Windmill Cove Resort and Marina Leasing Information

The leases, assignments, and amendments are available in the Lease Documents section of this post.

The lessee, Windmill Cove Resort and Marina, LLC, breached the lease with the Commission by:

1. Allowing people to live on the lease premises
2. Placing improvements on the lease premises without authorization
3. Failing to adequately maintain utility infrastructure.

The lands underlying the marina, camping areas, access roads, Recreational Vehicle (RV) park, and beach. See the Site Maps section of this post.

The lessee is Windmill Cove Resort and Marina, LLC. However, the lessee sold its interest in the business and improvements in early 2026 to Windmill Cove Resort and Marina, Inc. The sale did not cause an automatic assignment of the lease. Windmill Cove Resort and Marina, Inc. has applied to the Commission to become the lessee. Commission staff anticipates that the Commission will consider terminating the lease with the previous owner and issuing a two-year caretaker lease to the current owner at its October 21, 2026 public meeting.

In August 2026, the lessee, the new owner, and Commission staff entered into an operator agreement in which the parties agreed that the new owner, Windmill Cove Resort and Marina, Inc., would operate the facility. Under the agreement, the lessee remains ultimately responsible for compliance with the lease.

The Commission did not allow residential use. In fact, the lease prohibits residential use. Over the years, Commission staff conducted multiple inspections of the lease premises and directed the lessee to address the residential use. The lessee would address some violations revealed in inspections and represent that others were addressed but ultimately fail to achieve full lease compliance. With new violations discovered, several trespasses and encroachments onto the adjacent private property, and the change in ownership, staff is taking a more proactive role to immediately begin remedying the defaults and violations at Windmill Cove.

1. State law, through the Public Trust Doctrine (Public Trust), prohibits residential use of sovereign lands. This law requires that sovereign lands be available for public use, but residential use restricts access or use by the public. The RV park was, and is, authorized for transient/recreational occupancy only. The restriction on residential use is not unique to Windmill Cove – it applies on sovereign lands statewide. In 2015, the Commission waived attorney-client privilege of a memorandum from the Attorney General’s Office concluding that residential use is inconsistent with the Public Trust.
2. Commission staff recognizes the difficulty the residents are facing and commits to working with the operator to facilitate as smooth of a transition as possible.

No. The Commission has no budget or funding to provide relocation assistance.

The residents enjoy any rights provided under landlord-tenant law. The Commission cannot provide legal advice to residents.

No. The Public Trust Doctrine prohibition against residential use is final. The Commission cannot override state law with a lease.

No. The Commission is not selecting which residents must leave first. As Commission staff understands, the first residents who must vacate are those trespassing and encroaching onto the adjacent private property in a location where a property boundary fence will be placed and RV rental space size will be reassessed in order to cure violations cited by the Department of Housing and Community Development. Nevertheless, all residential use at the facility must cease.

The Commission intended for the lessee to allow recreational, not residential, use of the RV park. That was clearly stated in the Lease under Section 4 General Provisions, Paragraph 4(i) and the current Amendment of Lease under Paragraph 2(a) and (b). Recreational use includes camping, not indefinite habitation.