BELFAST, Maine — Residents and town officials wrangled this week — at times heatedly — over who has a right to ocean access, an age-old question in Maine.
The public access point debated during Tuesday night’s Belfast City Council meeting was a precipitously steep trail off Highview Terrace on the east side of Belfast, where the city owns a 50-foot right-of-way that has been controversial in recent months. At the meeting, some neighborhood residents spoke strongly in favor of the city building a set of steps down the steep path to get to the shore off Highview Terrace — but not all agreed.
“I question the necessity of opening up this range way,” Jim Wentworth, a longtime resident of the quiet neighborhood, said. “If you put these stairs in, it’s going to become more attractive. It’ll bring more cars in, and where are you going to park them?”
LeAnne Ferland, who recently purchased a waterfront home on the road, and whose property abuts the city-owned right-of-way to the water, seemed to agree.
“Right now I’m requesting that you temporarily close it. It’s dangerous right now,” she said of the rudimentary path that plunges down to the shore. “And it’s not like the city doesn’t have access to the ocean. You’ve got a wonderful city park that’s quite nice. It’s not like people can’t get to the ocean.”
But some neighbors said that way of thinking does not seem fair to them.
“We’ve been denied access. We want access,” Highview Terrace resident Mike Chamberlain said during the meeting, adding that having reliable access to the water is good for his property valuation. “I think all [the neighbors] want access. And we want to be respectful of people’s properties.”
Belfast owns or controls multiple access points to the water, some of which are range ways, or property owned by the city, and others that are right of ways over privately owned property. Many of the public access points to water date back to the 18th century, but councilors said Tuesday night that some of the range ways and right of ways had begun to be lost to time and encroaching neighbors until about 20 years ago. That’s when councilors began the hard work of clawing those access points back.
“It was really quite a struggle to come back and take them back,” Councilor Mike Hurley said, adding that the access points usually end up being “hyper-local,” and used most by neighbors who don’t own their own waterfront land.
The question of public access to private shorefront property has been debated over the years in Maine, with a recent series of court battles pitting private property owners against public recreational users. Last month, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court reversed a decision that had allowed public access to a Harpswell Beach, and other cases have erupted in municipalities including Gouldsboro, Kennebunkport and Owls Head. Although the Highview Terrace situation is not quite the same, because in this case the city owns a right of way, some of the same questions pertain, according to some in the neighborhood.
The landowners less in favor of rehabilitating this particular access point spoke at the council meeting about the danger of the steep cliff down to the ocean and of the possibility of insurance liability. The right of way currently is marked with a jaunty sign that indicates it is a public access point, but the words “shore access” have been taped over by city staff because the trail is so precipitous and even dangerous. But Mayor Walter Ash said he did not like hearing about the crossed-out words on the sign.
“There are lands throughout the state that don’t get closed because there’s a cliff there,” he said. “There’s mountaintops all over the state, and we don’t put tape over the signs at the top.”
According to Belfast Parks and Recreation Director Norm Poirier, people used to have a different, safer way to get to the ocean from Highview Terrace. Prior to 2015, a person who wanted to get down to the rocky beach but didn’t own their own waterfront land could have used a makeshift trail that zig-zagged across private property in order to get to the public way. But Poirier wrote in an Aug. 11 memo to councilors that the landowner evidently had changed his mind last summer about allowing access across his land.
“I started to receive complaints from people who were trying to access the public way and were being approached and questioned by [the landowner] to the point they did not feel welcomed,” Poirier wrote.
So the parks and recreation director decided that it would be better to consider a “straight-on” approach to access, keeping the path entirely on city property. Earlier this summer, resident Richard Robinson took it upon himself to fix the problem. Robinson, a finish carpenter and tiler, has lived on the road for 15 years and last year built a small house behind his property with the intention of renting it out to help supplement his retirement income. He wanted to advertise the rental as having access to the waterfront, but the situation with the abutting neighbors made that difficult.
“I’ve had enough,” he said. “I pay $3,800 a year for taxes. Why do I have to load up and go down to City Park when we live right here? We have the right for access to the ocean. It doesn’t matter who’s rich and who’s poor. The bottom line is these accesses were put here in 1768 to keep people from controlling the waterfront.”
And so he told Poirier he would like to donate his labor to build the sets of stairs for the right of way, and began to build them in his driveway. A few weeks ago, he said that his actions drew the attention of some other Highview Terrace residents and he got a call from Poirier to stop work for the time being.
On Wednesday, City Councilor Mary Mortier said that the issue is a very local one, but it also has wider repercussions. It’s one thing for the city to have identified and marked the public access points to the water, she said, but the work can’t stop there. City officials recently have identified the fact that there needs to be a management plan around the range ways and right of ways too, she said.
“This [Highview Terrace] situation has come about because of neighbors pushing to get something done sooner rather than later, and not necessarily following procedures and policies,” she said. “Neighborhood dynamics is a term that fits the situation.”
Mortier said she heard from many of the Highview Terrace residents who did not agree with Robinson’s actions. Ultimately, the council this week directed city staff to temporarily put a safety sign on the Highview Terrace right of way. The decision about the stairs was tabled until the next regular council meeting. But councilors indicated they support making the public path safe and accessible.
“The council for many years has been relentless in defending range ways and public access,” Hurley said. “I just don’t want to close anything.”