A months-long impasse between the town and Noquochoke Association will force the redesign of a town plan to rehabilitate and upgrade Hix Bridge Landing.

The landing’s exit has been closed since the summer, after Noquochoke Association officials put orange snow fencing across a portion of the ramp that crosses their land adjacent to the Masonic lodge just east of the landing.

After the closure, town officials hoping to get the exit back open attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement that would have given the town permission to continue crossing lodge land, while indemnifying the Noquochoke Association, which put the fencing up due to liability concerns.

But it now appears unlikely that that permission will be granted, and that will have ramifications on the pre-existing improvement project.

“The Noquochoke Hall Association does not want to give the town an easement, so (the exit) has been permanently closed,” town planner Michael Burris told the planning board Tuesday evening. “The design has to be reworked.”

What’s the plan?

The plan Burris refers to is a project developed by the Westport Landing Commission, in the works for several years, to upgrade the landing and boat ramp at a cost of approximately $800,000. It would be paid for with federal and state grants, and other non-municipal funding sources.

Commission members released a conceptual drawing of what the re-designed landing would look like just prior to a town meeting held on the project this past March.

Under the plan the landing, which would be paved and striped, would have room for 26 trailer parking spots, five regular spots and two handicap-accessible spots.

There would be several stormwater management areas to catch runoff before it runs to the East Branch, coastal restoration along the shore, a new gangway, two docks and new floats.

But since a portion of the project area covers the land now shut out to the town, Burris said Tuesday that landing commission members will have to rework their project, particularly with respect to the current entrance, “to make it safer for people entering and exiting.”

Burris said he will meet with landing commission members in the coming weeks to go over the next steps.

“The idea behind it is to be able to provide additional capacity for people to access the ramp."

And while it would be paved, he said, that would be a benefit as it would be “easier to manage spills — you can control pollutants better with pavement than with gravel.”

Several planning board members appeared wary of portions of the proposed rework this week. Mark Schmid said Westport needs to be careful “about how much traffic this supports.”

“I go down there all the time,” board member John Bullard, a volunteer water tester for the Westport River Watershed Alliance, said. “I’ve never seen it overfull. I look at this (plan) and say, ‘What a shame.’ It’s really going to be a different place unfortunately.”

Regardless of how the project is reworked, the landing would be accessible to Dartmouth and Westport residents with a sticker.