voices: the community speaks of Nantucket and GHYC

Letter to the Conservation Commission:

Dear Members of the Board, January 23, 2004

Thank you for hearing our concerns regarding the proposed development of the Great Harbor Yacht Club. As my family and I have lived at Washington St. Ext. for several generations and just recently rebuilt our home at 121 Washington St., we are of course concerned with major changes in the neighborhood, especially with regards to the waterfront. We are a family who enjoys the water and all it offers including boating, sailing, fishing, kayaking, swimming, and family and commercial shell fishing. We have long become accustomed to being able to access our boats at their present mooring designations. The proposed GHYC pier is in direct conflict with our present mooring locations as well as others. We wonder how this can be. Is this even legal let alone appropriate? To simply push us out or aside to a less convenient place so that a multimillion dollar private enterprise can take our place seems terribly unjust. The proposed pier also appears to impact the channel that presently serves the boat yard and mooring field. Does that mean a new channel would be dredged and the mooring field further curtailed? We also wonder how this will affect the marsh and creeks with all its wildlife within. There are many unanswered questions of great importance that have yet to be addressed. Although we could never afford membership in this exclusive club and could not therefor enjoy the benefits it has to offer, we have worked extremely hard to build our own dream into a reality as have many of our hard-working neighbors. To be expected to move aside or change our life style by a major private enterprise is overwhelming. Our home, neighborhood and way of life are priceless to us and we appreciate your understanding of this.

We respect the right of private enterprise and do not oppose the use by these developers to use this property as a yacht club, we do however expect this to be done with minimal impact on this irreplaceable and unique area and without squashing the rights of the people around it. Perhaps scaling back the size of their plan as well as comprehensive impact studies will help to attain a compromise that will appeal to both GHYC and it's neighbors.

We hope the members of the board will consider our concerns and those of our neighbors when rendering decisions on GHYC. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Kenneth F. Aguiar and Family
121 Washington St. Ext.
Nantucket, MA 02554
508-228-3241