Objections to plans for a €3 million 100-berth marina in Killybegs are to be heard by An Bord Pleanála.
An appeal has been made by Noel McGettigan, chairman of the Killybegs Boat Owners Committee, to the development by the Killybegs Marina Company which was granted planning permission by Donegal County Council last month.
The committee, which claims to have 35 members, was formed in February following a meeting about the marina hosted by the local chamber of commerce.
Mr McGettigan, on behalf of the boat owners committee, has objected on the grounds that traditional mooring rights will be infringed upon.
The marina project is backed by three local businessmen, Barry Sharkey, Charlie Vial and Paul O'Neill, who hoped to have had the marina open this summer.
The marina company is awaiting the granting of a foreshore licence from the Department of the Marine.
Mr Sharkey said the appeal to An Bord Pleanála would delay the project by a year.
"It will now take An Bord Pleanála four months to adjudicate, which will take us up to the end of the summer, and if we order the pontoons they will not come until November and you cannot construct anything like that in the winter. So they have succeeded in delaying it for a year."
The Killybegs Boat Owners Committee said the public had a right to the waterways and to have access to the sea.
"The locals just want to go along with what is there already and if they can, in time, try to improve their local amenity on a local level with grant aid etc.
"This is what they intend to do. There has already been a fortune of money and time spent on this area by the locals with local funding," the committee said in a statement yesterday.
In the past, Killybegs was one of the locations earmarked for a marina development in a consultancy report to Donegal County Council.