Planning board sends Yacht Club petition back to drawing board

A proposal to add two large docks with room for 40 boat slips at the Marco Island Yacht Club and the adjoining marina were tabled for discussion today by the city’s Planning Board.

The ultimate vote by the board reflected a willingness to consider a plan reduced in size, but only after the club answers concerns relating to the proposal’s safety and necessity for the island.

“The people here are not against you,” Chairman James Riviere said on behalf of his fellow boardmembers. But, he said, the board would like to see a plan for docking facilities that do not protrude as far into the waterway as the current plans.

The permit requested an extension of the current allowance of 20 feet to provide for one 402-foot dock and another 333-foot dock.

According to proposals, the longer of the two docks would sit right next to the Chestnut waterway, which runs alongside the Marco Island Marina. While the marina already has boat slips on the interior of the sea wall, accessible by way of the Chestnut waterway, the additional slips would broaden those holdings and substantially increase the slips held by the yacht club.

The yacht club currently owns just eight boat slips inside the marina, said Yacht Club board Vice Chair Rudi Landwaard. He told the board that the new facilities would allow the club to lease slips to boat owners.

Helen Athan, the attorney for the yacht club and the marina, said the slips would be available for lease to members of the club as well as the general public.

“I think the intent here is that the slips will be leased to anybody, including members of the public,” she said. “There’s a restriction on how many slips can be sold to certain members.”

The board voted 5-0 to bring the item up for discussion again Sept. 7, two meetings from today. Boardmembers Marv Needles and Brian Moss were absent from the meeting, and neither submitted comments for the record. However, Community Development Director Steve Olmsted said he spoke by phone with the out of town Moss, who expressed some concerns about the impact of the project.

The largest issued raised by the present members revolved around the visual impediment the project would present, as well as the safety concerns associated with a structure sure to modify the flow of boat traffic in the area.

“I don’t feel that this is going to make Marco Island more appealing as you come over the bridge,” boardmember Vincent Magee said, adding, “I think you’re intruding into the middle of the waterway, and there’s the safety issue of having these big boats come into the waterway.”

The plan would include space for three 100-foot yachts, to be located on the exterior of the dock that juts at the entrance of the Chestnut waterway.

Boardmembers expressed concern that those boats would hinder the traffic flow into and out of the canal. Moreover, the board seemed to chafe at the fact that that dock sits closer to the waterway than the marina’s current docks.

The board suggested a revision that would move that dock over so it is flush with existing dock structures.

Tony Balsamo, owner of Black Pearl Yacht Sales on the island, recommended to the board moving the plans forward for City Council’s approval because of the boon it would add to the island’s reputation as a boating island. He said new slips would allow transient boaters a place to stop off on their way to the Keys. He also pointed out how much additional revenue boaters could bring to the island when they dock.

“I listen to the radio a lot and there are people trying to get in and get slips on Marco and a lot of times they’re turned away,” he said.

The board considered city staff recommendations that the project be scaled back after taking public comment, eventually voting to hear the petition once the recommended changes were made.

The petition was put off past the Aug. 24 meeting in order to give the yacht club, the marina and the engineering firm, Turrell, Hall & Associates, enough time to redraw the petition.