Even in an effort as well-intended as Maine’s Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program, there will be differences of opinion over how best to disburse limited funds that may be used to purchase development rights to qualifying waterfront parcels.
In the program’s first round this year, all six projects that completed the application process were funded. Still, the choice made in the case of a $475,000 award for the benefit of the Spruce Head Fishermen’s Co-op suggests that you can’t satisfy everyone.
The state funds “will further extinguish the ability of local seafood companies to earn a just living,” declared John Petersdorf, general manager of William Atwood Lobster Co., which is located next door to the co-op. He called the grant “a fleecing of taxpayer dollars” because the co-op, he asserts, could have purchased the property on its own.
“The co-op’s application went through rigorous scrutiny,” said Tim Glidden, who manages the working waterfront access program for the state’s Land for Maine’s Future board. Glidden and others advising the program note that state law requires a one-to-one match for projects such as the Spruce Head Co-op’s; the $2 million that became available through a bond issue passed three years ago provided leverage to secure properties with a fair market value of almost $5 million, they point out, and in the Spruce Head Co-op’s case the state’s $475,000 is being used to help purchase land whose development rights have been extinguished as part of the deal.
Petersdorf and his boss, Bill Atwood, say they have no argument with saving working waterfront, but they object to what they see as giving one working waterfront business a leg up at the expense of other working waterfront businesses in the same area.
“There’s a misconception that the grant money is helping us purchase the co-op,” said Spruce Head Fishermen’s Co-op president Robert Baines. “What the grant money is doing is purchasing a covenant that will protect that property for working waterfront from here to eternity. That’s what the money is for. It’s not subsidizing, per se, us purchasing the property. If we were going to purchase the property without putting this working waterfront covenant in place, the price would probably be the same amount of money, but we probably wouldn’t be able to afford, or we might not choose to purchase the property for that kind of money.”
The Spruce Head Co-op has leased its 60 feet of shore frontage and quarter-acre property from owner Richard Waldron for some 30 years. Waldron, 67, now retired, put 47 years into the lobster fishery and said of the property he purchased in the 1970s, “Even 20 years ago I wanted the co-op to have it.” The property never went on the market. Over the years, Atwood approached him with a view toward buying the property, but Atwood said Waldron never told him what he wanted for his frontage and lot.
Waldron said he had consulted with a lot of knowledgeable people and thought about selling for a long time. “The co-op approached me,” he said. “I didn’t get right back to them.” Then, he said, “When the [state] money became available, then the wheels started to turn. I told them pretty much what I felt was reasonable. I came up, in the beginning, with a [price of a] million dollars” Of the $950,000 sticker price, he said, “It’s a fair price, considering … although it’s well above the assessed value.” He then mentioned a Spruce Head Island property that is being purchased by about 35 investors, kicking in $45,000 apiece and said, “The waterfront is being bought up faster than anybody realizes.”
“With $2 million in bond funds approved by voters by an overwhelming 66 percent margin in November 2005 to create a new Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program and with a $3 million reallocation in November of 2006 with 64 percent voting margin, it is apparent that the Maine legislature and voters alike clearly see the demonstrated need and success of such a program,” said Jen Litteral, marine programs officer at the Island Institute and a member of the coalition advising LMF’s implementation of the working waterfront program. “They recognize the need to take action to protect and secure commercial fishing access at a time when increasing demands for coastal waterfront lands and rising land values and property taxes are making it difficult for commercial fishing businesses to retain working access to the water.”
The co-op’s 75 members make up the largest percentage of lobster fishermen in Spruce Head Harbor. This gives waterfront access for members’ 65 boats. The rest of the harbor’s boats sell to the five other Spruce Head lobster buyers: approximately 15 to 20 boats sell to Atwood; 18 sell to Dowdie Brothers/McLoon’s, others to Maine Coast Seafood, York’s Wharf or Emery Wharf. York’s and Emery wharves are fisherman-owned. With just under a million dollars at stake, the co-op, despite being financially solvent, decided to apply for a working waterfront grant to help secure the property.
The working waterfront access program’s website (wwap.org) states: “There is often a significant difference between the market value of a waterfront property and a reasonable business value of the property for commercial fishing purposes. The access pilot program was created to assist commercial fishing businesses and others to help fill this financial gap when properties are threatened, ownership is changing, or property owners need to secure their working access.”
Of over 100 inquiries, six applicants completed the process and went before a review panel made up of people with a wide range of interests including fishing, financial and real estate. The board accepted all six.
The LFMF board approved grants:
Baines, the co-op president, in making a presentation to the Land For Maine’s Future Board of Directors on Sept. 11, said that the co-op could afford to buy the property without a working waterfront grant — a statement he later said he regretted, but acknowledged making.
Some board members, asked about Baines’s statement and their reaction to it, said they did not recall hearing it, although Glidden said in an e-mail that he remembered, “hearing something along those lines.”
The Spruce Head co-op is noted for its high year-end dividends. Baines acknowledged it averages 90 cents per pound, though he stressed that the co-op’s shore price is lower than that of other co-ops. Each Spruce Head co-op member receives a dividend of $24,300 at the end of the average year. These figures are based on average landings over the past ten years. Those dividends make up a large percentage of a fisherman’s yearly income.