Supporters say club being ‘held
hostage’
By Marcia Pobzeznik
Daily News correspondent
Many of the several hundred people who
turned out for a public hearing Monday night
on a request by the Tiverton Yacht Club to
change zoning in the area of the clubhouse
property said that without the zoning
change, the yacht club one day would “cease
to exist.” The Town Council won’t make a
decision on the zoning change until at least
Monday, July 19, when the hearing is
scheduled to reconvene at the high school
with the opposing side, led by abutter and
attorney David Campbell, presenting its
case.
The yacht club on Riverside Drive is a legal
non-conforming use in a residential zone. It
needs a zoning change, many testified, so it
can operate free of restrictions imposed by
the Superior Court, which ruled that it
cannot expand beyond what existed prior to
zoning being enacted in the town in 1964. It
can’t, the court ruled, give swimming
lessons to nonmembers, as it did in years
past, and cannot operate a marina across the
street. The marina issue now is before the
Supreme Court on appeal.
The yacht club needs to install a new septic
system in order to qualify for a building
permit for a new clubhouse, but the septic
system would be considered an expansion,
which the court frowns upon. “The Tiverton
Yacht Club is being held hostage by its
septic system,” said its commodore Wayne
Karzenski, who implored the council to “save
a Tiverton institution” by approving the
change from residential to
waterfront-related zoning to allow yacht
clubs to exist by right. The new zone would
include the yacht club property and a dozen
others on Riverside Drive, from the railroad
tracks south to Main Road.
“Without further zoning relief, this club
will cease to exist,” vice commodore Greg
Jones said. “We all agree a yacht club is
good for Tiverton. Does the Town Council
want a yacht club in Tiverton or not?” If
the council does not approve the requested
change, Jones said it would be “a death
Sentence for the club.”
But Campbell told the council that the
requested change does not have the support
of those who own homes in the immediate
area.
“Everybody in the zone and across from the
zone is opposed and they want to speak,”
said Campbell, who will be allowed to begin
his case and call witnesses when the hearing
continues next month.
The proposed 1,320-squarefoot, single-story
clubhouse would be two-thirds smaller than
the three-story Victorian clubhouse that was
lost in a fire in June 2003, Karzenski said.
Yacht club attorney Kenneth Tremblay said
the court has deemed non-conforming uses a
“thorn in the side of proper zoning (that)
should not be perpetuated.”
The only other alternative is applying to
the town’s Zoning Board for a use variance,
Tremblay said, but that would require
proving that the club has been denied all
use of its property, which is not the case.
Jones said the court’s ruling on legal
non-conforming uses is the main issue.
“Our issues are really not with the
neighbors. Our issues are with the court.
What has changed over the years is the
concept of non-conforming,” Jones said.
The oldest member of the club, John Brady of
Portsmouth, said the yacht club has 474
individual members today, or about half of
the 946 it had in 1965 shortly after zoning
was enacted in the town.
“It was a wonderful family club and still
is,” Brady said. Over the past seven years
since the fire, “we’ve been kicked when we
were down,” he said, and current zoning is
to blame. “Re-zoning is the only way to
continue the club,” he said.
Several teenagers and many members with
families told the council that they’ve
benefited greatly from the swimming and
sailing programs at the club and the
camaraderie among the members.
“A cultural entity,” is how resident Pat
Sullivan, representing The Alliance to
Preserve Tiverton’s Quality, described the
club.
But Riverside Drive resident Charlie Smith
said the club’s request for a zoning change
“is spot zoning on a bigger spot. I’ve been
there for 65 years and I’d like some relief,
too,” he said of children who are always in
the road and parking problems stemming from
the club.
“It’s a generational decision,” member Dana
Allcock told the council of the zoning
request, which he said “would retain a way
of life” for so many families.