These are ordinary folks getting shafted by the Navy.”

Ralph Sotak, Overlook Point resident

PORTSMOUTH — Ralph Sotak stood in a yard on Harbor View Road at Redwood Farms, a close-knit community off West Main Road in the south end of town, and extended an arm toward the home’s backyard deck.

“That’s Tom Waugh’s home, and that Navy fence would go right through the corner of his deck,” Mr. Sotak said as he showed a reporter around the neighborhood, located about a third of a mile south of his condo unit at Overlook Point.

“And he just had his deck redone,” Mr. Sotak added.

Many neighbors at both developments are up in arms over the U.S. Navy’s recent plans to build a fence directly on its property line surrounding land that was formerly used for fuel storage, but now targeted for a solar farm. In April the Navy entered into a 37-lease agreement with Solar Breakers LLC, a subsidiary of BQ Energy, to build and operate a 22-megawatt photovoltaic farm on the Tank Farm 4 property in Portsmouth and on the Tank Farm 5 property and former landfill at McAllister Point in Middletown. 

The solar array would be generating power by October 2019 under the current work schedule. While Navy officials said the project’s been in the works since 2014, Mr. Sotak said most residents didn’t learn of it until June.

The Navy has spent decades cleaning up contaminated soil on the property, which contained underground fuel tanks built in the 1940s and used until 1988. Fuel from the tanks were sent via underground pipelines to ships docked along the west shore.

Abutters to the property say they have no objections to the solar farm. “It’s all about the fence,” said Mr. Sotak, who has been serving as an unofficial spokesman advocate for both developments in their dealings with Navy officials.

To the average outsider, the Navy would appear well within its rights to erect a fence on its own property line. However, abutters say the new seven-foot chain-link barrier would be located 50 feet closer to surrounding homes than a previous Navy fence that had been removed due to lead paint contamination.

Mr. Sotak said the new fence would run as close as 20 feet from one condo unit's main entrance at Overlook Point, a 63-unit development built 17 years ago. 

At Redwood Farms, the situation’s even more intrusive and would directly impact about eight homes — with the proposed fence line even bisecting existing structures in some areas. It would also block access to the neighborhood’s popular “sled-riding hill” and a long path of grass that the Navy owns but which the neighborhood maintains for football, soccer and other youth activities, he said.

“These are ordinary folks getting shafted by the Navy,” Mr. Sotak said, adding that the “prison-style” fence — the Navy has since withdrawn plans to place barbed wire on top — will be an eyesore and lower property values.

“This condo is for sale,” Mr. Sotak said as he pointed to an Overlook Point unit only a few feet from the Navy’s proposed fence line. “You can imagine what that’s going to mean to (the resale value). If this unit has a depressed price, it depresses the prices of all 63.”

How’d we get here?

It’s a real mess, homeowners say, and begs the obvious question: How were the builders of these two developments allowed to put up homes and condo units so close to Navy property — in some cases, even on federal land?

It started back in the 1940s, Mr. Sotak said. That’s when the Navy built the original fence about 50 feet back from the property line on land it took for fuel storage. In subsequent years, everyone — the Navy included, he said — assumed the vacant strips of land between homes and the fence belonged to the neighbors.

As homes were bought and sold, that assumption grew, Mr. Sotak said, adding that both the Redwood and Overlook Point residents maintained some property that was actually owned by the Navy. The “error” wasn’t discovered, he and other residents said, until the Navy considered leasing the land for a solar farm. 

“I don’t think the federal government really realized it until they started to look at it,” Redwood Farms resident Amy Mullen told Navy representatives during a packed Naval Station Newport (NAVSTA) meeting on the solar farm project. The meeting, held Wednesday night at the Marriott Courtyard in Middletown, drew about 80 people, most of them abutters to the planned solar farm.

Ms. Mullen said she recently learned her own fence is partially on Navy property. “But it was there before I lived there,” she said.

Cynthia Andreola, who’s been a resident of Overlook Point for only a month, also expressed surprise the condo units were allowed to be built so close to the former tank farms. “There was no disclosure,” she said.

Cornelia Mueller, community planning liaison officer for Naval Station Newport, said she learned from the town that no residential construction had officially permitted on Navy land at either development.

She and another Navy representative said that’s the main reason for the fence’s proposed location — to prevent further encroachment for safety and liability reasons.

However, William West, a longtime resident of Redwood Road, said neighbors' use of Navy property has never posed a problem. “There’s never been a liability issue with the Navy. The Navy has never been told a child is going to sue you because they fell or whatever,” he said.

Navy representatives said the fence also needs to be pushed out in order to protect wetlands and threatened wildlife as specified by U.S. Fish and Wildlife — specifically the northern long-eared bat. (To that, one abutter quipped, “You’ve put more thought into bats than the neighbors.”)

Navy officials stood firm, however, pointing out that the land in question is federally owned.

“It is the federal government’s right to put the fence where they want to put it,” said Ms. Mueller. She added, however, that it’s still early in the process and the solar farm’s footprint could change during the planning process in the coming weeks.

Residents: stonewalled by Navy

As far as that process goes, several abutters say they have been frustrated in their attempts to communicate with Navy brass. Neighbors have even offered to pony up to keep the fence further away from their homes. 

“We have asked for relief. We’ve offered to lease or buy — whatever means to get the land — and basically the Navy has said that’s too complicated,” Mr. Sotak said.

Sen. James Seveney (District 11) pressed the Navy representatives about the process going forward, saying it’s important to maintain “public engagement” after the final plan for the solar farm is ready. He also said the Navy’s justification for the fence’s location — to prevent further encroachment — “doesn’t really wash.”

“So far, the only thing I’m hearing from you is, ‘The only reason we’re doing this is because we can,’” Sen. Seveney said.

Ms. Mueller assured everyone attending that she will collect abutters’ comments — notepads were provided to all Wednesday — and try her best to answer everyone’s questions, whether personally or by officials higher up in the chain of command.

“Everybody’s frustrated with this,” acknowledged Lisa Rama, NAVSTA public affairs officer, adding that the preliminary plan for the solar farm was released “abruptly” and that nothing is settled yet. 

“Please stand by. Once the (final) plan comes out, a lot more of this will be clearer.”