The years-long effort to build a waterfront park in Boothbay Harbor will drag on even longer after a court recently ruled that the town’s planning board must reconsider two key approvals it originally gave to the project.
As it’s currently planned, the contested Eastside Waterfront Park on Atlantic Avenue would feature a pavilion, a concrete splash pad for kids, grassy space and a working wharf for lobstermen, among other amenities.
However, after backers of the park first began pursuing it in 2019, they’ve gotten mired in permitting and legal disputes with the owners of a neighboring property, marking yet another lengthy and contentious struggle over a development project on Maine’s coast.
Bob McKay, a board member for the park, said he had hoped it would open within a year of the property being purchased. It has already undergone some construction, but now, the latest setback could push its completion date even further into the future.
On April 30, Lincoln County Superior Court Justice Daniel Billings ordered the town’s planning board to reconsider two approvals it had originally given to the park.
The first was a general approval of the park’s proposed site plan, which went through several revisions before it was finally upheld by the town’s appeals board late in 2021. But the neighbors of the project, Joe and Jill Doyle, then challenged the plan in court, claiming in part that town officials had failed to give them adequate notice before the planning board considered it.
In his recent ruling, Billings took the Doyles’ side. He said there was no evidence the town had sent the proper notice to them about the pending permit application, which should have included a mailed letter and public notices in the newspaper.
That failure, he said, deprived the Doyles of their right as abutters to weigh in on the early stages of a project that would affect them, given the proximity of the splash pad to their home and the limited amount of buffering to shield them from the noise of kids playing in it.
The second approval that Billings has remanded back to the planning board is a shoreland zoning permit, which also went through multiple revisions before the appeals board ultimately rejected it in spring of 2023. The board argued that more evidence was needed to support the approval of a parking area near the south side of the property, to ensure it was adequately setback from the water.
Though the park supporters challenged that claim in court, Billings has remanded the shoreland zoning permit back to the planning board to further review whether the parking area meets local setback requirements.
Although the rulings will force another round of permitting, John O’Connell, president of the Eastside Waterfront Park, said during an interview that he’s satisfied with and understands the remand orders. McKay chimed in, saying he just wishes the project would move on.
“[The Court] put a quick thumb on the town for not basically doing things or saying it correctly,” McKay said.
The Doyles and Boothbay Harbor’s town manager did not respond to requests for comment.
Some work has already happened on the park, including landscaping and the installation of pilings under the piers, safety features and parts of the splash pad. O’Connell said he doesn’t think those will be affected by the remand order.
The recent court ruling has given the planning board 30 days to come up with more evidence for its approval of the shoreland zoning permit. While O’Connell said he would have liked more time for that process, he’s also grateful that the court wants to keep it moving.
He noted that there are supporters of the park who are eager for the brick paving stones they’ve paid for to be installed on its paths.
“A lot of very generous donors, a lot of people put a lot of time in to have a park for working waterfront, public access, you name it, you name it, and they’re the people paying the price,” O’Connell said.
