By JOHN HOWELL
This could be the end, the last summer for the residents of
Rocky Beach.
They know it, but they don’t want to think about it. Of those
interviewed Tuesday, none have made plans should they receive an
eviction notice from the Small Business Administration that owns
the neighborhood of seasonal and year-round cottages and
bungalows.
Little appears to have changed in the neighborhood. Small
sailboats and motorboats pull at their moorings offshore, flags
adorn many of the cottages and the dirt roads that weave among the
faded buildings are, as they have always been, rutted.
Nonetheless, the day when residents must leave appears
inevitable. As a group the more than 40 families that have houses
on property they formally leased from the owners of Rocky Point
Amusement Park were not able to come up with the $11.25 million
the SBA wanted for the land. That price was based on the $25
million Vanderbilt LLC bid to acquire the park property, including
Rocky Beach.
Year-round Rocky Beach residents since 1990, Richard and Anna
Kozlowski are resigned that they will have to move…someday.
“I felt they were beating a dead horse. There’s no way to raise
the money,” Anna said of the Rocky Beach Association efforts to
legally fight the eventual sale of the land to Vanderbilt LLC.
The firm wants to build more than 300 housing units on the
combined beach and park properties. Feeling they were fighting a
losing battle, the Kozlowskis dropped out of the association and
stopped paying legal fee assessments.
But knowing they will have to walk away from their home and
doing it are two different things.
“In the back of my mind I’m thinking everything is going to be
okay, but I know it isn’t,” said Anna. They haven’t started
looking for a house or considered where else they might go.
Yet, after the First Circuit Court of Appeals hears the
association appeal in September, and should it uphold the SBA’s
contention that it properly tendered the association first refusal
to buy the land, then they could be told to go at anytime.
“I’m not asking for them to come and buy the house,” said Anna.
“But they need to realize we’re here and to deal with us as well.”
The Kozlowskis contend as year-round residents they’re in a
different situation than summer residents who obviously have some
place to go.
“We have nowhere to go,” said Anna. She suggests SBA assistance
in relocating would be helpful.
A year-round resident for the past five years, Elaine Peloquin
faces the same dilemma.
“What am I going to plan?” she asks. “I have no money.”
Peloquin calls herself a “survivor” and is confident she’ll
find an apartment. “The hard part,” she says, “will be getting rid
of my dogs. Without them my life will be pretty empty.”
There’s more to it than canine loyalty. Peloquin has grown
attached to Rocky Beach. She knows the people and found the place
has “soul.” She’s revolted by the prospect that luxury homes and
condos will someday replace the collection of shacks, some more
elaborate than others, that dot the sloping field overlooking
Narragansett Bay and the distant shoreline of Bristol. She knows
the land is valuable, and when finished the new homes will sell
for big bucks.
“People like me with no money will get stuck in a hole in a
wall so people with money can live here,” she says.
John Meketsy, who has been listening to Peloquin, nods his
head. “It’s about money. That’s all it is,” he said.
Meketsy has been spending his summers at Rocky Beach for the
past 51 years. He doubts this will be the last summer, although he
concludes the end is near. This year, Meketsy arrived in May from
Tampa. He plans to return in October. Meketsy predicts when the
end comes it won’t be easy.
“A lot of people are going to sit in front of their homes and
say take me out,” he said.
“They’re this big distant thing,” said Peloquin, “that’s what’s
going to kick us out of here.”
Meketsy and Peloquin know of the SBA’s $150,000 offer to end
the association’s legal battle, but when divvied up they say it
would give each homeowner about $3,000. It’s not enough, in their
opinion, especially for those who will lose year-round housing.
“If they want to look fair, then treat us fair,” said Peloquin.
The Kozlowskis observe while they have not had to pay rent for
the last three years, apparently an action of the SBA so as not to
suggest there is any form of lease agreement, the SBA still
responds to the community. They note the SBA recently had a broken
water pipe repaired, that it continues to provide dumpsters and
that it plows the snow in the winter.
“We’re trespassers, and yet they’re taking care of us,” said
Anna.
But, like trespassers, the Kozlowskis know the time will come
when the SBA tells them to get off the property. They, and others,
evidently haven’t planned on what they will do
then.
