Middletown shoreline access confrontation turns into viral video – and it raises questions

A viral video confrontation between a Middletown property owner and a Newport resident trying to access a public right of way has generated over 6 million views on TikTok, sparking social media interest and conversation about public access to the shoreline.

“I think the real issue is that I wouldn’t have ended up on that property if the public access point wasn’t blocked,” Newport resident Cheyne Cousens said. “My intention is not to go around onto peoples’ private property. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

In the video, Cousens argues with property owner Randy Rauchle, who owns both the house behind the street, Esplanade, and a portion of the lawn abutting the shoreline, over Cousens’ legal right to be in that area. Rauchle tells Cousens multiple times to leave his property. Cousens says he was unintentionally trespassing on Rauchle’s property to try to find the public right of way to the beach below Rauchle’s lawn to go swimming.

The misunderstanding between the two stems from a sign near Rauchle’s property designating the space as a public access point. As it turns out, Rauchle's lawn abuts an 18-foot-wide strip down to the water, a Coastal Resources Management Council-designated shoreline access right of way dubbed “Y-05.” The sign for the public access point is hitched to the stop sign at the corner of Esplanade and Shore Drive, but nothing else delineates the space between Raucle’s lawn and the public right of way. Cousens said he walked down the right of way alongside a neighbor's hedges until he reached bushes and a cliff blocking his access. He then walked over to Raucle’s stairwell on his private lawn to see if that was the way down. That was when Raucle confronted him.

Insults and expletives were exchanged by both parties, and Rauchle later called the police on Cousens, deciding to pursue criminal charges for willful trespassing. Cousens was charged on July 22 after turning himself into Middletown police and released on a District Court summons. He's scheduled to appear in court Aug. 18.

Cousens’s video blew up on TikTok over the weekend. In interviews with the Boston Globe and The Newport Daily News, Cousens said he regretted how he handled the initial interaction but still had concerns about the accessibility of that CRMC right of way.

“If there was a sign there that said ‘Public access unavailable at this location due to erosion,’ or whatever the backstory is, that would have been simple and I would have turned around,’” Cousens said. “You only find out there’s private property there when you get to the top of those stairs, so you’ve already crossed onto private property.”

He’s not alone in his confusion surrounding this right of way, either. The 61,000-member-strong Facebook group Saving RI Coastal Access caught wind of the video, thanks in part to Cousens' sending the information along to his friend Conrad Ferla, an administrator and active member of the group. Since then, Facebook users have been combing through old CRMC and Middletown documents and aerial footage to get a better understanding of the status of CRMC ROW Y-05.

“I’ve had it on my radar for a couple years,” Ferla said. “There’s a problem in Middletown regarding shoreline access and it's coming from the high turnover of these little cottages turning into McMansions being owned by investors from out of state who see this as a giant piece of investment … by Cheyne doing what he did, it brings enough attention to it that people start to discuss it and an organic movement to solve these issues can happen.”

What’s up with the public access point?

The CRMC access point Y-05 sits about 1,000 feet from Atlantic Beach and its sister access point Y-08. It’s in a wealthy Middletown neighborhood occasionally referred to as Easton’s Point – not to be confused with The Point neighborhood in downtown Newport – and million-dollar homes line Esplanade.

Documents reveal the path was established in 1993 through a CRMC hearing and evidence pointed to a set of plans from 1920 that drew an 18.3-foot wide right of way extending 70 feet from Esplanade to a stairway that leads to the shoreline. While Y-05 won its CRMC designation, even back in 1993, records indicated access to the water through this point was dangerous and needed maintenance to ensure access to the shoreline as the path led to a steep eroded bank, rocky incline and a rusted, abandoned steel stairway on the shore.

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The nonprofit Clean Ocean Access would end up adopting the access point through the CRMC’s Adopt-an-Access program, alongside five others. The memorandum of agreement signed by the town, Clean Ocean Access and the CRMC designates the town of Middletown as being responsible for the maintenance of the area, including “designating tasks necessary to ensure continuous and safe access to the shore,” while Clean Ocean Access is responsible for monitoring the site and reporting its condition to the town and clean up.

In Clean Ocean’s Access’s most recent accessible access report published for 2021, it noted Y-05 was the only one of Middletown’s 10 CRMC ROWs without direct access to the waterfront and the condition of the access point is “almost impossible and getting worse.” Clean Ocean Access states in the report its action plan is to reach out to the town to explore “a safer and more accessible footpath to the water.” The organization provided the same comments on Y-05 in its 2017 report and its 2018 report.

Clean Ocean Access has not responded to The Newport Daily News’ request for comment. The Town of Middletown asked all questions on the right of way be directed to the CRMC. Ferla said the best way to resolve this problem is to make the public access point accessible again.

“There’s an easy solution here: Remove the hedges on the right of way, maintain and clear the right of way and let's restore a set of stairs, and if we have to get a grant to do so, then let’s do it,” Ferla said. “There’s a ton of money out there for things like this. Let’s solve it. Let’s not kick the can down the road. Let’s come up with a solution.”

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Shoreline access in Middletown leads to confrontation, viral video