By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 18, 2006; B01
David Clickner thinks of Dobbins Island, a crescent of wooded bluffs on the Magothy River, as his future home. Much of the Chesapeake Bay boating community regards it as a public beach.
The standoff was all but inevitable.
It came on Fourth of July weekend. Boaters arrived at Clickner's island to find thick wood pilings, the makings of an imposing fence, planted across much of the beach. The owner returned this weekend to finish the job, stringing a chain across the sand as an audience of anchored boaters watched. Dobbins Island -- its beach, hiking paths and wild interior -- was officially closed.
"It's a shame," said Gerard Donohue, a Pasadena man who hovered with his sons in shallow water just beyond the fence. "A lot of people come here with their kids to enjoy this."
The fencing of Dobbins Island might mark the end of an era. Generations of boaters have dropped anchor at the landmark of the lower Magothy to picnic, pitch tents, carouse and explore. Their presence was never legal -- apart from a sliver of beach, the island is private property. But previous owners never did much to stop the visitors, and the occasional "No Trespassing" signs wouldn't stay up long.
Clickner, however, wants to build a year-round home on the seven-acre island, which he purchased in 2004. And he does not envision living at the center of a perpetual cookout.
"My parents raised me to respect other people's property," he said, and he wants the boaters to respect his. "There's drugs and all kinds of stuff going on out there. It's basically a place that has been left without rules."
Once part of a larger land mass, Dobbins Island endures as a wedge of Chesapeake Bay antiquity. Indians once dwelt there. Pirates were said to have hidden treasure in the bluffs. An ancient Dutch shipwreck was once visible off its shore. Previous owners used the land for tobacco farming and livestock grazing. The foundation of a home from the early 20th century is there.
The Dobbins family was said to have allowed public use of the cove, and subsequent owners upheld that tradition.
Clickner and his neighbor, Daryl Wagner, represent the hermetic fringe of a movement to upend tradition. Landowners across Anne Arundel County are developing old summer homes and fishing camps into waterfront dream homes.
Wagner, an Annapolis area developer, built his 3,200-square-foot house on Little Island, a few hundred yards north of the big island, five years ago without the proper permits. Neighbors marveled at his nerve. Environmentalists pounced. They see the Little Island home as the most blatant violation to date of state laws that restrict development along the shores of the Chesapeake -- an entire house built without permission within the strictest environmental buffer in Maryland.
Clickner is seeking permission before he builds. The county rejected the first house he proposed, then the second. He recently submitted plans for a third.
River advocates are fighting him, just as they have fought Wagner. Each case largely centers on the 100-foot buffer that extends inward from the shoreline of the Chesapeake, and on whether either island has enough land outside the buffer -- envision a hole within a doughnut -- to sustain a home. Septic systems also loom large in the proceedings.
Paul Spadaro, president of the Magothy River Association, has emerged as the nemesis to both projects. In Clickner's case, Spadaro contends that the island owner should have foreseen the perils of building on a land mass that perennially ranks among the most popular anchorages in the bay.
"The bottom line is: He should have known he was buying an island that was a de facto park," Spadaro said. "I mean, it's been used for generations."
Clickner and his sons were sawing fence posts Saturday morning when Spadaro arrived with some guests in a fishing boat. "See what he's doing?" Spadaro said as he drew near. "He's blocking public access." Twenty boats had arrived at the cove by noon. One was hosting a floating birthday party. No one crossed the fence.
The river group contends that the fence, portions of which were submerged Saturday morning, leaves too little space for the public to enjoy the most popular stretch of beach. And although visitors who venture beyond the high-tide line are technically guilty of trespassing, Spadaro said his group can document a long history of previous owners allowing more or less unfettered access. The fence looks to Spadaro "as if you were trying to keep the invasion from D-Day off your island."
Clickner grew up on the Magothy. He said his dispute is not with the boaters who anchor peaceably around his island on weekends but rather with "the ones who are urinating on the trees, who are doing things that you would not want children to be exposed to."
His fence is legal, allowed within the environmental buffer because it is not impervious to water. Police from Maryland's Department of Natural Resources say the fence will help them prosecute trespassers, something they could not easily do without a palpable line in the sand.
"Look, people, this isn't public land. This is private property," said Sgt. Ken Turner of the state Natural Resources Police. "Respect the rights of this landowner, and stay off his property."