailboat.

“I am in housing limbo — I don’t know what my housing situation is going to be in a month’s time,” said Coward, who is trying to negotiate an agreement with Harbourfront Centre that would allow him to stay at MQW this year, even if he can’t shower while self-isolating.

Having just returned from a two-week back-country trip, Coward said a shower is not strictly necessary if he ends up being quarantined for two weeks, and his composting toilet is preferable because it doesn’t clog the way marine flush toilets do.

Ben Angus, 35, an architect from Nova Scotia who lives on a 34-foot sailboat at Marina Four in winter, said Harbourfront Centre waited too long to advise boaters of the changes this winter.

Luckily Angus, who first moved onto his sailboat in 2017, was able to find an apartment in Parkdale for the winter. He was able to schedule a haul-out date for his boat.

“It was just a complete scramble,” he said.

Angus believes that live-aboards at Marina Four provide the eyes-on-the-street protection that celebrated urbanist Jane Jacobs wrote about and endorsed. The boaters are the ones, late at night, who witness the drunken vandals breaking glass, and can report it, or sometimes move to stop it, Angus said.

“I think that live-aboards have a lot of value.”

Whether and when Marina Four will reopen are questions that have yet to be answered with certainty.

Coward and dozens of other boaters at Marina Four and MQW — the two urban marinas run by Harbourfront Centre, the not-for-profit organization that programs and oversees activities along the waterfront — were stunned by the email that arrived on Aug. 26.

“There is a possibility that the elimination of Marina Four as a winter dockage location may be permanent though we cannot confirm this at this time,” according to the letter.

They were told that if they were interested in returning, they should notify the office before 5 p.m., Aug. 28. They had to prove their boats met the new COVID-19 criteria.

Harbourfront Centre’s chief operations officer, Martin Kenneally, said he agrees the boaters were notified late and he regrets that the idea of a permanent closure was ever raised.

“They think they’re being evicted,” said Kenneally. “I understand their concern. We don’t think that’s actually the case. We think they’re being relocated.

“I think in our minds — certainly mine — we see them being able to be back in 2021 in the summer, and in the winter we’ll have solved whatever the problems are by then and hopefully the COVID situation will also have eased.”

A big issue is the facilities provided to boaters at Marina Four.

It costs $111 per foot per six-month season, according to Harbourfront Centre’s website, plus hydro, to berth at Marina Four. That includes access to a common laundry, bathroom and showers in the former PawsWay building at 245 Queen’s Quay West. Boaters get a key to the facilities.

PawsWay operated as a store and event centre for people and their pets for 10 years. The building has been empty since Purina moved out in 2017. Harbourfront Centre is trying to attract a new tenant, and getting rid of the facilities for boaters is part of a possible deal.

Kenneally said it will also be easier for Harbourfront staff to maintain one set of facilities for boaters during COVID, instead of two.

There is no easy answer for where to relocate the facilities for boaters. An engineering firm has been hired to investigate the possibilities, but on the face of it, there don’t seem to be any simple options, according to Kenneally. They can’t locate the facilities next to the Harbourfront bandshell, or where the Simcoe WaveDeck sits now, on city property. They could rebuild the Harbourfront Centre Powerboat and Sailing building located past the Amsterdam Brewhouse and past the Toronto Police Service Marine Unit, at the foot of Rees Street — but it’s a bit far to be considered convenient.

COVID may have been the trigger for the evictions, but there are other issues with Marina Four. The docks need repair and the hydro in the area needs to be updated, said Kenneally.

Marina Four can handle about 70 recreational boats in the summer — depending on the size of the boats, and MQW has berths for 157. In winter those figures are drastically reduced, mainly because boats require significantly more hydro in the winter, in part to keep equipment running that prevents their crafts from becoming iced in. Between 10 to 14 people live at Marina Four in winter and about 40 to 45 people at MQW.

Kenneally said not all boats at MQW made the cut and not everyone made the cut at Marina Four. He didn’t specify how many.

If the boaters were covered by the provincial legislation governing landlords, and repairs were cited as the reason for the move, the boaters would be entitled to a 120-day notice, three-months’ rent or the equivalent, and would have the right to return to the space, said Toronto lawyer Caryma Sa’d.

While the standard contract between the boaters and the marina specifically states they are not covered by the legislation, the Act does not allow tenants to bargain away their rights, said Sa’d.

If the matter were to become the subject of a legal dispute, it would by no means be a slam dunk for either side, she added.

“It could go either way. I would say that, without providing legal advice, obviously, those who have a stronger claim are the ones who live there year-round.”

For the boaters who are being asked to leave, moving is more than just a shift in location — going back to renting an apartment represents a significant change in lifestyle.

“I never really saw myself as being a sort of big-city guy,” said Angus, whose grandfather was a ship captain in Nova Scotia.

“I was always drawn towards more rural, wild settings, but work found me here in Toronto and being able to live on your boat is definitely a connection with nature.”

Like many of the winter residents of Marina Four, Angus summers on the Toronto Islands.

“Being over on the Island, I see all sorts of wildlife, and I’m in tune with what the moon is doing. I can look at the stars at night and it almost feels like you’re camping in a way — but in a comfortable way.”

David Loney was one of the winter boaters at Marina Four who won a berth at MQW for the winter, but he’s not happy with the way the situation has been handled.

Loney, a provincial public servant, lives full-time on his 40-foot NAVSTAR motor yacht, purchased second-hand after he realized he liked living on a boat enough to sell his house in Ajax.

He fell in love with sailing at summer camp, when he was eight, and has been living on his boat for 10 years, full-time for six years.

His boat has two bedrooms and his two daughters have grown up spending summers and weekends on the Toronto Islands and visiting the city sites in winter — many of which, like Ripley’s Aquarium, are in walking distance of Marina Four.

“The people who live in tents under the Gardiner Expressway were given more notice of their eviction,” said Loney, pointing out it takes a while to find a place to relocate for winter or store a boat and make arrangements to have it hauled out of the water.

Despite the difficulties, Loney has no plans to give up the lifestyle, and every intention of fighting to keep Marina Four afloat if that is what it comes to.

“I just like the uniqueness of it. It’s so different. It’s almost like camping. Most people who live on their boats year-round would never go back.”

Francine Kopun is a Toronto-based reporter covering city hall and municipal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: