Taylor Swift Upsets Rhode Island Locals: Is 2013's 'Most Charitable Celebrity' Breaking The Law With Seaside Wall Repairs?

Taylor Swift might be 2013's "Most Charitable" celebrity but that doesn't mean she's fully exempt from a few minor upsets with her neighbors.

24-year-old "Love Story" singer Taylor Swift had recently become a victim of her Rhode Island neighbors' anger after she organized the repair of a sea wall situated just outside of her Westerly beachfront home.

In one of the town's newspapers, a columnist claimed that Swift ordered construction to be done on a "public" beach area without "one single permit from the town." This sparked a lot of controversy within the community, some of whom blamed Swift without knowing the full story.

The claim was dashed however when Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council's spokeswoman, Laura Dwyer, announced that Swift did in fact get proper permission before starting rebuilding the sea wall.

The spokeswoman clearly told The Westerly Sun, the newspaper which had started the rumors about Taylor Swift, that the "riprap revetment repair" was not illegal and proper permits for construction had been obtained beforehand by Swift's people.

"It all started during [Hurricane] Sandy," spokesperson Dwyer told the paper. "The wall sustained damage during Sandy."

The representative also confirmed that permits had been issue to Taylor Swift by the local government on Nov. 6 for repairs to be made on the stone wall next to her beachfront house. The contruction would involve replacing unsafe rocks on the wall and resettling its current rocks to create a sturdier seaside wall.

She also reiterated that Swift's construction was "a permitted activity" and there was nothing untoward about her actions.

Locals had been reportedly worried that Taylor Swift's seaside wall would be disallowing them from accessing East Beach but spokeswoman Dwyer confirmed that the local government had allowed construction on the grounds that there must always be access to the public beach for the other citizens.

Tags
Taylor Swift
Real Time Analytics