Madaket Marine plans 66 new slips and three new boat storage racks
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Madaket Marine has filed plans with the Planning Board and Conservation Commission that include adding 66 slips to its existing 60, and adding three rack systems to store an additional 127 boats.

As a response to its existing cramped boat storage and slip operation on Hither Creek, along with calls from boat owners in town trying to get a slip at the town pier, Madaket Marine is putting a master plan into action.

"The first thing we're trying to do is alleviate that space problem with our existing customer base - which is 404 customers," said Kim Sparks, chief

administrative officer for

Madaket Marine. "We are expecting some more [customers] to come. The second part of this will be for [that] future growth. Two hundred people vie for 85 town slips at the town pier right now."

Madaket Marine's existing marina slips are located on the northwest side of Hither Creek, part of its 17.07 acres, 2.2 of which are developed. Sparks said the proposal is to extend the far right pier an additional 2,132 feet south, down the west side of Hither Creek, just off the shoreline. It would be six feet wide.

Its 13 moorings, running down the middle of this channel, would be permanently removed.

On land, Madaket Marine hopes to add three more boat storage racks to the four that it currently maintains. It plans to place one more by North Cambridge Street and two more on the site of a metal-roofed storage building which Madaket Marine plans to demolish.

Madaket Marine also proposes to go up a third tier for additional boat storage on all seven of its racks. Its storage racks now hold 92 out of the 100 boats they are permitted to store. If this expansion is approved, 219 boats would be held in its racks and 345 boats would be stored on the property altogether.

The demand for boat slips and storage space in Madaket is so great that Madaket Marine stopped adding names to its waiting list in 2005. It has grown into a decades-long wait. The town's waiting list is three to five years long.

What could muddy this expansion plan - other than neighbor and abutter opposition - is the temporary moratorium on docks, piers and wharves that expires on April 30 of this year. The moratorium could be made permanent through an article authored by the Harbor Plan Implementation Committee (HPIC) at Town Meeting in April. Sparks believes they are exempt from the moratorium as outlined in Nantucket Bylaws, Section 139-22(D), which reads:

"In all districts, new docks, wharves and piers of municipal, county, state, or federal agencies or public docks as defined below, and/or community docks serving Tuckernuck or Muskeget Islands are permitted uses."

As long as Madaket Marine does not become a yacht club, which could exclude the public from its facilities, said HPIC member Sarah Oktay, Sparks is correct.

Sparks emphatically denied rumors that the Nantucket Sporting Club, a 300-member hunting and fishing club proposed for the former Westender Restaurant property at 324 and 326 Madaket Road, is working on a deal with Madaket Marine for use of its slips. She added that although the west end marina is a private company, its facilities are, and always will be, open to the public at a reasonable cost.

"We certainly have no interest in pricing out the little guy," said Sparks. "They want to keep this a family-oriented recreational marina for everyone to use, not just the ones who can afford it."

The Conservation Commission will start reviewing Madaket Marine's expansion plan at its Jan. 30 meeting and the Planning Board will get a crack at it on Feb 25.

Early reaction to this proposal from Madaket residents appears to be mixed, according to Smith's Point Association President Tom Erichsen, who said he could not comment specifically on the plan just yet.

"Some of us think that it would be supportive of the area, and others of us

are against it," he said. I