SWAMPSCOTT — The Harbor and Waterfront Advisory Committee and John McAllister of McAllister Marine Engineering took feedback from community members on the ongoing $20 million pier-redevelopment project at Fisherman’s Beach on Thursday night.

The town recently received a grant of $212,800 from the Seaport Economic Council, with the goal of completing 60% of the design phase. The first phase of the project, researching its feasibility, was funded through a $100,000 grant from the SEC as well. A goal of the new pier’s design is to be built to withstand the rising coastal tides.

McAllister began with a brief overview of the status of the project, which is in its design phase, and presented some choices that have not yet been made. Two major outlying decisions are the height and width of the pier. The existing pier is 5 feet, 9 inches tall, while the provided options for the increase range from 7 to 9 feet higher than that. The four width options are 10, 12, 16, and 20 feet.

Resident Brian Watson was one of the first to speak when McAllister and HWAC Chair Jackson Schultz began taking comments from attendees, and he objected to the project entirely. He described the pier redevelopment as a “peripheral” and “irrelevant” task in comparison to the overall coastal-resilience effort.

“We have whole stretches of Puritan Road, Humphrey Street, down by the football field, all stretches that are sometimes under 2 feet of ocean,” Watson said. “That will only get worse and worse.”

Schultz responded, saying that the pier is one part of a harbor plan put together by the town that is considering all possible solutions to rising ocean levels, such as a living reef or breakwater structure. Schultz said that the pier redevelopment is being done before the living-reef plan due to funding becoming available earlier.

Earlier this week, multiple members of the Swampscott Fishermen’s Alliance spoke to the Select Board about their concerns with the new pier and how they feel it will negatively impact the town’s commercial fishing industry.

Part of the new pier’s potential plan includes a davit crane for commercial fishing purposes. Alliance member Edward Desrosier suggested a conveyor-belt mechanism could help fishermen. However, he emphasized that he remains adamantly against the project in general.

“That’s the only way it would be acceptable,” Desrosier said.

Schultz answered that suggestions like that are precisely what he and his peers are looking for, and said amenities like that can be implemented.

Multiple residents inquired about a comprehensive financial plan to account for how the pier would be funded beyond the use of grants, however a definitive answer could not be given yet. The earliest possible completion date for the pier is 2030, but Schultz described that as a “dream.”