Compromise Paves Way For Dover Beach Seawall

A new seawall is coming to Dover Beach in Fair Haven, along with two brand new playgrounds. Thank the resolution of an environmental debate between the city and state and the lousy economy.

The city’s landscape architect, David Moser ​‚told 20 members of the Friends of Dover Beach and Q Terrace residents Wednesday night that after a two-and-a-half-year wrangle, the state Department of Environmental Protection has awarded a permit for the repair and rebuilding of the long-deteriorated seawall.

At issue was whether to repair the wall in its entirety — the city’s position. Or let the Q River have its way in eroded sections. The latter was DEP’s position, seeing erosion as a natural process to be respected.

The compromise was to repoint the rebuild the whole length from the Middletown Avenue underpass to approximately Peck Drive, but also to plant 3,000 spartina plants to protect and replace the new habitat areas.

G.L. Capasso, headquartered nearby in Fair Haven Heights, came in with the low bid of $272,000, was awarded the contract, and will begin work as soon as the weather permits. Moser (pictured) attributed the good price, and the 23 other contractors who came to the pre-bid event, to the bad economy.

Area kids like Lamar Frazier are the beneficiaries

Moser said the bid was so good and so surprisingly low that $316,000 was left over for Dover Beach Park improvements. Meeting for more than two years, the Friends had established as the two top priorities a splash pad and two age-specific playgrounds.

The $316.000 couldn’t cover both. So what would it be? Moser asked. To splash or to play? By a unanimous vote, Moser was directed to put out the bids for the playgrounds.

“Playground equipment is more important,” said Jessica Frazier (pictured with her son Lamar), the vice president of Q Terrace’s residents council. You can’t put a splash pad out there in the middle of nowhere.”

She said she’d surveyed many of the families at Q Terrace, and the vote reflected their feeling. Her talkative 2‑year-old, Lamar ​‚agreed.

Q Terrace family support manager Demetria McMillian said the development alone has about 60 kids like Lamar age 2 to 5, and another 90 from 5 to 12.

Lamar will play in the little-kid playground to be positioned next to where the current swings are. (The swings will also be renovated.) A playground for 5 to 12 year-olds will be several yards to the north east, closer to the water.

To allay parents’ concerns about safety, both playgrounds will be surrounded by four-foot high ornamental fencing.

“The kids have been waiting a long time for this,” said Mary Ann Moran. She is active in the Chatham Square Neighborhood Association and did informal surveys of the kids she works with at Clinton Avenue School. Her survey agreed with Frazier’s.

The approximate $642,000 pot of money for the seawall and park improvements reflects $519,000 left over and set aside by the developers of Q Terrace as part of their Hope VI program and about $123,000 put in by the parks department through its capital budget, said Moser.

This phase of Dover Beach improvements will include the playgrounds, swing renovation, nine lights on posts, similar to Q Terrace’s. Requested by the police department, the lights will be installed for safety along the sea wall. Six steel bollards will also be installed on Front Street at the park’s curb cuts; their job is to keep people from driving in to use the boat ramp.

Neighbor Crystal Manning asked: Why keep people out with bollards and not invite them in to use the boat ramp? Answer: a road would have to be put in, it’s too close to the playgrounds, and DEP would have to be involved again.

Doing an additional boat ramp on the north end of the park near Middletown Avenue was noted, but as a future project.

The sea wall repair will also include replacement of 175 feet of chain link from approximately the boat ramp to Del Rio Drive.

Click here and here for previous stories about Dover Beach.

The sea wall and playgrounds should both be finished by end of summer or early fall, said Moser. However, Capasso cannot work, he added, on the water side between June 1 and Sept. 15, which is the shellfish spawning season.