Waterways Management Advisory Council (WMAC) members offered thanks to their former longtime chairman following his sudden retirement after a series of stressful meetings.
Council members also discussed summertime congestion in West Neck Harbor, endorsed a change to a Little Ram Island mooring permit, recommended partial approval for the Big Ram LLC dock application, revisited a previously rejected application, and began to work on possible Town Code revisions.
Bill Geraghty, serving as acting chair, presided over Monday’s meeting. John Needham, who recently resigned from the WMAC after 26 years, attended and said he’d continue to make himself available for advice and guidance.
WMAC thanks chairman
Geraghty described Needham as honest, polite, easy-going, and diligent and said he probably took his role “too seriously. I think you were probably harder on yourself than on many of the applicants.”
He thanked Needham for “service and dedication and ultimately your friendship.” Needham’s departure, he said, was “extremely unfortunate and, to an extent, was unnecessary.”
“There’s been considerable stress this year mainly due to just a handful of applications. But I also think there were some internal stresses and that with more support and clarity and better communications from those we advise, there would have been fewer stresses and better results.”
Town Councilman Jim Colligan, one of two liaisons to the WMAC, apologized “if I had any small part to play.” He was referring to his apparent insistence at a recent meeting that the WMAC expedite the Big Ram LLC application, which Needham had declared incomplete.
Colligan said he didn’t mean to give the impression that he was advocating for any specific applicant but was generally speaking about the importance of effective communication.
For his part, Needham said he’d decided to resign “to enjoy myself.” And, true to his word about assisting with a smooth transition, he chimed in periodically with insights as committee members discussed various issues.
Capturing institutional knowledge
For example, the other liaison, Councilwoman BJ Ianfolla, said the Town Board is working with the Village of Dering Harbor to formalize a decades-old verbal agreement relating to jurisdiction over the Dering Harbor shoreline and that Needham was assisting in the effort.
Needham said the agreement requires Village residents to apply for waterways permits to the Town, but the Village retains control over other uses up to 500 feet from its shore along the harbor.
Typically, home rule applies to up to 1,500 feet from shore, but in the narrow waterway, that would put the Village and Town in conflict. The formal agreement aims to ensure both sides understand their roles and responsibilities.
Beau Payne, one of the Police Department’s three harbormasters, also thanked Needham for his many years of service. He asked the council to consider ways to capture the institutional knowledge of those departing, to get at “the bits and pieces that everybody has, to make sure that remains in the WMAC.”
It could be an exit interview or informal discussions about decision-making regarding moorings, docks, and other marine infrastructure locations. Debriefings may enable the council to establish “standing orders,” Payne said, so new appointees “know where to start.”
West Neck Harbor anchorage
Next, Payne explained the challenges associated with enforcing the use of the Town’s designated anchorages. While he believes most boaters want to do what’s right, Payne said the Town Code sends mixed signals.
That’s because it permits Shelter Island residents to anchor anywhere in Town-controlled waters (1,500 feet from shorelines) but requires visitors to use designated anchorages.
So, a resident boater may pick a spot near but outside a designated zone and drop anchor. Upon seeing the anchored vessel, a visiting boater might assume the area is an approved anchorage.
While the Town has buoys marking designated anchorages, Payne said most boaters he talks to hadn’t realized they were in the wrong place. Some relied on charts that contained incorrect information despite the Town’s efforts to get the publishers to update them.
He said this only exacerbates the confusion, especially in and around West Neck Harbor, a popular spot inside Shell Beach.
Anyone observing the SIPD marine units on patrol would see them passing by some boats but stopping at others similarly located and asking their operators to move on.
After sorting out who gets to stay and who has to leave, the harbormasters depart to attend to other duties, and the cycle begins again, Payne said.
WMAC member Tom Field said he’s witnessed the pattern. “It’s like whack-a-mole.” Also a concern, Field said, is overcrowding and mixing of incompatible uses.
Payne said it’s common to see numerous boats anchored on summer weekends in West Neck Harbor amid people kayaking, paddle boarding, tubing, wakeboarding, or kiteboarding, not to mention swimming.
Additionally, on Sunday afternoons, the Menantic Yacht Club holds organized Sunfish races with dozens of participants accompanied by at least one safety boat. It gets so crowded that harbormasters will close the area to specific uses.
“There comes a point on a Sunday usually where towed activity is prohibited until further notice inside West Neck Harbor because, it’s just, somebody’s gonna die,” Payne said.
A practical alternative
At SIPD’s current staffing level, three harbormasters are on patrol during the day on summer weekends, which are the busiest times for boating, he said. Working in shifts with on-water coverage from about 9 AM to 7 PM in two boats, they make regular patrols, including checking the anchorages. They keep notes, he said and will issue summonses to repeat offenders.
But sometimes, they’re called away for emergencies, such as water rescues, and may be unable to return to recheck anchorage compliance.
“It really does require more time to effectively manage than we currently are able to give it,” Payne said. “Realistically, you’d probably have to have somebody there pretty much all the time.”
A more practical — if possibly unpopular — alternative, he said, would be for the WMAC to consider recommending a Town Code change so that everyone, Island resident or not, would be required to use designated anchorages in busy areas like West Neck Harbor.
