Defining Rocky Point boundary raises issues of public access, private property
Ever since Rocky Point Park was reopened to the public, John Blackmar says people have been walking the beach and entering his yard, even spreading out blankets and deciding it’s a great place to spend the afternoon and have a few beers.
On good days, he said, he’s telling three to four people to get off his property every 15 minutes. Some say they didn’t know it was private property and leave. Others ignore him and continue to let their kids climb over the remains of the kids’ playhouse, later named the Tea House, which was part of the Aldrich estate. Still worse are those Blackmar rarely sees who leave behind trash and graffiti or pull out stones from the walls of the Tea House.
Mary Preziosi, who lives on Warwick Neck too, has been walking along the Rocky Point beach for years. She makes a circle using the right of way on Aldrich Avenue to access the beach and then returns via the park road. Last week, she was surprised to find rocks had been extended out into the bay from the edge of the seawall in front of what was the park saltwater pool.
It was clear to her this had been done by the city to discourage people from walking beyond the park. She wondered who had the ear of the city administration to do such a thing.
Preziosi wasn’t alone. Others contacted the mayor’s office and Coastal Resources Management Council. In addition to the rocks, the city posted a sign that indicated where the park ends and another at the edge of Blackmar’s property, warning that to proceed would be trespassing.
Neither the signs nor the rocks were a happenstance response to Blackmar or the complaints of neighbors, says Ward 5 Councilman Ed Ladouceur.
In an interview Tuesday, Ladouceur said the trespassing, vandalism disposal of trash and graffiti “has been going on for a long time and nobody is doing anything about it, and that’s not acceptable.”
Ladouceur called for a meeting with representatives from the police, public works and planning departments. Also invited to attend was the Department of Environmental Management that shares with the city ownership of Rocky Point. The group, along with Blackmar, visited the beach in early November, discovering four young people walking from the Tea House site. They claimed they were only talking photos and were unaware they had been on private property.
Ladouceur said the consensus was that signs were needed. The decision was also made to clearly define the end of the park property using concrete and stones from a partially collapsed wall.
Department of Public Works Director Richard Crenca didn’t imagine there would be a problem since the city was partially restoring something that had previously existed.
No sooner was the rubble in place than Crenca started getting calls. He called CRMC and was told there wouldn’t be a problem as long as he put everything back. The signs were taken down immediately. Crenca said the rocks would be removed by the end of the week.
“We did it,” he said of the stone barriers, “we’ll take care of it.”
That should conform with state law, which guarantees public access seaward from the mean high water line. Complicating the issue, explains city planner William DePasquale, is that a portion of the beach south from the park is owned by a neighborhood association and, in the case of the Tea House, the land drops off so that there’s no defined beach. But for DePasquale there’s no argument that the public has access to the mean high water level.
Ladouceur doesn’t know where this leaves efforts to stop trespassing and the vandalism.
Blackmar, who says the problem is getting worse, doesn’t want to mar his property with a fence. He’s tried no trespassing signs, which he replaces every several months. He thinks signage that people are leaving Rocky Point Park would help and maybe a fence on park property as there is on the north end of the park. Meanwhile, he’s bewildered that, after so much planning and meetings, all the effort to address the problem could be so quickly dismantled.
