Houseboat owners, take notice. The city of Kenora is currently working with the Ontario Provincial Police and Ministry of Natural Resources to have houseboats parked on or in front of the city's water lot on the northeast side of Coney Island by Bush Island removed by Sept. 30.

The city is not formally enforcing removal at the moment, but will be providing notice to owners parking on or in front of the city's property that if they have not left by the end of September, they may be charged with trespassing.

"The primary reason for doing some follow up with the houseboats and serving notice, is from our perception, the houseboats are illegally parked there," explained Coun. Rory McMillan.

The city's operations department has been working to develop a marine related bylaw for city docks and other related facilities. This issue with houseboats near Coney Island was one that came up during these discussions, explained Karen Brown, Kenora's chief administrative officer.

"Because they've been there for so long and because we've received complaints specifically about them, we wanted to proceed with that," she said.

The Sept. 30 date was set to allow owners enough time to relocate and make other arrangements, she said. At this point the city will only be sending notice to the houseboat owners, but they are prepared to have the houseboats removed if owners do not comply.

"We're making them aware that there will be some repercussions if they do not remove the boats, we're looking at having the boats relocated, and there may be trespassing charges if appropriate," Brown said.

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