By Marissa Di Vita
A proposed community dock in Oak Beach, in Suffolk County, is dividing residents, with supporters saying it would expand access to boating slips and opponents raising concerns about the environmental impacts, cost transparency and neighborhood disruption.
The Town of Babylon continued a public hearing on the proposal during its March 11 board meeting at the Babylon Town Hall, which drew about two dozen attendees. Residents of Oak Island Beach Association on both sides of the issue spoke strongly about the dock installation. The project would add a dock with multiple boat slips to a community beach at 21 The Fairway, but opponents said its necessity, funding and long-term effects on the neighborhood remain unclear.
Residents said the community already has many unused dock spaces, some of which owners allow others to use temporarily. They also said the cost of building a new dock and its full impact on the community remain unclear.
One resident, Dawn Morrison, pointed out that adding a new dock to an already dock-rich waterfront could disturb marine life and nearby residents. Morrison said only six of the community’s 72 households, about 8%, would benefit from the new dock.
Morrison said homeowners without boat slips were aware that their properties did not include docking access when they purchased them. She argued that adding a new dock on a quiet residential roadway would increase foot, boat and car traffic, as well as noise and the potential for parking congestion. “Moving forward with an initiative that benefits the few … will create additional long-term animosity amongst the many,” she said.
Morrison said the Oak Island Beach Association has faced issues that have divided the community in the past, as well as the proposed dock on Hawser Drive. She estimated about half of the association’s homeowners oppose the project, and many are unaware of the possible impacts on the surrounding area.
Morrison noted that the Town of Babylon prioritizes environmental stewardship and preservation. She argued that the beach’s already narrowing open waterway, caused by the sandbar’s steady expansion toward land, does not require additional dock space, especially when boat slips within the community are already left vacant during the summer months. “There is unequivocally no need for an additional mooring facility at Oak Beach,” Morrison said.
She grew up playing along the shoreline and has lived in Oak Beach for 51 years. She said her experience has shaped her opposition to the project.
Supporters of the dock appeared to be in the minority at the March 11 board meeting. John Londo, a resident of 10 The Fairway, near the proposed dock site, argued that there is not enough accessible dock space and those with empty slips have been asked but are unwilling to lend them to others for various reasons.
Londo also said he discussed the previously raised fiscal concerns with an insurance agent in Babylon Village, who said the community dock would not affect the issuance of any homeowner’s insurance policy, and that a “bond would be paid by dock fees for those strictly using the dock, and is not a cost to anyone else in the community, but is a benefit to everyone in the community.”
Londo said he spoke with Chief James Miga of the Babylon Fire Department, who advised that, as long as vehicles are not left unattended and blocking the road, there would be no increased fire hazard to the community. He said there would be no on-site parking where the dock would be located and the area would be a designated drop-off zone.
Londo said the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers have already approved the project, though those approvals could not be independently confirmed. “The association voted to approve the community dock by a vote of 34 to 28,” Londo said. “Prior to the last public hearing, another survey was done of the community members to see where the sentiment was on this … The results were 46 in favor, seven opposed, five abstained.”
Salvatore Gervaisi, an Oak Beach resident, said association members had not been told the dock’s cost. He said only one bid had been submitted for the project, a dock that would have six spaces with plumbing and electricity and be constructed of aluminum to prevent rusting or rotting. Gervaisi said he and other residents had not been informed who would fund the bond for the dock’s construction and installation.
Gervaisi said he is building a dock a few slips down, roughly half the size of the proposed dock and was quoted $120,000. He said he heard that a board member would fund the bond. “If the association defaults, that board member who put up the bond is the owner of the dock,” Gervaisi said. “I find that to be a little off-putting because it’s inside their little group of people, and the rest of us are excluded, and it’s going right outside our houses, but yet we don’t know anything.”
Morrison said her opposition to the dock is rooted in concerns about environmental preservation and how decisions are made in the Oak Beach community. She said residents like her have long used the beaches for leisure and that the proposed dock is unnecessary.
