Floating home would be safety hazard, foes say
SHELDON
S. SHAFER - The Courier-Journal
For years, Steve Schoening says, he has dreamed of living in a floating home
anchored at Towhead Island, just upriver from the old Big Four Bridge.
He would watch rowers pass and "be able to fish off the back of my
house, take a swim, walk up and down the island, and in Waterfront
Park, feed the ducks. All with beautiful downtown Louisville as a
backdrop."
The Nugent Sand Co. executive envisioned, in fact, a "community"
of floating residences tied up there.
But that idyllic plan, for even one house, is a bad idea, according to the Waterfront
Development Corp., which voted last week to oppose a permit for it that is
pending before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The permit application was filed by Towhead Island Co. LLC, the Nugent
affiliate that owns Towhead Island the company planned to lease docking
space to Schoening for a barge on which the residence would be constructed.
But waterfront agency spokesman Mike Kimmel said the proposal raises
"a lot of safety issues." He said the floating home would protrude
about 40 feet into the 200-foot-wide channel between the southern edge of
the uninhabited island and the Kentucky shoreline.
Although commercial river traffic isn't allowed in that waterway, pleasure boats
are. Kimmel noted that the waterway also is used by rowers from the nearby Louisville
Rowing Club and by boats docked at the Louisville Municipal Boat
Harbor near Towhead.
The residence "would inhibit those who use the chute," Kimmel
said, adding that craft going around the floating home also could have
trouble seeing boats coming in the opposite direction.
Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson, a member of the waterfront board, sent a
separate letter last week to the corps objecting to the floating-residence
plan. He said rescue crews might have trouble responding to an emergency on
a barge or on the island, whether it was caused by flooding, fire or other
problem. He also said he feared a floating home would "compromise
safety."
The corps has given agencies and the public until Friday to comment on the
application for the permit . The comment period opened Oct. 1.
Corps manager Amy Babey said the agency probably will decide by the end of
the year whether to grant the permit.
She said the corps must, by law, consider such factors as environmental and
safety issues and any impact on aquatic, archaeological or historic
resources or on river navigation. It also must consider if there are better
alternatives, such as a more suitable site , she said.
Babey said there are a few floating homes on the Indiana shore near
Jeffersonville, but she wasn't aware of any similar large ones on the
Jefferson County side.
Schoening strongly defends the project.
He said that if the users of the channel communicate and notify each other
when they plan to use the waterway, problems can be worked out. "We all
have equal property rights," he said.
Schoening added that the Louisville Metro Police river patrol would
make emergency runs, if needed, to Towhead, just as it does with any river
emergency. He said the channel is not used for commercial traffic "and
is used by very few pleasure craft." The waterway between the island
and the Kentucky shore is a "no wake zone."
As proposed, the barge home would have four levels, including a small
"widow's watch," or top observation deck.
It would be docked near the center of the island. The 35-foot-wide dock
would rise and fall with the river level.
The house would be built on a 30-by-30-foot barge anchored at the dock. It
would include a "boat garage" for a 25-foot boat, a
screened porch, decks, a kitchen, den, and several bathrooms and bedrooms.
Power would be provided by an electric generator.
Schoening, who now lives in eastern Jefferson County, said he would live on
the barge at least part of the year, including the summer.
The proposed site is across from the Louisville Rowing Club's
facility near Stop Lite Liquors. That facility is used by high school and
University of Louisville rowers, other amateur rowers and for a
program for disabled people who row.
Tori Murden McClure, a club member who made history by rowing the Atlantic
Ocean in 1999, said the channel between Towhead and the shore is used almost
daily by rowers.
Murden McClure added that when docks were recently built at Waterfront
Park, it created a "huge problem" for rowers, eliminating two of
four available lanes.
She said the rowers, recognizing the benefits of Waterfront Park,
"were willing to bite the bullet on that one." But the proposed
home would probably eliminate use of another lane for rowers, "making
it difficult to train. … It would be really constrained."
Schoening said he doesn't want to "screw up" the rowing exercises.
But Towhead Island Co. LLC "will want to develop the Waterfront
Park side of the island at some point. " And someday, he said, "We
feel that a marina or a community of (floating homes) would be
appropriate."
Two years ago then-Louisville Mayor Dave Armstrong proposed trading
about 10 acres of riverfront land opposite Towhead for the 15-acre island,
which he wanted to keep as a preserve.
The deal died, however, because the old Board of Aldermen was reluctant to
swap developable land for an uninhabited island that frequently floods.