DEP rules in favor of GHYC
BY PETER B. BRACE
The Department of Environmental Protection has ruled that Great Harbor Yacht Club's facilities at 96 Washington St. Ext. are waterdependent uses.

The DEP determined that Great Harbor's proposed clubhouse, piers, ramps and slips for about 40 boats, a travel lift pier, accessway to the waterfront for marine-related vehicles, a waterside public pedestrian accessway, open space, interior access drives, vehicular parking and dredging are water-dependent and accessory and must be built on the harbor to serve the needs of the club's members.

"It clearly is an important step in going through the Chapter 91 permitting process," said Great Harbor developer Gary McCarthy. "It's what we expected, but of course we're pleased with the way the department acted and the way the department saw it, as well."

What DEP has yet to determine is whether to grant Great Harbor a Chapter 91 Waterways license. That license would enable the club to build this part of its yacht club on Nantucket Harbor. That decision is likely sometime after Jan. 9 when DEP stops taking comments from members of the public.

Part of the public comment process includes a public hearing that DEP is holding on Nantucket on Dec. 14 at 1 p.m. at the Planning Office at 2 Fairgrounds Road.

Read McCaffrey, a member of and spokesman for Save Our Waterfront, the political action committee opposed to Great Harbor's project, said SOW needs to learn on what basis Lynch made his determination before deciding what to do next.

"We would do a couple of things and are doing them now," said McCaffrey. "We are looking at the plan that was submitted by Great Harbor to examine the context of this determination as well as the hearing that will occur on the 14th. We want to take a look at what version is before DEP. We need to make sure we understand what components were there before or were not there before, such as the pool."

DEP's declaration of water-dependency removes Great Harbor's need to continue arguing the hotly contested historic high water mark running roughly north south across its property.

"The appeal would be rendered moot and we would not contest for the purposes of the GHYC project the location of the 1818 line," said McCarthy.

On Sept. 6, 2005, Chapter 91 Waterways Program chief Ben Lynch ruled that this line was 120 feet further inland than Great Harbor believed it was. Great Harbor then appealed Lynch's decision and later removed all non-water dependent uses from the harbor side of the street, namely its pool and pool house. Had Lynch upheld his determination, Great Harbor would have had to drastically scale down its harbor side facilities and move some of them inland.

Lynch's determination of water-dependency effectively says that the historic high water mark is of no consequence for the construction of this part of Nantucket's second yacht club.

"There's no structure for use that falls between what we considered to be the high water mark and what they considered to be the high water mark relative to this project," said McCarthy.

Should DEP issue Great Harbor its waterways license, the club could build everything in its plans for its 3.3 acres except its dock-and-pier system.

For this it needs an Army Corps of Engineers permit, which requires that the applicant already have a Chapter 91 Waterways License from DEP.

Additionally, Great Harbor needs a final ruling from the Conservation Commission. In mid-June, Judge Gary A. Nickerson of Nantucket Superior Court ruled that the ConCom's decision was arbitrary and capricious enough in its findings related to shorebird and wetlands impacts for him to remand it to the commission for further review.

In October, Great Harbor razed all of its boatyard buildings and transported the debris to a landfill in Bourne, Mass. in preparation for new construction on the site. Great Harbor got Planning Board approval of its special permit for a Major Commercial Development at 96 and 97 Washington St. Ext. on Aug. 9, 2005.

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