voices: the community speaks of Nantucket and GHYC

December 10, 2003

Dear Editor,

I think it is a mistake to criticize the Deeley family for making a deal with the yacht club developers. It seems to be a great case of "you're dammed if you do and you're dammed if you don't." In a way, the family was a victim of it own success. The boatyard had been there for so long that it had become invisible. Everyone knew it was there, anybody with a boat has been able to count on the facility to help out if needed, it has always been there. Whether you did much business with them or not, you could always go to the boatyard to get your boat out in times of need, storms or any other boat related crisis. We took the facility for granted.

Now the facility has been sold. But rather than expressing anger at the Deeley family it might be more appropriate for the community to thank them. Because, by not selling the facility earlier, one could argue that they have been subsidizing the operation of an essential public service (if you are a boater) for at least the last few years. I'm sure they could have sold out long before they did, and I believe them when they write that this yacht club was the most compatible use that they could come up with under the circumstances.

The Deelys wrote that in 1997 they offered to sell the Town the property. The Deeleys apparently thought then that Town of Nantucket was the most logical owner of the property, as the boatyard provided an essential public service for the harbor. They state that the Town turned them down at the time. So you can understand that this solution of the yacht club seemed the best available to them in light of the Town's refusal.

It is still the right answer that the Town buy the property. It is not 1997 anymore. We have new leadership who hopefully will look at the possibility with clearer vision.

I don't think that most people have thought through what the loss of a waterfront boatyard means to the boaters and to the Town's future marine options. We are about to lose our emergency valve, our way to provide emergency service to boats. I think it is, if nothing else, a life and safety issue. As a broader community issue, the property represents the most viable opportunity for, and will be the primary determinant of, our island's maritime future.

The yacht club is a development proposal for a property used presently as a boatyard. It represents a massive intensification of use. In order for the yacht club proposal to become a reality, it is necessary for the community, in the form of its Boards and Commissions, to acquiesce with the developer's request for special permits and conditions.

I suggest that we, as a community, have become spoiled. We have taken the existence of the boatyard for granted. We never had to worry that in a case of a storm the boatyard would be there. It is the way it always was, and we need to make sure as a community, that that is the way it always will be. To not do so is shortsighted.

Sincerely,

Moncure Chatfield-Taylor