Six months after state coastal regulators rejected a North Kingstown country club’s attempt to seek retroactive permission for a seawall built along its property line, the dispute — and the wall — still stand.
But maybe not for much longer. A unanimous decision by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council Tuesday ultimately requires Quidnessett Country Club to remove the seawall bordering its northeastern property line within three months, and restore the shoreline to its original, pre-barrier state.
Robin Main, an attorney and partner at Hinckley Allen, representing the members-only country club, declined to comment in an email Wednesday.
The 600-foot-long seawall overlooking Narragansett Bay was erected in January 2023, though coastal regulators didn’t catch wind of the violation until more than half a year later. Quidnessett quickly found itself in hot water with state and federal regulators and environmental advocates, who decried what they alleged was brazen and knowing disregard for state coastline protections.
The waters along the shoreline are classified as a sensitive conservation area, with permanent structural barriers like a rock wall expressly prohibited under state coastal regulations. The CRMC issued a series of fines against Quidnessett in August 2023, followed by a separate notice of violation in May 2024 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Facing financial penalties, the country club owners originally sought to ease development restrictions by reclassifying the waters along its coastline. If granted, the request could have allowed a permanent barrier like a seawall. After a protracted review and series of contentious public hearings, the council rejected the water type reclassification in January.
Five plans submitted, all unacceptable
In the last 13 months, the country club has submitted five restoration plans, all of which coastal regulatory staff found “unacceptable,” according to a staff report by Brian Harrington, a senior environmental scientist for the agency.
The council’s decision does not prescribe details of the restoration plan, instead deferring to Harrington’s recommendation as detailed in a 145-page report rife with aerial photographs, drawings and letters recapping the 18-month saga. In addition to removing the rock wall, Harrington recommended replanting native vegetation and stabilizing the shoreline using natural materials, including a raised barrier of compacted soil or stone, referred to as a berm.
The location and slope of the “toe of berm” situated between the shoreline and the golf course has been the primary source of disagreement between coastal regulators and Quidnessett. The CRMC wants the toe of the berm situated closer to land, following plans approved in 2013 for similar natural barrier protections. But Quidnessett has pushed for a barrier closer to the shoreline in order to avoid infringing on the 14th hole of its signature golf course.
“The line is critical for the club,” Jennifer Cervenka, an attorney with Cervenka, Green & Ducharme LLC also representing Quidnessett, told regulators Tuesday. “Based on the line being advanced by the CRMC, the country club will have to cut into its golf course.”
Cervenka chaired the appointed panel of coastal regulators until she resigned in 2021. Now on behalf of her client, she submitted a petition last month for the case to be referred to the agency’s hearing officer. The five-page motion noted the country club had requested an administrative hearing several times already, and that the contested nature of the case required a hearing officer to adjudicate the issue, as laid out in state law.
Cervenka referenced a January order by a Rhode Island Superior Court judge, who tossed a separate, 2020 CRMC decision on a Jamestown boatyard expansion. The judge in that case had ruled the council failed to follow its own regulations in bypassing a subcommittee review; there was no hearing officer at the time to take the case.
But Quidnessett owners and attorneys have admitted they violated state coastal rules in building the seawall — meaning this case is not contested and it does not require a hearing officer’s review, said Jeffrey Willis, CRMC executive director.
“This is a straightforward fact of the matter,” Willis said of the violations. “It’s part of the record.”
Coastal regulators denied the motion for a hearing officer in a separate, unanimous vote Tuesday on the advice of Willis and its legal counsel Anthony DeSisto.
AG: No more bites of the apple
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office also backed Harrington’s recommendations, urging the council to “expeditiously order” the removal of the stone wall.
“The CRMC has been incredibly patient with QCC for nearly two years and has allowed them at least five bites at the apple,” Randelle Boots, special assistant attorney general, wrote in a June 6 letter. “It is time for the Council to definitively and decisively act. CRMC’s good faith efforts to work with the country club have not been reciprocated, and there must be swift restoration of the property and real consequences for any continued bad faith efforts and delays that seek to protect a private golf course at the expense of the public.”
The council refused to let two engineering experts hired by Quidnessett speak at Tuesday’s meeting, despite Cervenka’s insistence that their comments were crucial to determining the restoration plan.
The CRMC instead opted to leave specifics to its expert staff, including where the toe of berm should be placed and the level of vegetation replanting required. Quidnessett has 30 days to submit a new plan, and once accepted, another 90 days to complete restoration work.
Jed Thorp, advocacy director for Save the Bay, was hesitant to declare victory yet, noting the council’s decision lacked details on the restoration plan.
“Everybody walked out of that hearing a little bit confused,” Thorp said in an interview Wednesday. “I am still unclear how they are going to reach an agreement without being told what has to be in the plan.”
Also uncertain in Thorp’s view is whether the CRMC should have referred the dispute to a hearing officer. If Quidnessett successfully appeals on the grounds that the case demanded a hearing officer’s review, it will drag out a resolution even more, Thorp said.
“I am a little bit skeptical,” Thorp said. “I have seen this celebration before. I am reserving celebration till I see the wall come down.”
By Thorp’s count, Wednesday marks 653 days since the CRMC first issued a cease-and-desist order to Quidnessett ordering the removal of the rock wall.
CRMC member Kevin Flynn was absent from the meeting.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
