In some neighbors' views, parked boats spoil a lot

NEWBURYPORT - It was the view from the kitchen window that sold Linn Solomon on the modest cape: a pristine vista of Plum Island Basin, distant sailboats silhouetted in the sunset.

Moments after she closed on the property in September 2001, Solomon pulled up to her new home with its nautical view. But now, it was of a 30-foot Sea Ray powerboat parked a few feet from her kitchen window.

Unable to persuade her next-door neighbor to move his vessel - she even offered to foot the bill to store it at a boatyard - Solomon endured the view for four more winters. Then her neighbor started keeping the boat in his yard year-round.

"This was supposed to be my retirement home, and it's become a living nightmare," said Solomon, 68, a retired teacher.

Fed up with the blocked view, Solomon complained to city officials. Now, Newburyport's City Council is considering an unusually restrictive ordinance that would effectively banish boats from many residential yards along the city's picturesque Plum Island, where lots are tiny and boating is big.

Here, as in most Massachusetts cities and towns, zoning laws do not restrict boaters from parking their vessels in their yards. For every coastal resident displeased by the view of his neighbor's cabin cruiser, there is a boat owner who has a tiny lot and the right to keep his possessions on it. As a result, many oceanside towns have no restrictions.

It is an annual autumn impasse. Boaters pull their vessels out of the water for the season and store them in their yards. Many neighbors live with the eyesore rather than quarrel or quit talking to the boater altogether.

A few coastal communities have created ordinances intended to prevent neighbors from turning their backyards into personal shipyards, but their rules are not as restrictive as the one Newburyport is pondering.

Rockport, for instance, does not allow the storage of any vessel or vehicle, including trailers and motor homes, longer than 24 feet. Shorter ones are allowed, and the bylaw does not address storage near property lines. Beverly merely restricts homeowners to storage of no more than one boat or recreational vehicle "except by permit issued by the City Council."

Cohasset, like most Massachusetts communities, generally prohibits people from building within 15 feet from a neighbor's property. But boats are a different story.

"There is nothing that says you can't put a boat right on the property line," said Bob Egan, building commissioner and zoning officer in Cohasset. He said he has fielded complaints about boats in yards.

"Somebody buys a house in May and the neighbor's boat is in the water," Egan said. "Come October, the neighbor plunks his boat in his yard, and they are appalled."

The Newburyport proposal would restrict boat owners from blocking the "wind, light, or air" of an adjacent house with their vessels. It also restricts boaters from parking their vessels within 20 feet of a property line.

With an abundance of houses on small property lots in the city, the proposal would force many boat owners to pay to store their boats. The going rate for hauling and storing a 30-foot powerboat in Newburyport for the winter is about $1,000.

"I've heard from both sides," said Councilor Lawrence McCavitt, a former director of the state's Coastal Zone Management program, who proposed the restrictions in Newburyport. "It's been about even, people who've had a problem, and people who think [the proposal] is crazy."

Deborah Fichera, a boat owner who lives a few blocks from Solomon's home, but across the town line in Newbury, says talk of the proposed restrictions makes her uneasy.

"There's so many rules regulating what you can do with your property; pretty soon they'll tell us how many times you can breathe," said Fichera, who keeps her 17-foot powerboat about 4 feet from her neighbor's property. But the vessel does not appear to obstruct any views, and she says she has never had complaints.

Vince Russo, a Newbury selectman and fellow Plum Islander with a water view from his house, said he does not think the section of Newburyport's proposed rule that requires boat owners to keep their vessels 20 feet from a neighbor's property will win support on the densely populated island.

"You would have to park the boat in your living room," he said.

McCavitt acknowledges that the proposed 20-foot rule may need to be reworked before the Newburyport City Council votes on it, which he said would not happen before the Nov. 6 elections.

But Russo agreed that something needs to be done. Communities usually calculate a water view when they assess property taxes. Homeowners, he added, have a right to be upset when they pay for a view they cannot enjoy.

McCavitt said one of the calls he received came from a man in another section of the city whose neighbor has kept a boat on the property line for more than a decade. The man tried talking to his neighbor about moving it and when that did not work, he gave up and spent a bundle planting trees to try to hide it, McCavitt said.

Solomon, a birding enthusiast from New York who had summered with her family on Plum Island for years before moving there in 2001, said she tried talking to her next-door neighbor, Maurice Van Doorne. She asked him if he would move his Sea Ray to the other side of his wide driveway, which would be several feet farther from Solomon's window and would salvage her water view.

Solomon said Van Doorne, whom the Globe has been unable to reach for comment, told her that moving the Sea Ray where she suggested would block his access to his side door. So, she said, she offered to pay whatever it would cost for him to store his boat in the wintertime. Still no deal.

Two years ago, Van Doorne began keeping the boat in the yard year-round. The shrink wrap is gone, torn off by the wind, and Solomon says the stands supporting the boat have become so unstable that she worries a good gust could topple it onto her house. She and her husband have largely stayed away in the last two years, and their son now lives in what was supposed to be the couple's retirement retreat.

"I simply don't have the stomach," Solomon said in a phone interview from their New York home. "I can't face it anymore."

Finally, the Solomons contacted McCavitt, who scoured Newburyport's ordinances and could find nothing that applied to boats in yards. He made his proposal.

Amid the debate, Linn Solomon remains adrift in frustration.

"I would hate for anyone else to go through this," she said. "People shouldn't do this to each other, but they do."

Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com.