The following article is reprinted from the Seacoast Online, York County Coast Star, dated 11/12/09, by Laura Dolce.

Goose Rocks Beach neighbors on lawsuit:

“This stands to tear the beach apart”

KENNEBUNKPORT — When a group of Goose Rocks Beach waterfront property owners decided to sue the town over their property rights, they caught the attention of not only town officials but some of their neighbors as well.

And some of those neighbors have now formed their own group — Save Our Beaches — and are taking their message to the public.

“Like the town, we’d like to keep the status quo where the community has utilized these wonderful beaches for 100 plus years,” said SOB founder Mic Harris. “That shouldn’t be changed.”

The suit, filed recently on behalf of more than 30 beachfront property owners, seeks to force the town to recognize that certain landowners own their property down to the low water mark. Citing a colonial ordinance dated 1647, the suit maintains that the majority of Goose Rocks Beach always has been private property and that the town should acknowledge it as such, up to and including posting “no trespass” signs and enforcing the trespass laws.

Harris said his group already has formed committees to look into different aspects of the fight, from legal cases to finding ways to bring the public in. The group has started a Web site, www.save-our-beaches.org, and plans to hold meetings where people can come to discuss the issue.

“All of us are so passionate (about the issue),” said Harris, whose wife’s family has owned a home at Goose Rocks Beach since 1952. “It’s just the way it’s been for so long.”

That’s the town’s position as well, said Town Manager Larry Mead, who said the town has started its own Web site, www.preservegooserocksbeach.org, to share information with residents.

Mead also said he wasn’t shocked to see a group like SOB start up.

“I’m not surprised by the group forming,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll get a lot of support in the community. Clearly that issue, of keeping the beach open and accessible …; well, the closer you are to the beach, the more it means to you.”

Harris said many of the people who have joined or are talking to his group are those with the most to lose — those homeowners who live a block or two over from the beach and could, if the suit is successful, find themselves limited to the public portion of the beach (about 8 percent of the two-mile stretch, according to the town), which is owned by the town and the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust.

And while Harris said some beachfront property owners insist they won’t keep their neighbors from the beach, he isn’t so sure that’s realistic.

“If you can ensure that beachfront owners’ grandkids will let my grandkids use the beach, them I’m more comfortable,” Harris said. But there’s no guarantee that a verbal agreement will be honored, he said, and certainly no guarantee that if a property’s sold the new owners will honor any agreement. “It lends itself to different people using their power in different ways.”

The beachfront property owners, though, say they’ve filed the suit not so much to keep their neighbors from the beach, but to force the town to respect their property rights.

“We believe sincerely that it’s a matter requiring legal adjudication,” said Bob Almeder, one of the parties in the suit. “If we don’t do anything, we’ve already lost control over our property. We felt constrained by the actions of the town to do something.”

That doesn’t mean, Almeder said, that the beachfront landowners are working against their neighbors.

“It wasn’t our motive to move everybody off,” he said, pointing out that the public portion of the beach stretches two and a half football fields in length. “That has been traditionally open. The rest is private. It gets to the point where we can’t enjoy our own property.”

Almeder said he’s aware that some Goose Rocks Beach homeowners are upset over the suit, but that many are also supporting the landowners in their quest.

Harris, though, said he’s concerned with the divisiveness he’s already sensed in what has always been a close-knit community.

“I’ve already heard people say, ‘we can’t be friends with those people, they’re tying to change our lives,’” he said. “This stands to tear the beach apart.”