“Residents being able to anchor where they like during that period of time really adds a very, very, very deep layer of complexity that people just can’t wrap their heads around.”
Mooring and dock permits
The WMAC endorsed a change for William Marco Birch of 15 Little Ram Island Drive to relocate a mooring closer to his dock.
The five members present (Marc Wein was absent) voted unanimously to approve the new coordinates.
The board continued its review of Big Ram LLC’s request to build a new residential dock at the property next to The Ram’s Head Inn. LLCs controlled by Aandrea Carter own both properties. WMAC member James Eklund, the inn’s former owner, recused himself from the discussion and left the room.
Geraghty read into the record a letter received just before the meeting began from Pam Demarest. She lives next door to the two properties and has commented during the WMAC’s review over many sessions.
Geraghty said he was satisfied with the Building Department’s opinion that a proposed walkway connecting the dock to an existing stairway would not require a wetlands permit so long as the structure is considered part of the dock.
However, he said “a continuing issue” for the WMAC is the walkway placement, which intrudes into a 30-foot side yard setback.
WMAC member Matt Williamson disagreed with Demarest’s assertion that Big Ram LLC had failed to establish the location of mean high water. At the WMAC’s request, the applicant did a new survey that cleared up a discrepancy between the high water mark and mean high water mark. “That’s been resolved to my satisfaction,” he said.
Field agreed but found the intrusion into the side yard setback problematic.
Member Al Loreto reminded his colleagues that Needham had suggested voting on the application “as far as the dock goes up to the beach and then let the Town Board decide” what to do about the walkway.
Geraghty said he’d agree with that approach. Regarding the walkway, he said, “There are red flags all over this issue.”
Jack Costello of Costello Marine Contracting, Inc. said he’d understood the Building Department to declare the walkway required no additional permit.
“If you want to consider the walkway as part of the dock,” Geraghty said, “you would have a setback issue, and I wouldn’t vote to give it a variance.”
The four members agreed they’d support just the dock structure but leave it to the Town Board to decide on the walkway.
Carroll dock
At Needham’s request, the WMAC briefly revisited the application of Brian Carroll for a new dock at 58 Tuthill Drive, which it rejected in a divided vote. At its September meeting, Needham voted with Loreto in favor of the application. Eklund, Geraghty, and Williamson rejected it because a slight adjustment would’ve enabled the dock to meet setback requirements.
Subsequently, Town Board and WMAC members visited the site at Costello’s invitation. Needham said Monday he wanted the record to reflect that the inspection changed his mind. He said he saw that the 6-foot shift recommended by his colleagues was, in fact, possible.
Costello had argued that aligning the dock with an existing stairway was the best possible location despite the setback intrusion. But Needham said it became clear during the visit that an existing walkway at the base of the stairs could provide access with no setback intrusion.
He encouraged the council on future applications to remain resolute that docks keep within setbacks. To do otherwise would set a precedent.
“Stay within those guidelines,” he said. “It’s been sacred ground.”
Dock code subcommittee
Geraghty advised forming a subcommittee to review the dock code for possible revisions. He asked members for their initial thoughts on problematic areas.
Eklund said the guidelines for commercial docks with lengths up to 300 feet and widths up to 10 feet are “overkill.” And while the 100-foot limit on residential docks works in some areas, it may not be practical in places otherwise suitable for a dock.
And, as long debates in recent meetings have demonstrated, there are locations where no dock should be allowed.
Loreto agreed that more than 100 feet may be required in some areas. “Oftentimes, you need to get to 125 feet, and we’ve talked about codifying that for outside waters.”
However, he said that limiting docks in the future in areas where they already exist is problematic. If federal and state regulators would permit them and there are local precedents, “I think it’s a lot to be putting on us and on the Town to be saying, hey, you can’t have a dock there.”
But Williamson said he views the WMAC as essential in prioritizing the public interest in access to Town waters.
Regarding new or reconstructed docks: “Obviously, I’m not saying that none should be built,” he said. However, there should be a more explicit acknowledgment of the public’s interest in maintaining spaces not encumbered by docks. He also recommended that the Town consider instituting a fee for dock inspections, as is done in East Hampton.
Geraghty agreed; the code says owners must maintain their docks, but there needs to be a follow-up and a means to pay for it.
Field said he, too, would like to see the balance of riparian rights more clearly expressed in the code.
Into the sunset
Needham said he had two other issues to discuss before “I ride off into the sunset.”
First, when the Town wrote to state regulators protesting recent closures of shellfishing areas near mooring fields and anchorages due to a change in federal guidelines, it left out Coecles Harbor, he said.
So he wrote to protest the closing of this area, which is 300 feet from the dock at his Coecles Harbor Marina. “I don’t like it at all. To me, it implies that the water’s polluted there.”
The new regulations say the presence of boats of sizes likely to have toilet facilities is sufficient to close an area to shellfishing despite testing that shows the water quality is good.
Second, he wanted to remind the council that when the Town approved the Pandion subdivision, it allowed a dock at the community boathouse and private docks at two waterfront parcels.
The agreement was the private docks would not extend beyond 100 feet and would not be constructed in such a way as to interfere with the mooring field off the end of Burns Road. He advised the council to consult the original property records if an issue arises.
