PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s coastal regulatory agency has been inundated with more than 400 pages of public comment opposing and supporting a North Kingstown country club’s petition to change the rules after it erected a seawall along Narragansett Bay conservation waters without permission.
The Quidnessett Country Club petition asks the Coastal Resources Management Council to change the classification of those waters from Type 1 “conservation areas” to Type 2 “low-intensity use,” arguing that the uses of the waters where the wall was built have changed.
The public will be given a chance to comment during a CRMC Planning and Procedures Subcommittee meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. July 23 in Conference Room A at the Department of Administration, 1 Capitol Hill, Providence. The meeting had previously been scheduled for July 9.
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The council has already received 426 pages of comments and documents, including more than 200 form letters supporting the country club’s petition.
“I understand that, if approved, this change will provide alternatives for better protection of the club’s regulation 18-hole golf course along the shoreline,” the letter states. “Due to aggressive coastal erosion along its signature 14th hole, the club is threatened with irreversible damage to both its course and business. An 18-hole golf course is necessary to the club’s operations, its ability to retain and attract new members, and its continued hosting of professional tournaments.”
But Attorney General Peter F. Neronha teed off on the country club’s request.
“Through this petition, the (Quidnessett Country Club) seeks to retroactively change laws that they have already brazenly violated by building an illegal seawall,” Neronha wrote. “The CRMC should reject (the club’s) efforts to circumvent the law and avoid an enforcement action. Ruling otherwise would only serve to reward the (club) for illegally constructing first and asking for permission later, and would incentivize other shoreline property owners to do the same.”
Neronha said the club erected the wall after they applied for and were effectively denied approval for a smaller wall. And he noted that the US Army Corps of Engineers has issued a notice of violation to the club over the seawall.
Neronha said that even if the council changed the water classification, the seawall would likely be prohibited under the Type 2 water classification. He noted that “shoreline protection facilities” are allowed in Type 2 waters only if “it can be demonstrated that there will be no significant adverse impact to coastal resources, water dependent uses, or public’s use and enjoyment of the shoreline and tidal waters of the state.”
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Topher Hamblett, executive director of Save the Bay, also submitted a letter blasting the proposal. “Allowing the wall to remain in place while entertaining a change to the water type to accommodate a violation makes a mockery of the legal system, undermines and violates the entire coastal program, encourages others to violate the law, and creates a dangerous precedent,” he wrote.
Hamblett maintained that there have been no substantial changes to the land near this part of the bay since those waters were classified as Type 1. And he said the damage caused by the seawall is even worse than it would have been had the club been allowed to erect the wall it proposed in 2012.
“Portions of the wall are located below mean high water and have not only eliminated habitat, bluff, and beach but have also converted public land to private use,” Hamlett wrote. “Based on aerial imagery analysis, the club also removed or destroyed approximately 10,014 square feet of coastal vegetation.”
If the council changes the water type, he said, other coastal property owners are bound to pursue similar seawall projects.
Indeed, the Bayview Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center at Scalabrini wrote in support of the petition, saying a change in water classification “would provide options to Bayview, if needed in the future, to protect its institutional structures and the vulnerable population/overall community it serves.”
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Maria Masse, executive director of the North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce, wrote in support of the petition, saying the club serves as a tourist destination and hosts fundraisers and school proms.
“The club is threatened by the current water type coding because it would threaten its status as an 18-hole golf course and as a venue for a multitude of community events,” Masse wrote. “Please know that inaction would do great harm to the general operations of the business. Please ensure that this local treasure can operate as a fully functioning golf club in our community.”
Stephen Lombardi, executive director of the East Greenwich Chamber of Commerce, also wrote in support of the petition. He recalled that as a boy he saw Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead at the golf course, and he said, “I know it would be devastating for Quidnessett to lose holes.”
But Michael Woods, chair of the New England Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, wrote in opposition to the petition.
“If allowed to persist, the hardening of the shoreline will hasten erosion in both the immediate area and adjacent to it and will result in the loss of all access that remains,” Woods wrote. “At that point, the public will be completely deprived of the ability to use the area, and of the rights that are enumerated in Rhode Island’s Constitution.”
He cited a section of the state Constitution protecting “the rights of fishery and the privileges of the shore,” including “fishing from the shore, the gathering of seaweed, leaving the shore to swim in the sea, and passage along the shore.”
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Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.