Johnsburg, local yacht club in fight over boat storage; at issue is zoning waiver granted back in 1970

For 53 years, the Pistakee Yacht Club in Johnsburg has been using an empty lot next door for a single purpose, members say: as a place for them to park boats and trailers, a privilege that comes with membership.

In fact, members say, a variance granted to the club in 1970 by McHenry County allows them to store boats and trailers on the site adjacent to the clubhouse and docks at 3300 N. Rocky Beach Road.

“We have been doing this forever,” Mary O’Malley, commodore of the club, said in an interview last week.

The village, however, contends the yacht club is misusing the property, questions the validity of the long-ago zoning variance and – indicative of the growing tensions between the two entities – has now issued a citation against the yacht club with the threat of large fines if it doesn’t clean up the lot.

“We observed that the property is being utilized for private boat storage purposes,” according to a village letter sent to the club on May 4. As the property is zoned residential, the letter says, it does not permit the storage of boats other than those owned by the club.

The 1970 variance, the letter went on to say, “provided for the property to be used for private parking purposes to accommodate ... members when attending events and activities at the club. The storage ... is inconsistent with the variance.”

After months of back-and-forth letters, the issue nearly came to a head at the Sept. 26 village board meeting. That agenda included a closed board session to discuss “probable and imminent litigation related to ongoing zoning violations associated with the Pistakee Yacht Club.” The closed session was not held.

Instead, the club on Friday received from the village a code violation citation. It cited village rules for the parking of watercraft and other recreational vehicles in residential zones and gave the club 40 days to remove boats and trailers not owned by the club. After that, fines of $200 per day per violation would be enforced.

Club members said they have been trying to clean up the lot. But they’re unsure why the village is trying now to change how the property has been used.

“We have had members move boats we thought might have been the issue,” O’Malley said.

Village President Ed Hettermann, in an emailed response to questions, said the issue is that the club’s use of the property ”has significantly changed recently, consistent with the Yacht Club’s aim to increase revenues through the offering of commercial boat storage.”

It is that change, he wrote, that resulted in nuisance violations.

Club members deny they have changed how the property is used, or that they are using the lot for commercial boat storage.

Being able to park boats at the club – either on its Pistakee Lake dock or on the property across Rocky Beach Road – has always been a perk of club membership, said Mark O’Malley, the former club commodore and husband of Mary O’Malley, who holds the job now.

Last year, he said, club rules changes so that, if a member’s boat had not been in the water for a year, “it has to go somewhere else. They can’t park it there and forget it.”

“We have been doing this forever.”

—  Mary O’Malley, Pistakeee Yacht Club commodore

“That was well before the village got involved to eliminate boats, trailers and pier sections that were not being used” in the empty lot, he said.

Other changes included charging a different membership rate for members who stored their boats in the lot, versus those who did not, Mark O’Malley said. Either way, he said, boat parking has always been a part of the small club’s dues and fees and only club members can park boats there.

It isn’t just the recent changes to how the club operates that Johnsburg is disputing.

The mayor, in his email to the Northwest Herald, also asserts that, back when the variance was issued in 1970, neighbors were never notified that the property was planned for boat storage.

Rather, he said, possible uses for the land mentioned in village documents at the time included “tennis courts, a swimming pool, archery, shuffleboard and juvenile equipment.”

“There is no reference to boat storage in the zoning notice or petition as required by law both then and now. The Yacht Club elected not to request boat storage in its petition and elected not to put people on notice that the property would in fact be used for boat storage,” Hetterman wrote.

A copy of the legal notice for the meeting held on March 11, 1970, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, indicates the club sought a zoning change “for various club functions.”

What the county’s Zoning Appeals Board decided in 1970 matters because when the yacht club was annexed into Johnsburg in 1991, variances approved before then were grandfathered in – as long as there were no significant changes to how the property was used.

Whose interpretation of the variance is correct might depend on how one reads the 1970 zoning board ordinance.

The variance allowed the Pistakee Yacht Club “to use and develop the said premises for private club parking and recreational purposes, and to erect storage facilities for small boats to be used by Pistakee Yach Club members. Provided, however, that no residential structure shall be permitted on the site, nor shall any installation of septic or sewage disposal facilities be allowed.”

The yacht club’s variance “was done according to the way it was supposed to be done” 50 years ago, Mary O’Malley said.

The club has been in existence since 1897 and never had issues with the village before May, she added.

If club members cannot store boats on the property “it severely impacts our ability to be a yacht club,” Mary O’Malley said.

“We rely on those funds to maintain the yacht club,” she said.

At the Sept. 26 village board meeting, Mark O’Malley said the village and the yacht club had talked as recently as 2013 about Johnsburg taking over the clubhouse and other facilities there.

The yacht club chose not to sell its property to the village then. “I sincerely hope this is not an attempt to resurrect this matter,” Mark O’Malley said.