Portsmouth grapples with local rights-of-way

New town panel to make recommendations regarding illegal activity

By Jim McGaw
Posted 9/20/18

PORTSMOUTH — Pheasant Drive Beach offers spectacular panoramic views of Narragansett Bay, the Mt. Hope Bridge and Hog Island Shoal Light, and is a popular spot for both locals and …

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Portsmouth grapples with local rights-of-way

New town panel to make recommendations regarding illegal activity

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — Pheasant Drive Beach offers spectacular panoramic views of Narragansett Bay, the Mt. Hope Bridge and Hog Island Shoal Light, and is a popular spot for both locals and out-of-towners who come for picnics or to cast fishing lines from its rocky shoreline.

It’s also a magnet for litterbugs, even with the garbage can in the parking area. On one recent evening, trash overflowed from the top of the green can, with the remaining refuse stacked around its base.

The path to Pheasant Drive Beach is a right-of-way (ROW), giving visitors a legal access point to the shoreline’s mean high water mark. But while visitors’ presence at that beach and other local shorelines may be legal, some of their behavior surely is not. In addition to littering, the list of offenses includes drinking, illegal parking, noise and more. 

The town is now exploring just what — if anything — can be done about the problem, which appears to have worsened over the years.

“In the past, it wasn’t easy to drive down from Fall River,” said Tom Grieb of the town’s Harbor Commission, which keeps an inventory of local ROWs. “That would have been a day trip. It was mainly neighborhoods. Now, it’s a free-for-all and many people who are using it are abusing it, and that’s the problem.”

A volunteer ad-hoc working group, of which Mr. Grieb is a member, was recently formed to discuss and review shoreline ROWs and ultimately make recommendations to the Town Council. The panel, which will hold its first meeting at Town Hall at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 20, will study issues such as laws pertaining to ROWs, problem areas in town, local responsibility, maintenance, safety, trash, parking and noise. 

According to Town Administrator Richard Rainer, Jr., the town decided to do something after hearing from the Newport Beach Club, which maintains the Pheasant Drive Beach right-of-way.  

“They were talking to the council members about people driving in their neighborhoods, noise, people coming in and leaving trash behind — all that,” said Mr. Rainer, noting that council member Elizabeth Pedro had put the matter on a recent meeting agenda for discussion.

The group consists of 17 people, not including town staff. He’s also invited some town department heads, including Police Chief Thomas Lee, as well as representatives from the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), to attend the first meeting.

“We’ll discuss some big-picture issues including what the laws are in Rhode Island — rights-of-way 101,” said Mr. Rainer. One question he said the group hopes to address is, “How do we mitigate the effects of having a right-of-way in a neighborhood?”

What he wants to avoid, however, is the new panel serving as a complaint department. “I don’t want this to devolve into a McCorrie Beach issue where I’ve got a whole room full of people yelling about music and diapers,” Mr. Rainer said.

The manager said he’s being cautious in proceeding because the Harbor Commission, chaired by Mr. Grieb, has already been conducting its own review of the town’s ROWs. “I don’t want to step on the toes of the Harbor Commission, or duplicate any of their efforts,” he said.

“We do inspect, once a year, all of the rights-of-way in town. I think it’s 89,” Mr. Grieb said. By way of example, one such town ROW is at the end of Corys Lane. “The town owns that right-of-way right into the water,” he said.

These aren’t to be confused with the 17 state ROWs identified by the state Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). 

“The CRMC ones are registered and approved by CRMC. They’re basically state rights-of-way. If you go to Island Park, you can see a whole bunch of them with a CRMC sign,” Mr. Grieb said. “They are probably the ones that have been vetted the most — they’re staked out and everything else. The town ones may or may not be staked out and that’s when we usually have a problem.” 

Jurisdiction questions

The new panel will not be addressing the issue of whether a ROW is legal or not, he said, but rather the behavior that goes on there. 

“The rights-of-way, even the town ones, are at least 85 percent sure. And by that I mean we know it’s a right-of-way. The problem is the abuse by people — the drinking, the fires,” he said, citing McCorrie Beach as one example.

What can be done about that, however, is anyone’s guess. 

“We do get some complaints, but they should really go to the police,” said Mr. Grieb. “The fires, the drinking, the loud noise, the leaving of trash … all of that is really an enforcement issue. We try to educate people about that, but we’re sort of limited to the town. The people coming in and doing this are primarily not from town.” 

Further complicating matters is the fact that many of the ROWs, including the one at Pheasant Drive, are not on town property. “We get calls about that, and it’s not ours,” Mr. Rainer said about the aforementioned overflowing trash can. “They don’t want these cars coming into their neighborhood, but it’s not town property.”

Added Mr. Grieb, “The public can use it, but it’s owned by the Newport Beach Club. We have absolutely no authority over it other than to say it’s got to be open and available for people to go in.”

The town also gets the occasional call about the ROW that begins at a cul-de-sac at the northern tip of Common Fence Point. “People will park there, and you’re literally walking past somebody’s yard to get to the shore. That one goes right against somebody’s house. But that’s state property,” Mr. Rainer said.

One of the messiest ROWs is located underneath the Sakonnet River Bridge. Neighbors in the area have complained repeatedly about out-of-towners going through their property to fish at the end of the former railroad tracks and littering the area. That’s also a state ROW.

“We get complaints down there but that’s RIDOT (R.I. Department of Transportation) and RITBA (R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority) property, and we’re constantly in communication with them,” said Mr. Rainer. “We’re stretched thin.”

“And this is where it gets complicated,” added Mr. Grieb. “Stone Bridge is a DEM (R.I. Department of Environmental Management) right-of-way. Right next to it — Teddy’s Beach — is a RIDOT right-of-way. Who’s in charge? All we try to do is stay on top of it and let the right people know. That’s what the Harbor Commission’s been doing. And I can tell you it’s a big problem, because when they get chased out of one spot, they go to another. And, with 89 rights-of-way in town, it’s easy to find another one.”

While they don’t expect to change behavior overnight, Mr. Rainer and Mr. Grieb hope the ad hoc group will at least start a discussion about the issues surrounding ROWs. 

“I think we can explore the problem,” Mr. Grieb said. “We can tell people, but we can’t enforce. I think the answer is education — to get people to understand that this spot is not going to be cleaned up for you all the time.”

rights-of-way, CRMC, Portsmouth Town Council, Portsmouth Harbor Commission

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.