Erosion near Reel Point is concern as Town Board reviews bulkhead, jetty proposal

A long neglected waterfront house, its failed bulkhead and wooden groins, and problems for neighbors — including erosion that might threaten to cut off Reel Point from Ram Island — prompted some heated discussion Friday when the Town Board aired Lawrence Kogel’s application for a permit to rebuild the shore-hardening structures at his property.

The last bayside house on Club Drive north of Reel Point, the property has appeared abandoned for many years. “Personally I have a lot of concerns about this,” Councilman Peter Reich said of the application, including the location where 1,700 to 1,800 yards of fill would be dumped behind a rebuilt bulkhead as well as the need for that much fill.

He questioned the location of the proposed bulkhead, which he said appears to well below the mean high water mark. He asserted that moving the proposed bulkhead inland from the location of the existing failed bulkhead — which he said was 12 feet out toward the bay — would eliminate the need for so much fill.
He claimed that the plans on file with the town did not reflect the reality of a bulkhead’s location in relation to the shoreline. “We’re trying to recreate something that never existed,” he said of the proposal.

Councilman Ed Brown noted a “scalloped area” on the narrow isthmus between Coecles Harbor and the bay to the south of the Kogel property and just north of Reel Point.

For more details about the Town Board hearing on the case, see the July 26 edition of the Reporter.