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I, as well as other owners at South Seas Condominiums, read your cover article regarding our approved dock extensions and the lawsuits filed by the Wolters. First, we were surprised that no one contacted us or our attorney for a comment or to obtain our position on the lawsuits before publishing the article. Secondly, we feel it is important that your readers understand that there were errors in the story and those need to be clarified.

We invited all neighbors to a presentation in November of 2007 regarding our proposed dock project and in addition there were two public hearings at the Planning Board and then a final hearing in front of the City Council. All neighbors’ concerns and objections were heard and addressed in those meetings. In order to accommodate our neighbors we made numerous changes to our original plans. These included reducing the lengths of the boat slips on the north and south ends of our project, which are nearest to Spinnaker Drive and Sussex Condominium, eliminating all boat lifts except for a small number in the center of the project in front of our tennis courts, completely eliminating six of the longer slips that were located across from Trent Court, and moving all of the longer slips to the center of the project where the bay is the widest.

Our plan calls for nine 40 foot long docks that the city refers to as 50.2 feet. There are no 50 foot docks planned or approved and this “length” of 50.2 comes from adding in the width of the new seawall and the boardwalk. These nine 40 foot docks, which equates to the 18 slips classified as Class C in the Planning Board documents, are in the widest part of Clam Bay. The docks are to accommodate boats that are approximately 34 feet long and are presently at South Seas and have been for 30 years. These boats now park bow out (nose out) and at low tide the boat rests on the bottom. Rather than apply for permits to dredge out the silt, which would cause a lot more disruption for the residents on Clam Bay, we plan to have these boats park bow in, leaving their engines in deeper water.

For residents to get on and off the existing boats safely these length docks are required. There is no intention of accommodating larger sized boats at our facility. In fact one existing vessel that has been moored at South Seas for many years is too large to be accommodated by the approved docks and will have to be located off the property. The existing bridge heights leading to Clam Bay also governs the size of boats that can access the area.

The dock configuration that was approved by the Planning Board included these nine 40 foot docks. The City Council did not change the location of those docks, which, as mentioned in your article are located at the widest part of the bay, where it is 560 feet across. The Wolter’s attorney statement, that locating the longest docks closer to the inside of the bay, would resolve the Wolter’s problem does not make sense to us since that is in fact where the docks are to be located. From the Wolter’s home to the ends of those docks is more than a football field and a half in length! In fact, several members of the City Council commented, after their on site inspections, on the fact that our requested extension (beyond our current outer pilings) can not be visibly seen from across the bay. All of our improvements are well within our riparian lines.

The article quotes the Wolter’s attorney by saying that they have “sought to try and work with the applicant” and that we have not “created the opportunity” to work things out with him or his client and “so they have been left with no choice but to try the courts.” This is not correct. In fact they filed the lawsuits without any advanced notice to us and without any communication of any problems they still had. We are in hopes that the information in this letter will clarify our position and the facts. We believe that the approved boardwalk and docks will make Clam Bay more attractive and will enhance the quality of life for our Island.