COBOURG — Among the visitors to Cobourg’s waterfront this week was a group from Whitby who came for the express purpose of learning something to take away with them.

Director of planning and development, Glenn McGlashon, hosted the contingent of councillors and others (including Oshawa Mayor Pat Perkins and planning and urban-design consultant Anne McIlroy) during the Cobourg stop Monday on a tour of several municipal waterfronts — in preparation for creating a master waterfront plan of their own.

” They really like Cobourg’s waterfront, and just wanted to get some input,” McGlashon said.

“I made up a package for them that showed the harbour back in the 1870s, 1910, 1919, 1950s, 1970s, 1980s, up to where it is today, with lots of pictures and plans undertaken in the 1980s to 1990s and, of course, as recently as the Rotary Waterfront Plan with the fountain and rink.

“They were interested in how the town went about it. The mayor really enjoyed it.”

While Whtby has had some construction and development in its west harbour, McGlashon said, there has not necessarily been a comprehensive master plan. He encouraged them in their efforts to unify the elements of a waterfront like Cobourg’s, such as urban design, landscaping and public accessibility.

“Over the course of our harbour, we undertook a number of plans, including for the beach promenade, the Cobourg Central Harbour Plan, the West Harbour Plan, the Victoria Square Plan, a half-dozen different plans which, collectively, worked out quite well, mainly because the harbour evolved over time,” he said.

For example, there was the unexpected acquisition of Diversey lands when that water-treatment plant closed. This is why it is difficult to take a crystal- ball approach and try to react to a future one may not clearly foresee, he commented.

From photos McGlashon has seen, Cobourg had quite an industrialized waterfront a century ago.

“In our case, it was an evolution, an incremental evolution. In Whitby, they may already have some public lands earmarked in a different way, but every circumstance is unique and different. What may apply here may not there.

“But you work with what resources you have. We had limited resources, but took funding where it was available from federal and provincial sources.

” There’s still lots more work left to do with the marina expansion and the West Harbour Plan, but it’s all about finances. That’s one of the reasons it evolved incrementally — due to funding resources and availability. We applied for the money and improved from there.

“For example, we wouldn’t have done Rotary Park without significant funding sources from the province. You wouldn’t have what you see there today, maybe just a walkway or two.”