After seven versions of a shoreline restoration plan failed to pass muster with Rhode Island coastal regulators, Quidnessett Country Club is looking to the courts for relief.
The Sept. 8 complaint filed in Providence County Superior Court declares the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) violated Quidnessett’s constitutional property rights under the Fifth and 14th Amendments by imposing overly restrictive requirements for its shoreline.
“[Quidnessett] does not seek to increase the size of its property; it wants to preserve the land it has owned and used for decades,” Robin Main, an attorney representing the North Kingstown country club, wrote in the complaint. “Nevertheless, the regulatory requirements imposed by CRMC effectively preclude [Quidnessett] from protecting its land.”
Seeking to buffer its signature golf course against rising sea levels, the club built a 600-foot-long rock wall along the shoreline in the winter of 2023, despite coastal regulations that restrict development in environmentally sensitive areas. A cease and desist order against the club was issued in August 2023, followed by a series of written warnings from state regulators and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Resolution on the rock wall’s removal remains elusive, despite years of behind-the-scenes negotiations, countless email exchanges, public hearings and multiple missed deadlines.
The CRMC is set to discuss and consider additional action against the country club at its Tuesday night meeting, according to the agenda, which also includes a closed door session regarding Quidnessett’s lawsuit against the agency.
Main declined to comment when reached by email Monday.
Laura Dwyer, a spokesperson for the CRMC, also declined to comment.
Coastal watchdogs, including Save the Bay, have been calling for state regulators to sanction the 1,000-member country club for two years, accusing the politically appointed panel of “political favoritism” at the expense of public access and coastal protections.
In January, the CRMC denied an initial request by the country club to seek retroactive permission for the wall. The council’s unanimous vote seemingly ended the debate over the state’s classification of nearby waters and shifted focus to details of how Quidnessett ought to remove the wall and restore the shoreline.
That proved no less challenging, with seven plans submitted by Quidnessett — the most recent sent Sept. 5 — all rejected by coastal staff because they did not meet state coastal requirements.
“To date, a restoration plan acceptable to staff has not been submitted,” a CRMC staff report from Sept.16 states.
The staff report notes the most recent legal challenge — an initial lawsuit filed by Quidnessett in July centers on procedural concerns with the CRMC review process — as evidence that the country club never intended to comply with state mandated criteria for its shoreline restoration plan.
“Staff conclude that not only did the QCC deliberately, willfully, and knowingly violate CRMC regulations by installing an unauthorized revetment of dumped stone over 600 feet in length, but also does not intend to comply with the Council’s Order to Restore,” the staff report states. “Staff recommend that the Council direct CRMC Legal Counsel to pursue all appropriate enforcement actions to enforce the Order to Restore.”
Much ado about water types
The new lawsuit reprises Quidnessett’s original argument to the CRMC, in which it contended that the existing “Type 1” water classification — denoting environmental conservation areas — was incorrect because there was already residential and commercial development when the Type 1 label was attached to the area in the late 1970s.
Permanent structures are prohibited along all Type 1 shorelines. However, a reclassification to the less-stringent Type 2 waters, as Quidnessett first sought, could potentially allow for permanent structural barriers like a rock wall, or geotextile sandbags.
CRMC staff have maintained that a natural barrier, with a gentle slope and native vegetation, is the only suitable buffer to separate the golf course from Narragansett Bay. But with coastal erosion already consuming valuable shoreline space, the CRMC requirements would also force Quidnessett to cut into the adjacent 14th hole of its golf course, according to the lawsuit.
The alternative?
“If left unchecked, the erosion will collapse the Course’s 14th hole into the sea and continue to take large portions of the Course,” the petition states. “QCC cannot move the 14th hole of the Course. There is no extra land to relocate the hole, and the loss of the 14th hole would destroy the Course.”
The petition asks a judge to declare the CRMC’s water type designation unconstitutional under the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which protects against the “taking” of private property and ensures a right to due process. The same legal arguments featured heavily in local private property owners’ challenges to the 2023 state shoreline access law.
“It’s not uncommon for private property owners to assert these kinds of property rights claims in the face of state regulatory regimes,” said Sean Lyness, an assistant professor for the University of Massachusetts School of Law. Lyness previously worked as a special assistant attorney general in Rhode Island.
But much like failed lawsuits in other states, Lyness didn’t think Quidnessett’s legal claims would hold water.
“The Takings Clause has expressly carved out background principles,” Lyness said. “Private property owners are allowed to do a lot with their private property, but they’re not allowed to do anything they want.”
Jed Thorp, advocacy director for Save the Bay, called Quidnessett’s lawsuit “kind of ridiculous.” Thorp pointed out that the country club never administratively appealed the CRMC decision rejecting a change to water type designation administratively before turning to the courts.
“I still don’t know what the heck is going to happen tomorrow night,” Thorp said of the CRMC meeting. “What I hope happens is the council gives a very clear order ordering the wall to come down and the site to be restored. What I hope doesn’t happen is that the whole thing is put on hold while this lawsuit plays out.”
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
