Greenport dock debate raises broader questions about the waterfront’s future

In a wide-ranging discussion that exposed fault lines around tourism, taxpayer burden and waterfront priorities, Greenport Village Board members and staff last week tackled the thorny issue of the shuttered “visitors dock” — a once-welcoming but now-decayed maritime portal whose absence this summer has triggered mounting complaints from both residents and out-of-town boaters.

“The floats, the pilings and the ramp [have] deteriorated [and] become obsolete,” Trustee and deputy village mayor Patrick Brennan said, halfway through a work session that ran nearly five hours. “There’s been a lot of feedback coming to me … people saying, ‘Where’s the visitor’s dock? Why can’t we have a visitor’s dock?’”

The dock, also referred to as a “courtesy dock,” used to be located off a stable dock near the Jitney parking lot behind the East End Seaport Museum and was for decades a free drop-in point for boaters looking to dine or stroll in the heart of the village. But it wasn’t included in this year’s budget, and according to Brennan, rebuilding it could cost around $75,000.

That price tag, though, may only scratch the surface.

The board’s conversation touched on the hazy operational history of the dock — including whether it was ever intended to be free.

“It actually started out where [there was] supposed to be a fee for it,” Trustee Mary Bess Phillips said, “but there’s never been staff over there to take care of it, which has caused a fair amount of discord.”

While the dock has long been considered a casual, friendly entryway to the village, it also became a gray zone for commercial activity.

“There was the speeding activity that was taking place … They stopped right before” docking, Phillips said, describing waves disrupting nearby waters. “That visitor’s dock had boats parked there for hours upon hours. They had boats that were bigger than should have been parked against a floating dock.”

Brennan agreed. “People think it’s an important part of Greenport being a welcoming place for people to come and partake in eating at the restaurants or whatever,” he said. But “it’s not a revenue earner. And so basically, the taxpayer is paying for it. And the public needs to understand that they’re paying for it — and it’s to welcome people, for the most part, who are not from Greenport.”

In an incident that illustrated broader frustrations, Brennan recalled an interaction with a boater at the Bay Avenue dock.

“This is a boat that costs at least a quarter million dollars,” Brennan said. When the sailor asked to dock there and Brennan redirected him to Mitchell Park Marina — which charges $2 per foot — “he got really surly with me … and said, ‘I’m a taxpayer. Put the f—ing [visitors] dock back.’ I said, ‘Okay, actually I don’t know you.’”

“He said, ‘I live in East Marion. You don’t need to live in the village.’ I said, ‘You don’t pay taxes [here]’ … And he kind of blew up,” Brennan said, adding that “this is not representative of everyone.”

The deputy mayor said he’s received calls from Shelter Island residents who dine and shop in the village and are upset about the dock’s absence.

“That’s important to the village. It’s important to me,” he said. “But for someone coming from there and demanding free dockage doesn’t really work for me.”

Village Clerk Candace Hall said her office had received “really horrendous calls” from boaters. “It gets nasty immediately,” she said.

Phillips added that some of the traffic may not have been recreational at all. “There’s at least three livery companies over on Shelter Island that have made big profits … by being able to come there and dump people off,” she said. “That’s a commercial activity.”

The discussion widened to environmental and infrastructure concerns — and whether it even made sense to restore the dock at its original location near the commercial ferry zone.

“It’s not a great place over there for recreational boaters to be navigating,” Brennan said. “It’s in a commercially active area.”

Instead, Brennan floated an idea: move the dock to Mitchell Park, where the village could better manage it.

“I would like to move it into the park, get it away from the commercial fishing boats and the ferry traffic,” he said. “It could be supervised by the marina manager … so that guests could do a quick drop-off or stay for half an hour. It still may require like an app or something so we can ensure payment.”

But not everyone was on board.

“It’s probably not a popular opinion, but maybe we don’t have a visitor’s dock,” Trustee Lily Doherty-Johnson suggested. “The less docks, environmentally, maybe the better.”

Phillips pushed back. “Whatever you’re trying to do within Mitchell Marina, environmentally, for the [bay] bottom is not really going to do much,” she said. “I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s a marina. DEC looks at that in a totally different environmental discussion than what you’re talking about.”

Throughout the conversation, questions emerged about what Greenport owes its visitors — and what kind of maritime culture the village wants to support.

“You have to remember, for most people who are recreational boating, that’s a pretty discretionary kind of hobby,” Brennan said. “I’m not sure they can’t afford 20, 30, 40 bucks to visit Greenport.”

Phillips, too, pointed to broader patterns. “How many times have you all heard, ‘Well, I’m not paying for parking because I come in, I spend money in the village of Greenport.’ It’s the same idea as what the boaters are doing.”

“We have roads to repair, okay? That shouldn’t always fall on the taxpayers.”

At the same time, board members stressed that Greenport continues to offer a range of waterfront services.

“We have the railroad dock for large commercial vessels,” Brennan noted. “We have the baymen’s dock for small commercial vessels … we have Sterling Harbor moorings for recreational boaters. Then we provide a dinghy dock … and these pedestrian docks. We’re offering a lot of different things to different aspects of the community.”

Still, as Mayor Kevin Stuessi noted, “If we had a longer [visitor dock], we could sell space to big boats that we can’t currently handle and make more money. Our demand is greater than capacity for larger boats — not the smaller [ones].”

Phillips added that boaters are adopting. “Those who have smaller boats that would fit in … are now putting them on trailers because they don’t want to spend the fee.”

She also noted a potential long-term solution: rethinking the area near the old dock to accommodate “party boats” and water taxis, with infrastructure grant support. “There’s a lot of potential in that area.”

Currently, Brennan said, the village has almost no rules regulating the docks. “We don’t regulate how people use our docks at all,” he said. “It doesn’t say you can’t boat, you can’t fish, you can’t swim … we’re pretty open-ended about it.”

But if the village were to create a new dock — especially inside Mitchell Park — the aim would be to also create a new management system that’s financially and practically sustainable.

“These assets become a liability over time,” Brennan said. “People think, ‘We got the dock for free, the county or the state paid for it.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but as soon as we got that dock, it became a liability.’ You can’t just give stuff away for free without a strategy to pay for it.”

For the moment, the dock is gone, summer is half over and the budget doesn’t include dock restoration funds.

But Brennan and his colleagues said they see this moment as a chance to reset — to rethink how the village manages its waters, who pays for its amenities and how Greenport welcomes the world.

“There’s a lot of that doesn’t really feel appropriate to me,” Brennan said of some of the current waterfront use. “But … by virtue of the dock not being there right now, we have a little bit of a reset opportunity.”

“If we’re going to make new floating docks to create a visitor’s dock in Mitchell Park, they could be smaller, and maybe they could also be built better … more environmentally-friendly.”

“We have to be deliberate about how we afford it,” he said. “Afford the initial installation — and afford it going forward.”