Public access effort still out at sea

Yacht, boat clubs balk at offering amenities

Halfway through his afternoon jog, Carlos Vazquez stopped to use the bathroom at the Puritan Canoe Club, a venerable members-only yacht club perched on state land along the South Boston waterfront.

He couldn't. The club is separated from the public sidewalk by an imposing wrought iron fence with a locked gate. He waved to someone inside, hoping to get the person's attention. When he got no response, he ran on.

Public access to yacht clubs, whether bathrooms or beachfronts, is at the center of a long-running and often contentious battle between the state and these insular waterside enclaves.

For four years, the Department of Conservation and Recreation has been trying to force yacht and boat clubs to submit public access plans to the state as part of a ramped-up permitting process, with increased fees. Those who are logistically unable to provide access along their beachfront have been encouraged to offer other public amenities, such as bathrooms or community programming.

But the effort has largely failed, with the state unable to persuade yacht club officials to meet to discuss the idea.

Dave Clinton, commodore of the Massachusetts Boating and Yacht Club Association, said the clubs pay to use the state land and do not think public access is feasible at some clubs.

"Why tromp across a yacht club that has very limited access [to the water] when you can go up to the Blue Hills and walk around for miles?" he said.

Until last fall, many of the 23 clubs on state land had refused to pay and sign their most recent five-year permits - due four years ago - because the state had increased fees and required public access plans. Since then, all have obtained permits, which earn the state about $212,000 a year, but only one, the Mystic Wellington Yacht Club in Medford, had filed a public access plan.

A bill that failed to gain favor in the recently completed legislative session would have allowed the clubs to sidestep their confrontation with DCR and establish a system that would allow the clubs to negotiate 10-year leases with the state. This, advocates say, would make public access a matter of case-by-case negotiations and give the clubs more control over their destiny.

Harvard University negotiated the mother of all long-term leases under a special act of the Legislature in late 1800s. The college brokered a deal allowing it to operate Newell boathouse on the Charles River and pay the state $1 a year for the use of the land for 1,000 years. The lease ends in the year 2900 and has no discernible provisions for public access.

The DCR commissioner, Richard K. Sullivan Jr., said the fees and public access remain thorny issues.

"At the end of the day, these are public assets, and the public has a right of access," Sullivan said in an interview last week. "If they're using a public asset, they need to be paying for it and remembering that it's public."

The Globe set out to see how many rowing and yacht clubs offered any public access. In some places, it was a daunting proposition.

The entrance to the Dorchester Yacht Club, for example, sits behind a tall wire fence lined with barbed wire. Signs indicate that police will be alerted to trespassers and that the entrance is under 24-hour camera surveillance. A reporter who sought access on a recent weekday was buzzed inside and pointed in the direction of the bathroom by a member who said, "Just don't tell anyone I let you."

In a subsequent interview, Jack Donegan, a board member, said the club routinely lets in strangers who need to use its facilities. The club, however, sits on pilings above the water making direct waterfront access difficult. Opening the club to the public could lead to theft or vandalism of the boats, he said, hence the barbed wire.

"We pay our rent here," Donegan said. "A lot of people have a lot of money invested in their boats."

The club paid $10,000 to the state for the site in 2008.

The Puritan Canoe Club, nestled between several other yacht clubs on the South Boston shoreline, had a more welcoming appearance - no rings of barbed wire - but a reporter was kept out by club members.

"Sorry, this is a private club for members," said a man, who did not identify himself.

The response highlights a problem for the state: Most of the boat and yacht clubs on state land are under lock and key. The Boston Harbor Yacht Club, the Puritan Canoe Club, the Columbia Yacht Club, and the South Boston Yacht Club all sit along a continuous stretch of shoreline behind the same giant fence. The public cannot access the waterfront by the beach because the strip is bookended by state parks with high, manmade rock walls.

If the clubs cannot accommodate shoreline access, they should provide other amenities, said Wendy Fox, a spokeswoman for DCR. At the Watertown Yacht Club, for example, bathrooms are open to the public.

It "could be any number of things, like access to a restroom, taking down some of the fence or letting people walk in front of the building," she said. "We look at it club by club."

Yet what those amenities are remains unclear because only one club has filed a public access plan as required.

Calls to the South Boston clubs went unreturned. Boston Harbor Yacht Club, the Columbia Yacht Club, and South Boston Yacht Club each paid the state $10,000 for their 2008 permits. The Puritan Canoe Club paid $5,000.

At a reporter's request, Vazquez tried to gain entry to several of the clubs on Day Boulevard as he was jogging by one recent afternoon. He was either ignored or turned away until he found an unlocked gate at the Columbia Yacht Club and went inside.

In Cambridge, a reporter who rang the doorbell at the Charles River Yacht Club was invited inside by a dock worker and allowed to roam among the yachts.

Club spokesman and former commodore Nick Pasquarosa said in a later interview that public access is troubling because of the value of the boats and insurance liability issues.

"If we didn't supervise it, we would really be worried about vandalism," he said.

He added that the club does several community service projects, including a barbecue for seniors on its docks, and sponsors youth sports teams. Clinton said the clubs support long-term leases of the kind proposed this session because it could give them "care, custody, and domain" over the state land they inhabit.

The bill did not come up for a vote in this year's legislative session, and its sponsor, Senator Michael W. Morrissey, said it remains unclear whether he will re-file it. Meanwhile, people have other options.

"I don't know of one club that has ever turned away anybody who's knocked on their door and said, 'I really need to use your bathroom,' " he said. "The way it works is like this: ask."

Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com.