Special Area Management Plans – SAMPs are ecosystem-based management strategies designed to preserve and restore ecological systems. Recognized at the federal level as a regulatory document, SAMPs are developed and implemented in coordination with local municipalities, as well as government agencies and community organizations. Plan...
William (Bill) Needelman, Waterfront Coordinator for the City of Portland, ME discusses the context and evolution of waterfront zoning in the City. The working waterfront is a defining characteristic of Portland, but the condominium boom of the 1980’s threatened to displace traditional fishing uses. Mr....
Portland, Maine, has over 30 years of experience in balancing maritime and non-marine uses along its waterfront. Compatibility between marine and non-marine uses has always been important to the City's approach to waterfront zoning. Residential uses and hotels are not allowed, while other uses are...
Since the inception of New York’s Coastal Management Program in 1982, many local governments throughout the state’s coastal region have participated in the Department of State Division of Coastal Resource’s signature effort – its Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP), and developed comprehensive land and water-use...
The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance is an alliance of more than 700 organizations with ties to the waterways of New York and New Jersey. Together they are working to transform the waters of New York and New Jersey Harbor into clean and accessible places to learn,...
Wayne Davis, commercial lobsterman from Tremont Maine, was interviewed to capture his family’s experience using the Maine Working Waterfront Access Protection Plan (WWAPP) to secure the Davis wharf’s future as a commercial fishing pier in perpetuity. Davis describes the important history of the Davis wharf...
Shey Conover, of the Island Institute in Maine, describes the Maine Working Waterfront Mapping Inventory effort that her organization, with many partners, conducted in the mid 2000s. Conover describes how the Maine Working Waterfront Coalition was striving to provide communities with tools to protect their...
Maine has a long tradition of public access to private coastal property. Notably, Maine is one of only a few U.S. states where coastal property owners own to the mean low tide line subject to a colonial-era easement for "fishing, fowling and navigation.” Yet in recent decades,...
Sarah Garcia, former Community Development Director and Harbor Planning Director, Gloucester, Massachusetts, was interviewed to document the community’s experience in completing an economic assessment to better understand the economic contribution of waterfront activities. Ms. Garcia discusses the history of Gloucester, the long standing polarization around...
Gloucester Harbor (Massachusetts) is the center of one of the country’s most important commercial fishing communities; its docks are lined with vessels of various types and its waterfront is dominated by facilities and services associated with the seafood industry. In recent decades, as groundfish stocks...