On May 11, 2026, Belleville City Council voted 8–0 to keep the South John Street waterfront parcel in public hands. Thank you to everyone who emailed, called, and showed up.
But here's what most people don't know: in 2019, the City had a real plan for the waterfront. Drawings. A budget. A council presentation. It didn't fail. It got interrupted.
The land is safe. The plan is not.
Most of us have forgotten what Belleville was before COVID. It's worth remembering, because we paid for it.
Over roughly fifteen years, this city transformed itself on purpose. The casino opened, and a share of that revenue went into beautifying public spaces. Then-MP Neil Ellis secured a major federal infrastructure loan that rebuilt downtown Belleville — and more importantly, upgraded the underground utilities so the core could handle a century of growth instead of patching another decade.
Storefronts filled. The waterfront trail extended. The Bayshore came alive. That wasn't an accident — it was a deliberate public investment that set up the next chapter.
The waterfront.
City staff sat down with local waterfront entrepreneurs — paddle outfitters, bike rentals, food vendors, the carriage operator — to map what came next.
The vision was simple and ambitious: a clustered, activated waterfront. Public land, public buildings, public revenue. Small businesses leasing space from the City. People moving between downtown, Victoria Harbour, and Freestone Point on foot, on bikes, on the water.
Three pilot sites were identified:
Alongside the yacht club. Future home of a public reception centre with restaurant, retail, and water-access bays.
Pop-ups in the parking lot, later cantilevered down to the river with a deck over the water.
The cleanest site, identified by staff for a small public–private building: ground-floor retail, reception centre above.
Jane Forrester Park was protected — it always was, and always will be. The activation was meant to happen around it: at the corners, on the points, on the waterfront edges where the City could build something that paid for itself.
"We've got a city of 50,000, and we bring 1.5 million [visitors] in the summer… There's nothing like this in Trenton, Picton, Wellington, or Napanee. This is what's great about Belleville." — City staff, 2019 waterfront planning session
Phase 1 was pop-ups and sea cans: fast, cheap, reversible. Phase 2 was permanent infrastructure. Phase 3 was the buildings. The pilot launched in 2019 as Pop-Ups by the Bay.
The land is safe. But the 2019 plan is still on a shelf somewhere.
Belleville sits on what waterfront planners openly call some of the best protected sailing water in the world. Award-winning. Calmer than Kingston. Two hours from Toronto. And we have done remarkably little with it for thirty years.
Outdoor recreation is the fastest-growing tourism category in Ontario, and the residents most likely to buy houses, raise families, and start businesses here are the ones asking:
In 2026, the honest answer for most of those questions is "drive to Prince Edward County."
That is the gap the 2019 plan was designed to close. The land transfer would have closed the door on one of the three pilot sites for good. Council got that right. The harder question is what we build next.
A common objection to restarting the 2019 plan is cost. That objection doesn't survive five minutes of research.
There are at least three federal and provincial programs currently open or recently topped up that fit this project. Belleville is eligible for all of them. The work is not "find the money." The work is apply for it.
Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund. Province added $300M in the April 2026 budget. Funds new facilities and rehabs. The right vehicle for a Victoria Harbour or Freestone-area public building.
Federal program, direct municipal application. Funds bike lanes, multi-use trails, wayfinding signage, sidewalks. Matches the trail-connectivity gaps the 2019 plan identified.
Belleville already receives an annual Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund allocation. Minimum $125k/year, accumulable over 5 years for larger projects. The question is what we spend it on.
Regional Fund for tourism experiences and extending visitor stay. 50% cost-share. Applications open April–June 2026. Better suited to programming than capital, but a real complement.
A community non-profit partner — a "Friends of the Belleville Waterfront" group, for example — also unlocks Ontario Trillium Foundation capital grants of $10k–$200k that Belleville-the-municipality can't directly access. That's a real opportunity, and it's residents who would have to start it.
Ask your councillor which of these the City is pursuing — and which it isn't, and why.
The staff report on the South John Street parcel is coming. The 2026 budget cycle is approaching. Now is the moment to tell councillors what residents actually want — not just what we want them to stop.
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