The only way the town is ever going to have any property at the point is this one. This is the only one left.”

Ben Gauthier, Little Compton Harbor Commission

It’s just a tiny piece of property — less than 4,000 square feet — but an unkempt lot and rundown shack at 5 Bluff Head Ave. could play a critical role in the town’s future at Sakonnet Point — if the town can get its hands on it.

Over the past several months, members of the harbor commission, agricultural conservancy trust and other town officials have been researching the possibility of buying the small waterfront property adjacent to the fishermen’s parking lot, though it’s not even on the market at the moment. Nothing is official yet, though meetings on the issue have ramped up over the past few weeks.

Those involved say the land, owned for years by the Bluff Head Corporation and appraised by the town at $161,200, has great strategic value to the town and could play a vital role in keeping the harbor clean, helping the harbor patrol and fire department respond quickly to emergencies, and protecting public access at the mostly developed point.

“The only way the town is ever going to have any property at the point is this one,” Ben Gauthier, the harbor commission’s chairman, said. “This is the only one left.”

Gauthier has been leading the effort to acquire the property for months. Though he stressed that the land isn’t even for sale, he has been talking with a representative of the Bluff Head Corporation and hopes to work out a deal that would allow the town to purchase it, perhaps with funds from the land trust or, perhaps, from taxpayers via a Town Meeting vote. There is much undecided and unformed, he said, but the thread of an idea is taut — “if we can do it, it would be a real benefit” to the town, he said.

What’s the need?

Gauthier first started thinking about the possibilities last year, while reviewing Little Compton’s Harbor Management Plan.

As part of that review, commission members learned that both the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) and state Department of Environmental Management (DEM) require towns to keep “spill kits” at their harbors in case of oil spills. Though Little Compton has a spill kit — booms, floats, lines, absorbent materials and the like — it is located on racks at fire department headquarters, miles from the harbor. For that reason, Little Compton is out of compliance with those state regulations.

“How you handle oil spills is incredibly important,” Gauthier said. “The way it’s (done) now, if we had a spill and it gets reported, he (fire chief Richard Petrin) has to muster a crew, go to the station, get the stuff, bring it down, deploy it — it adds a lot of time.”

But being able to store oil spill equipment, cold weather gear and other essentials at the harbor would shave off most of the response time delay currently built into the town’s system, he said.

As he, Petrin, Harbormaster Mike Massa and others talked about that issue, another harbor shortcoming came up: Emergency access.

Since the early 1990s, the harbor patrol has kept the town’s boat, currently a 25-foot center console, on a slip behind the Sakonnet Point Club. Though it’s a serviceable place, the slip does come with issues. First, it’s a tough in and out, and Massa or someone else usually has to call ahead and ask club officials to get the boat ready if there’s an emergency. Second, the club removes its floating docks every October and doesn’t put them back in until the following Spring, meaning the boat has to go onto a trailer at the fire department — creating another long response time for first responders during the fall, winter and spring months.

The Bluff Head land, though, could support a floating dock out of the congestion of the point club floats. As it’s much closer to the road, response time would be improved, Massa said.

“We’re a very small harbor,” Massa said. “Everything is a challenge. If it happened it would make a big difference in our lives and, hopefully, in the lives of boaters.”

Apart from all the changes that could be made, perhaps one of the biggest benefits, Gauthier said, would be what wouldn’t happen if the town purchased it. The lot currently has a septic easement on the town (fishermen’s) parking lot, which was previously approved by the DEM.

“Nobody wants a septic down there,” Gauthier said.

How to make it work?

Though he, Massa and others believe acquiring the land would be a great fit for the town, the issue of how to pay for it is another thing entirely.

The property is not currently listed for sale, and Gauthier said he’s aware of the skyrocketing value of property down at the point, where a private slip can bring $300,000 and where a few years ago a building on 1/11th of an acre brought $749,000. It’s now assessed at nearly $1.5 million.

Gauthier said the first thing to do is to continue to speak to and, hopefully, come to terms with the land’s ownership. After that, he said it’s possible the town could ask voters for approval to purchase it.

But he hopes at least a partial solution might come from the Little Compton Agricultural Conservancy Trust — “they certainly have a mission for public access and environmental protection,” he said.

Last Wednesday, trust members briefly discussed the issue for the first time, after a sale application was submitted to the board by the Bluff Head Corporation. Trust members are expected to move ahead with the application and will undertake a property assessment.

Following that meeting, Gauthier last Thursday submitted an update to the Little Compton Town Council, in which he wrote that the harbor commission will discuss the matter this coming Thursday, March 14. Members are looking to move ahead on three fronts:

• First, getting a price estimate from the owner;

• Second, developing “a preliminary picture of the End State of the property, including public parking, first responder parking, fire department equipment building, potential slip for rescue boat” and,

• Finally, developing a draft plan for the long term ownership and stewardship by the conservancy trust, fire department and harbormaster.