Barge in residential canal attracts complaints

In the canals of Country Club Shores, you’ll see bay views, personal watercraft, motorboats and for now, a construction barge behind an empty lot on Halyard Lane.

Code enforcement officer Chris Kopp said that barges like this aren’t uncommon along a waterfront, but perhaps less so in a residential canal. 

“It’s not that we’re playing whack-a-mole chasing them around, but we have seen it before,” Kopp said. 

It’s actually not a code violation, but as it’s huge and piled with concrete, canal neighbor Susan Helfrick would like to see it removed — it’s a residential canal, not a free parking spot for the business, she said. When the wind is high, she can hear it creaking and scraping in the canal and said she’s surprised more residents haven’t complained, as she’s seen tight squeezes between personal boats and the barge. 

Another resident notified Kopp on Oct. 19 that the barge was there and had been since Sept. 11. It’s not actually violating any town codes, Kopp said, but he wanted to help and tried to get creative. There is an ordinance that states that no “unsightly materials” may remain on a property for more than five days, but that would mean the homeowner would get fined or cited, and the homeowner didn’t put the barge there. 

“I’m playing the middleman between the dock company and the HOA and they (the company) said they’d move it,” Kopp said. 

Helfrick noted on Oct. 27 that the barge was still present. 

The operators of the barge, Duncan Seawall, Dock and Boatlift Co., did not return phone calls seeking comment. 

The left-behind boat scenario will sound familiar to Longboat residents: There’s currently a beached sailboat on the sand near 4239 Gulf of Mexico Drive that’s also been there since mid-September.

It has a hole in the side and is filled with sand, and Kopp said the ease of access for the two is what makes the situations different; plus, the sailboat is violating the “abandoned vessels” ordinance. 

“The barge is movable and the barge owner can just move it away,” Kopp said. “The owner of the sailboat can’t move it.”