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It appears Marco City Councilor Wayne Waldack’s recommendation to “keep it simple” when it comes to ordinances such as the boat dock facilities ordinance may have to be considered.

The Planning Board met Friday to discuss changes to the boat dock ordinance and a complexity in the revisions received much scrutiny from some Planning Board members as well as at least one resident.

The Waterways Committee reviewed the dock ordinance revisions in their June 26 meeting and prepared a response for the Planning Board to consider in a July 11 letter to City Planner Bryan Milk.

The Waterways Committee’s believed the main purpose for changes to the ordinance was to “reduce restrictions” on boat docks, according to the letter. The committee proposed that two new provisions, which would be restrictive on boat docks, should be deleted from the changes proposed.

Milk requested the Planning Board’s direction on these two issues, which included an extension of the required side yard setback and a limit on the allowable boat deck area.

Don Dilk is a member of the Waterways Committee but spoke to the board as an individual concerned about what the consequences the ordinance changes would have on a boater owner such as himself.

Dilk said he owns a 70-foot motor yacht and received a variance to dock the yacht at his home.

“We currently have a 30-foot setback between each dock. If you can’t maneuver between 30 feet your have no right owning a boat,” he said, adding that doubling the required side yard setback was an “unreasonable restriction.”

Milk said the reason for the restriction was that he believed docks which protruded out further into the waterways, particularly perpendicular or angled docks, would create a problem for boats which dock parallel to the seawall and pontoon boat operators in particular.

Pontoons are not very maneuverable, Milk added.

“We need to be careful of unintended consequences,” said planning board member Brian Moss regarding the restrictions faced by large boats with the side yard set backs recommended by the planning department.

Another concern raised by Dilk which also reflected the concerns in the Waterways Committee’s letter, was the proposed restrictions for the boat dock and deck area to 1,100 and 1,400 square feet respectively, Dilk said. He used his 70-foot yacht as an example. A homeowner with a 100-foot seawall and a 70-foot boat would need 1,400 feet for the boat alone and if you added five feet for the dock and five feet for the mooring pilings, the total square footage for the docking facility would need to be 2,100 square foot, he said.

Planning Board members seemed to agree.

“We don’t want to chase away the big boats,” said Planning Board member Marv Needles.

Moss recommended three issues be reviewed by the planning department before the board voted on the ordinance changes.

“I’m a really big believer that if you write our ordinances properly we don’t need exceptions. This should reduce the time and expense to both the public and the staff,” Moss said.

In addition to eliminating changes to the side yard set back requirements and removing the boat dock and deck area restrictions, the board recommended a more general approach to the allowable protrusion of dock facilities into the waterways. They requested Milk come back with the ordinance allowing for a boat dock facility to protrude 20 percent into the waterway with a maximum protrusion of 30-feet.

Milk will be revamping the boat dock ordinance which will go before the Planning Board one more time before being forwarded to City Council, said Community Development Director Steve Olmsted.

“Keep it simple,” Moss said.