WESTERLY, R.I. — Observers hoping for a quick resolution to the Spring Avenue Extension coastal access point are sure to be disappointed.

The Coastal Resources Management Council’s right of way (ROW) subcommittee opened its first evidentiary hearing Nov. 4. It’s the first chance both sides have had to produce evidence that proves or disproves if the ROW is truly open to the public.

For two and a half hours — with a single 15-minute break — the subcommittee heard testimony from witnesses, including title attorney Joseph Priestly, as attorneys representing the town of Westerly tried to prove to council members using decades-old plat maps the public status of the ROW.

“It’s a public highway open for access by the public and will remain so until abandoned by the town of Westerly,” Priestly testified. “Assuming that it has not been, it remains a public highway.”

Priestly added he had seen no evidence indicating the town had abandoned the ROW, either formally or informally, but noted he had not specifically looked for evidence of abandonment either. He also testified to subcommittee members that he saw no maintenance obligation by Westerly in the land evidence records.

A key point of evidence for supporters of the right of way is a 1939 plat map that has the ROW labeled. Westerly solicitor William Conley said for the ROW to be accepted under common law jurisprudence was a plat map depicting the ROW, and proof that it was open to the public historically, which would count as the town “accepting” the ROW without formally adopting it.

“By the late 1800s the Weekapaug Beach was a thriving beach community, there were hotels, it was a wonderful place to visit,” Conley said in his opening remarks. “But the only access for all those people from the trolley cars and hotels was the Spring Avenue right of way.”

But attorney Joseph Farside, representing the Weekapaug Fire District, which opposes labeling the Spring Avenue Extension as a public right of way, said in his opening remarks it was only one piece of evidence among many others that contradicted it, and said supporters of shoreline access were “trying to speak a right of way into existence.”

“It does not make all the ways on that plat public,” Farside said. “This is confirmed by two other roads shown on that plat map, Meadow and Shawmut, which remain private roads to this day as conceded by the town itself.”

Farside said the town never accepted Spring Avenue Extension as a right of way, even if it was dedicated. The ROW has been fenced off, undeveloped and untouched, said Farside, and a 1940 report from the Town Council shows it was not a public right of way. Aerial photos, said Farside, do not show a path over the Spring Avenue Extension, and rights to grant easements over the ROW to organizations like the Weekapaug Beach Company, a predecessor to the fire district, has never been a power held by the town.

“Proponents are guided by the blind hope that this subcommittee will sympathize with them, ignore their burden of proof and bend the public pressure to access what we call the beach, a piece of land owned by the fire district and its predecessor since at least 1884,” Farside said.

The legal tug-of-war over the Spring Avenue Extension ROW is nearly three years old. Members of CRMC’s ROW subcommittee accepted it as a contested case in early 2023, and over the past two and a half years the two sides in the case have been operating similarly to a lawsuit: making motions, filing depositions, entering discovery, and exchanging evidence.

It’s no surprise that once lawyers became involved, CRMC’s officials’ hopes of a quick and speedy resolution were dashed, and the evidentiary hearing indicated it would be a long process.

The subcommittee has already taken its first round of public testimony as to the right of way, at a packed meeting in Town Hall in September. CRMC executive director said at that meeting the agency was hoping to reach a final decision on the ROW within the next year.

Future subcommittee hearings for evidence are expected to be scheduled, with a second round of public input on the Spring Avenue Extension to follow after the hearings for the lawyers conclude.