A country club built a new seawall without permission. Now they want to change the rules.

NORTH KINGSTOWN — The Quidnessett Country Club already went ahead and built a massive seawall near the 14th hole without getting permission from the Coastal Resources Management Council.

Now, the CRMC has to decide if it's willing to rethink its regulations.

And last week, members of the politically appointed Council's planning and procedures subcommittee indicated that they're at least willing to entertain the possibility.

"I’ll support giving them, I guess, a bite of the apple," said Don Gomez, the committee's vice chair.

As the Boston Globe first reported, the country club could potentially face $30,000 or more in fines for constructing the rip rap revetment, which is located on a portion of the shoreline where seawalls aren't allowed at all.

The club could also potentially be ordered to remove the wall, CRMC director Jeffrey Willis indicated at last Tuesday's meeting.

"The ramifications are huge, and I’m not saying what they did was right or wrong," said chair Raymond C. Coia. "But I’m of the opinion, let's give them an opportunity to come in and present their case."

Why an obscure 'water type classification' matters

In hopes of belatedly seeking permission for the already-built seawall, Quidnessett is petitioning the CRMC to change the area's water type classification, the Globe reported.

• The country club's manicured greens overlook what are currently designated as Type 1 waters, meaning that the shoreline is in a natural, undisturbed state and treated as a conservation area.

• Seawalls and other structures designed to prevent erosion — which disturb the ecosystem and preclude public access while speeding up the erosion of neighboring beaches — can't be built in Type 1 waters.

To get around that problem, Quidnessett is asking the CRMC to reclassify roughly 1,430 feet of shoreline as Type 2 waters. If the regulatory agency agrees, the country club could apply for a permit for the seawall, though there's no guarantee that it would receive one.

Quidnessett's attorney, Jennifer Cervenka, previously served as chair of the CRMC's politically appointed Council, which will have the final say on the matter.

The area surrounding the country club has undergone "considerable changes" and become more heavily developed in the years since the shoreline was designated as Type 1 waters, Cervenka pointed out in her petition to the CRMC. The coastline directly south of the golf course, which abuts a residential subdivision, is classified as Type 2.

The stakes: Unless it's granted some flexibility, the club "will certainly lose a critical piece of its historic 18-hole golf course," Cervenka wrote.

That would result in "devastating losses to both its business and members, as well as thousands of individuals, businesses, and associations across the state that use QCC for professional golf tournaments, charity events, fundraisers, weddings, proms, and countless other engagements," she said.

A different 'enforcement path' if change goes through

The situation seemed to perplex members of the CRMC subcommittee.

As the Globe reported previously, the agency's staff slapped the country club with a cease-and-desist order and a series of fines last summer, but construction was already complete. Cervenka subsequently indicated that the club wanted to enter settlement talks, and requested an administrative hearing.

In other words, the CRMC was already in the midst of its standard bureaucratic process for dealing with violations. Then the country club asked to change the rules that would apply.

"If this results in a water type change to Type 2, then the enforcement path is a lot different than if this doesn’t result in a change to the water type," Willis said at the subcommittee meeting.

"I think it would be easier to entertain a change if they hadn’t already built the revetment," Ronald Gagnon, the Department of Environmental Management's representative to the committee, commented at one point.

What comes next?

The subcommittee ultimately voted unanimously to move forward with advance notice of rulemaking, with Gagnon saying that he was agreeing "reluctantly."

Going through the rulemaking process doesn't guarantee that the water type classification will change — it only means that the CRMC is considering that possibility.

There will be a 30-day comment period where the public can weigh in, while staff do their own analysis, Willis said. Ultimately, the full council would have to vote on the proposed change to state regulations.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: A RI country club wants the state to bend the rules for their seawall