Public hearings are Monday for proposed campground development on Carleton Island

Nov. 29—CAPE VINCENT — The Cape Vincent Zoning Board of Appeals and Planning Board will be holding separate public hearings on Monday for an application that would see Carleton Villa and the area around it developed into a campground, bed-and-breakfast and restaurant.

Ronald Clapp, of Palm Beach County, Florida, purchased the property in July 2022.

An application on the town's website states the villa would be renovated to become a bed-and-breakfast on the upper floors and a restaurant on the first floor.

The campground and glampground would include cabins and pre-built safari tents on the back part of the 6.9 acres between the north and south bays. They will be furnished, and camp-goers will only need camp supplies.

The area of the proposed campground is just downhill of the remains of Fort Haldimand, where there was once a robust shipbuilding operation. The HMS Ontario was constructed there and archeologists have long studied the area, finding artifacts from both the era of the fort and earlier when Native Americans lived on the island.

According to the island's history as recorded on Wikipedia, "North Bay or Schank's Harbor was home to Carleton Island Dockyard, a shipyard that operated from 1774 to 1792. Likely named for John Schank, a British shipbuilder. A military dock was located on the southwest end of the bay at Aubrey's Head. South Bay or Government Bay/Harbor was used by Royal Navy/Provincial Marine vessels servicing the fort until 1789."

People can stay for a night, for a weekend or for a week at the proposed campground/glampground. Clapp said the site will work similarly to an Airbnb.

There would also be a drilled well for water, septic tanks for sewage and the grid for electricity.

The application states they are anticipating construction from spring 2024 until that summer for the campground/glampground area. Villa restoration would not be complete until 2027.

The estimated occupant load would be 150 for the Villa's bed-and-breakfast and restaurant with 46 occupants estimated for the glampground.

The application calls for 23 campground/glampgrounds in several cabins and "safari tents" and a bathroom building.

Clapp said he became interested in the Villa a few years ago when he was looking online and found the property.

The idea of the bed-and-breakfast came first, then the first-floor restaurant.

"Not everyone is going to be interested in staying the night and/or be able to afford to do something like that, so the restaurant opens up the opportunity for pretty much anybody to be able to come and experience the Villa," he said.

Clapp said he was looking for waterfront properties, and this property has three waterfronts.

"I saw the opportunity to do a really cool project, I had no idea of the community impact of the project. I didn't buy it for that purpose. But this is going to really, I think in the end, really revitalize Cape Vincent," he said. "They've been doing a great job of their redevelopment projects that the village has been doing, that the town's been working on and doing. So this really feeds right into that."

Cody Higgins, Cape Vincent zoning officer, said the restoration, if approved, could bring in some more tourists to the town.

He added, though, that the scale of the project and meeting zoning law requirements "are going to be a challenge for (Clapp), I believe."

Higgins said the process is still in the early stages.

To be approved, Higgins said that Clapp will have to comply with all zoning laws for a special-use permit. Carleton Island is within the Cape Vincent Island District, which is entirely residential with only special exceptions for commercial properties, according to the zoning ordinance.

He said there are "bullet points" for zoning laws with a special-use permit that will need to be met in order to be approved. Higgins did not expand on what those would be, but said, "Being approved as it sits isn't likely."

Jake Tibbles, executive director of the Thousand Islands Land Trust, which owns the Fort Haldimand land and operated the Fort Haldimand Preserve, said that TILT received the notice of public hearing for the proposal on Carleton Island on Monday.

"TILT's interest in understanding the full scope of the proposal comes from our ownership of Fort Haldimand, which is at the head of Carleton Island, or what is known as the bluffs of Carleton Island," he said. "The fort was a British-occupied fort and holds significant archeological, cultural and historical significance and so we are interested in better understanding the impacts that the proposal would not only have on that resource and/or the island as a whole from an ecological standpoint."

TILT also holds the shoreline buffer zone easement and the interior forest conservation easement on the island, which are there to keep the natural and ecological integrity of the island intact. Tibbles said this is to limit the amount and type of development that can happen on the island.

"Hence why Carleton has, for the most part, remained natural and development has been kept to predominantly residential use," he said. "So at this time, the land trust, given that we just received the notice of the proposal (Monday) is in the fact-finding phase and looking to better understand the details surrounding the proposal and the short-term and long-term intent of the commercial activities proposed by Mr. Clapp," Tibbles said.

Todd G. Atkinson, who owns a property on Carleton Island, said he is opposed to the 46 occupants on the campsites, and also thinks that an occupant load of 150 for the bed-and-breakfast and restaurant is too much for the island.

There are about 34 homes on the island, mostly on lots of five acres or more. The Island District has minimum lot size zoning requirements.

"I don't see any obvious benefit to the town of Cape Vincent because the people would be camping on the island as opposed to camping in state parks and other things in the town of Cape Vincent along the river," he said.

Atkinson said that if Clapp built a single-family residence on five acres, that would be consistent with what is allowed in the Island District. He said Clapp could then apply for a special-use permit to rent it out, although he is unsure that Clapp would get that special-use permit.

When the island was developed in the late 1980s there was great care put into minimum acreage and the preservation of the island's history and open space.

"200 people on 6.9 acres is entirely inconsistent with the land usage on the rest of the island," Atkinson said.

He also said it "invites the possibility of trespass on other islanders' private property."

The public hearing with the zoning board of appeals is at 6 p.m. Monday at Recreation Park on South James Street. The planning board public hearing following at 7 p.m. is at the same location.