THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280377
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: By MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Long : 122 lines
Property owners living at the mouth of the Perquimans River will ask the Coastal Resources Commission on Friday to overrule a state agency that allowed construction of a dock some neighbors claim is an eyesore.
Twenty-nine residents of Longbeach Estates on the southeastern shore of the Perquimans will reopen four years of dispute over the 177-foot wharf and platform built out over the river by Robert and Mary Casper of Virginia Beach.
The Caspers own a house on two abutting lots along the Longbeach shore.
Speaking for the 29 neighbors will be William C. Young, a Longbeach resident who will seek to have the existing dock torn down or shortened when he appears Friday before the CRC meeting at Sunset Beach.
Young, in a prepared statement for the CRC, blamed the Division of Coastal Management for the continuing controversy resulting from the Caspers' dock.
``From the very beginning, staff members of the Department of Coastal Management have gone out of their way to bend, twist and ignore the very rules and regulations set forth by the state legislature and the Coastal Resources Commission,'' Young contended.
The autonomous CRC, which determines waterfront construction policy, has authority over the Division of Coastal Management, which issued the dock-building permits to the Caspers. The DCM, in turn, functions under the Department of Natural Resources and Community Development and enforces water regulations established by the CRC.
T. Erie Haste Jr., a Hertford businessman, is vice chairman ofthe CRC and will be among the 15 members attending the Sunset Beach session. Other Albemarle members include Mollie Fearing of Manteo, Margaret A. Griffin of Columbia, John Spence and J. Tim Thornton of Elizabeth City, and T. Baxter Williams of Currituck.
``The CRC makes the rules and has the authority to overrule the Coastal Management Division,'' said Richard Watts, acting district manager of the CMD office in Elizabeth City.
But no matter how the CRC settles the dock dispute, the decision will have a bearing on future of waterfront home owners who want to build docks and boathouses over waters where they claim ``riparian'' rights.
The legal theory of riparian rights goes far back in common law and in various ways defines the area of water an owner may claim in front of shoreline property. Riparian rights are complicated by the concept of Public Trust Waters that may be used by the public for recreation.
In theory, riparian rights extend from an owner's property lines straight out over the water to a distance specified by regulation. Docks and other permitted structures may be built over water enclosed by the property lines out to the riparian limit.
But much of the property at Longbeach Estates is in a cove at the mouth of the river, and the land of some owners is pie-shaped, with the narrow end facing the water.
The Caspers' property lines converge when projected over the water, and their 177-foot dock, with an elevated 21-foot square platform at the end, appears to some viewers to be in front of residential property owned by Victor A. Tyler, a retired NASA scientist.
Tyler is one of the neighbors who has complained about the effect the long Casper dock has on what he said was once a serenely uncluttered view of the river.
On July 22, l994, the Coastal Management Division sent a letter to the Caspers, notifying them that a study by William R. Griffin, then the district manager of the DCM's Elizabeth City office, had found some violations.
``I request that you immediately cease and desist any further development'' of the dock, Griffin wrote the Caspers. The DCM told the Caspers that fines of up to $2,500 could be levied on violators of permit limitations, but there is no record of any penalties imposed.
Griffin's objections involved two pilings on the east side of the Casper pier and three pilings on the west side that were not covered by permits.
But Griffin found little fault with the dock itself, which was built under a series of permits issued by the DCM since 1991. The permits allowed the Caspers to build a dock 180 feet long and 6 feet wide with a 20-foot by 20-foot platform at the deepwater end.
``Our inspection found a 5-foot-by-177-foot-long pier and a 21-by-21-foot platform,'' Griffin said in his letter to the Caspers.
Richard N. Schecter, director of the Division of Coastal Management, told the protesting Longbeach Estates property owners on July 20, 1994, that the slightly larger platform built by the Caspers was ``within the size allowed by CRC rule.''
Thus, the Casper dock and platform were considered legal by Schecter, and only the separate mooring pilings had not been authorized.
``I fully understand your objections to the pier and platform,'' Schecter wrote the property owners. ``However, based on the existing regulations, there is nothing more that I can reasonably do . . . ''
Three property owners, Lucy R. Hanson and Stanley P. and Jean C. Szwed, took their dock complaints before an administrative law judge as early as 1991. Judge Thomas R. West of the Office of Administrative Hearings ruled against the DCM on four counts for issuing the Casper dock permits.
In a second administrative law hearing sought last June 13 by Young - this week's group spokesman - Judge Sammy Chess Jr. also held that the Division of Coastal Management ``failed to properly apply the rules'' when it granted some of the permits to the Caspers.
Chess also directed that the full Coastal Resources Commission, as the governing body with authority over the Coastal Management Division, make a final decision to resolve the dispute.
CRC vice chairman Haste said in Hertford on Wednesday that he expected the case to come before the full commission Friday morning at the Sunset Beach meeting. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Controversial dock was built by Virginia Beach couple
MASON PETERS
Staff
William C. Young, a Longbeach resident, looks out over the
Perquimans River and the dock he will seek to have torn down or
shortened when he appears Friday before the Coastal Resources
Commission at Sunset Beach.
by CNB