A reader recently posted some comments to my oldest post, "Irresponsible"
One of the comments related to the post, but two were new.
Mr. Witzell expressed his opposition to the town getting involved in the Gardiner Road seawall, and as long as the seawall remains privately owned, I have to agree.
The sticky part is if part of the seawall is acquired by the town, which is what has been proposed. A few years back, the town accepted conservation restrictions for several parcels on Penzance Point. There was an uproar over it because these were lots that were not publicly accessible and could have become some fabulously expensive homes that would have paid a lot of property taxes while remaining largely vacant for most of the year. I'm all for conservation, but this one failed the smell test.
Likewise, there is little incentive for the town to acquire the seawall unless the town gets something out of it. Public access has been mentioned, but as Mr. Witzell notes, the potential damage to town infrastructure is questionable. I have some questions that will need answers before I lend my support to this.
Mr. Witzell also mentions his opposition to the development of the Webster Woods in Woods Hole. This is the wooded parcel behind the fire station where affordable housing has been proposed.
I was all for this until it dropped from 100 percent to 25 percent affordable. Land is the reason why homes are so expensive on Cape Cod. If you can eliminate the cost of land, then the cost of the house will drop dramatically. Since the town owns Webster Woods, there is no cost for the land, so there should be no need to build any market-rate homes here.
Building a 40B-style development instead of pure affordable housing will do nothing to get us to the magic 10 percent, so if this is the plan, I'll go along with Mr. Witzell and oppose the idea.
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