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Date: 6/1/2022
SOUTHWICK – Residents continued to express concerns over the planned reopening of Crabby Joe’s Restaurant with a marina on South Pond, as the Planning Board hears a request to modify the plan it approved in March.
Applicant Ken Eggleston appeared before the Southwick Planning Board on May 24 seeking a wellhead protection district special permit and a modification to their existing site plan approval and special permit, due in part to modifications to the parking plan and slight changes to the dock configuration.
During the public hearing, in which town officials and members of the public asked questions and made comments about the projects, several people expressed continued concern about the proposed 20-boat marina and how it will affect boat density and traffic on Congamond Lake.
Citizens Restoring Congamond President Michelle Pratt said she was excited about seeing the restaurant revived after being vacant for so long, but she thinks adding 20 boats to the lake via a rental marina would contribute to an already overcrowded situation.
Lake officials have said that about 600 boats are registered on Congamond Lake. Members of the Lake Management Committee have repeatedly argued that 600 is already well above the safe number of boats for a lake the size of Congamond, but Eggleston and others have argued that every publicly accessible lake in Massachusetts has that problem, and 20 extra boats won’t make a noticeable difference.
Edward Nitsche, who lives across the street from Crabby Joe’s, expressed concern not about the marina and lake impacts, but about how the new parking arrangement may affect him and other neighbors. Eggleston’s new traffic plan for the parking lot would have exiting vehicles shining their headlights into his house as they leave the property, he said.
“I don’t want an exit in front of my house with lights shining into my house all hours of the night,” said Nitsche. “I would like the exit right where it originally was.”
Michael Orszulak said he has been coming to Congamond Lake since he was 10, and now he doesn’t even bother going out on the lake on weekends anymore, because of overcrowding.
“I see the arguments online, ‘What is another 20 boats?’ Well, 20 boats is 20 boats,” said Orszulak. “Last year I almost saw someone get run over by a boat following too closely to somebody who was wakeboarding.”
He said he is fine with the restaurant having transient docks where boats already moored and registered on the lake can be parked while people visit the restaurant, but that adding long-term moorings for 20 new boats will contribute to an existing lake safety problem.
Diane Gale, whose major development bylaw just passed overwhelmingly at the Annual Town Meeting, suggested that the town somehow impose a limit on the number of boats out on the lake at one time. Acting Planning Board Chair Marcus Phelps and others said that might not be possible, because the lake is largely administered by the state.
Lake Management Committee member Eric Mueller said that if this marina is allowed to be built, there is no real justification for preventing the next one from being built elsewhere on the lake, and the overcrowding problem can continue to grow.
Planning Board member David Spina said sternly that the board had already made its decision in March to allow a 40-space dock with half of the spaces dedicated as transient parking, and half as a rental marina. In that decision, he said, the Planning Board required Eggleston to return to the board at the end of the season to review how the marina is working out and decide if it can continue.
“We already have the vehicle in place to look at the special permit again,” said Spina.