Block Island Times

Supreme Court denies Champlin’s expansion deal with CRMC

The Rhode Island Supreme Court issued an order late Friday, March 26, denying the motion to “incorporate and merge” the Memo of Understanding crafted by Champlin’s Realty Associates and the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council that would have granted the right of the marina to expand 156 feet into the waters of the Great Salt Pond.
The MOU was approved in an executive session of the CRMC’s meeting on December 29, 2020 with no parties representing, and without the knowledge of the Town of New Shoreham, the Committee for the Great Salt Pond, the Block Island Land Trust, the Block Island Conservancy and the Conservation Law Foundation – the intervenors in the case that has stretched out for over 17 years and is now in the Supreme Court under appeal by Champlin’s.
The news of the December deal caused the intervenors to jump into action, filing additional motions before the court objecting to the MOU and the process by which it was arrived. R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha, also objecting to the process, quickly filed his own motion to the court to be accepted as an intervenor. Curiously, in a footnote to the court’s order, it says:

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