The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Council will have to take another look at a proposed expansion and dredging project by the Safe Harbor Jamestown Boatyard. (Janine L. Weisman/Rhode Island Current)
The troubled Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council has again been caught flouting its own rules — this time, related to a 2020 decision authorizing the expansion of a Jamestown marina.
Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Lanphear in a Jan. 22 order tossed the council’s decision, ordering coastal regulators to take a fresh look at a proposed expansion and dredging project by the Safe Harbor Jamestown Boatyard.
Lanphear ruled that the council failed to follow its own procedural rules, which require contested cases be referred to a smaller subcommittee of the full council so that opponents have the opportunity to present evidence and cross-examine the applicants.
It’s the latest example of the council being forced to revisit a prior decision after a state court ruled it ran afoul of its own rules.
Among the most high-profile incidents previously: the proposed expansion of Champlin’s Marina on Block Island, which the council approved in 2020 following a series of closed-door negotiations between attorneys for the marina and the agency. The Rhode Island Supreme Court struck down the decision in 2022, siding with a state Superior Court judge who declared the council failed to meet requirements around public input and transparency in its decision making.
Also in 2022, a Providence County Superior Court judge tossed a four-year-old council decision rejecting a proposed oyster farm in Barrington on the grounds that the council failed to allow the applicant to cross-examine project opponents. Forced to revisit the application anew in 2023, the council approved the oyster farm proposed in upper Narragansett Bay.
Lanphear’s order forces the council to reconsider the Jamestown Boatyard’s application, including the arguments against it.
Now owned by Dallas corporation called Safe Harbor, the Dumpling Drive marina initially wanted to add three piers and dredge the cove seafloor of its marina, according to the 2019 application. The 120-year-old boatyard employs more than 20 full and part-time workers, Andy Dickinson, a manager, said. Dickinson was unaware of the court order when contacted by phone Tuesday.
Amid objections from The Dumplings Association, a nonprofit neighborhood association that owns a small pier, parking lot and beach next to the marina, the boatyard owners agreed to scale down the project through a series of amendments to its application.
While the CRMC staff recommended the council approve the revised application, neighbors still weren’t happy, worried about the environmental impacts of dredging and insisting the commercial expansion conflicted with existing coastal restrictions on the “rural residential and uniquely scenic coastline,” according to court filings. The neighborhood association is a membership-only group representing 125 property owners along the cove, according to news reports.
Despite the neighbors’ strong objections, the CRMC approved the application in a 4-2 vote in December 2020, preventing attorneys hired to represent the neighborhood association from cross-examining the applicants during a virtual public hearing.
In January 2021, The Dumplings Association sued the CRMC and the boatyard on the grounds that it violated its own procedural rules, characterizing its decision as “arbitrary, capricious and characterized by abuse of discretion.”
Four years and a flurry of court filings back and forth later, Lanphear sided with the neighborhood association — sort of. The court order does not affirm or even wade into the substance of the neighborhood group’s arguments, instead rejecting the CRMC decision based on a point raised by attorneys for Safe Harbor Marinas: that the council never held a subcommittee meeting before voting on the application, which its own rules require for contested project proposals.
Joshua Parks, an attorney with Adler Pollock & Sheehan representing the boatyard, declined to comment when reached by phone Tuesday.
Attorneys for The Dumplings Association did not immediately respond to inquiries for comment on Lanphear’s decision Tuesday.
More ammo for CRMC skeptics
However, Save the Bay, a vocal critic of the CRMC, praised the ruling as a “another check on the politically-appointed CRMC Council’s unacceptable abuse of discretion and disregard for proper procedure and fairness.”
“The Council’s lack of accountability in how it arbitrarily enforces its own rules erodes the public’s trust in CRMC, hampering the agency’s ability to effectively protect our coastal resources, Topher Hamblett, Save The Bay’s executive director, said in a statement Tuesday. “Additionally, repeated judicial reversals or remands of flawed Council decisions cost the state time and money, creating a lack of confidence in CRMC.”
Hamblett also used the ruling to bring renewed attention to the advocacy group’s push to abolish the politically appointed council, reshaping the agency as an administrative department akin to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. Legislation to this effect has been introduced but failed to advance out of committee in recent years, despite increasing scrutiny of the council for its decisions as well as ongoing deliberations, such as the Quidnessett Country Club’s illegal seawall.
“It’s time for the General Assembly to reform our coastal agency by passing legislation to remove the Council and provide for a full-time staff attorney that will ensure the agency abides by the rules,” Hamblett said.
Laura Dwyer, a CRMC spokesperson, said in an email Tuesday that the agency is “disappointed” by the judge’s decision but is considering an appeal.
The council is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday. The agenda includes a closed-door discussion of the court case.
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