A landowner in Eastport has donated a tiny, wooded island to the city, making it accessible to the public for the first time in more than 60 years.
The City Council Wednesday voted to accept the gift of Dyer Island, a speck of land on the eastern side of Eastport, from its owner Basil Pottle.
Pottle decided to give it to the city because zoning regulations forbid building anything on the island and he had no other need for it, said Carolina Castello, the town’s code enforcement officer.
“You can’t even put a picnic table there,” she said.
There are no structures on the 0.36-acre island that pre-date the introduction of shoreland zoning either, and it will remain untouched.
But it could be a choice place to paddle out and explore now that it is publicly owned. The rhombus-shaped island is near Pottle’s Seaview Campground and Cottages on Passamaquoddy Bay and only a few hundred feet from shore.
“If you’ve got a kayak, you can go do a picnic,” Castello said.
Before being passed onto the city, the island was in the Pottle family going back to at least the 1950s.