Open Space Is Vanishing, Fragile Environment Is in Jeopardy : Cape Cod Struggles to Retain Charm, Cope With Growing Development

Cape Cod conjures up visions of wide sandy beaches and neat shingled cottages, scrub pine and blueberries, sailboats tacking in bays and channels warmed by the Gulf Stream.

But sit for a time in one of the sandy crescent’s traffic jams, or drive past one of the bustling construction projects along Old King’s Highway, and suddenly the Cape is no different from anywhere else.

Rapid development is threatening the idyllic rural seaside life style. Open space is vanishing. The fragile environment is in jeopardy.

The relentless pounding of ocean waves has claimed a number of luxury beachfront homes in Chatham in the last few months, but natural erosion is not the biggest villain on Cape Cod.

Four of the Cape’s 15 towns--Mashpee, Brewster, Barnstable and Sandwich--rank one through four on the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s list of communities that lost the most acreage to development between 1981 and 1986, a total of 14,600 of its 253,000 acres.

“There are some places in the country that should be protected from the sprawl of urbanization. The Cape is one of them,” says land use planning consultant Jon Witten of Sandwich.

‘Miserable Job’

“The Cape has done a miserable job of protecting its future. We’ve programmed ourselves for growth that we can’t support,” Witten said. “We’re living with outdated master plans that missed the mark when they were drafted. The Cape, collectively, has no idea what it wants to be when it grows up.”

Traffic outgrew Cape Cod’s highway system a decade ago. Road expansion has been all but ruled out because it would threaten the peninsula’s limited and environmentally sensitive drinking water supplies.

As it is, commuter parking lots fill every morning as locals board buses to Boston, some 70 miles away. Many other Cape residents make the drive themselves.

The most recent real estate boom peaked between 1985 and 1987 with record housing starts and property transfers. Home prices more than doubled, to an average of $168,000. The area remains an investors’ haven.

Every third or fourth house sports a “For Sale” sign.

“I don’t know any place in the country that has been able to cope with the level of growth like the Cape has been subjected to,” said Philip Herr, a Boston planning consultant to several Cape Cod towns and organizations.

“There are a number of people who are very fond of saying without any hesitation that the Cape has simply failed, that we’re seeing the destruction and rape of the Cape due to government failure to manage it in the wake of the developers.

“That’s overstating what has happened,” Herr continued. “Government response has come a long way in the last 10 years.”

While Cape Cod’s future is uncertain, it is clear that both government and residents are concerned.

Efforts are under way to preserve open space, ensure water quality, provide affordable housing and direct growth toward areas that are not environmentally sensitive.

Between 1983 and 1987, Cape towns and the state spent $98.7 million to buy 4,700 acres of undeveloped land for conservation.

“It is a significant commitment of funds,” says Mark Robinson, executive director of the Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts.

“Yet, in that same period, $1.8 billion was spent on residential, commercial and industrial construction on the Cape. The overwhelming majority--85%--was in residential construction.”

Explosive Growth

To get a feel for the explosive growth, consider Brewster, a 22-square-mile north Cape town of stately sea captains’ homes.

Its population went from 1,236 in 1970 to 7,753 last year. The summer population now exceeds 25,000.

The town is expanding its elementary school, a $3.5 million-project. Along Old King’s Highway, officially known as Route 6A, several office condominium clusters are under construction, and a 25,000-square-foot retail and office project is going up as part of a new residential condominium complex. Planners estimate that project alone could increase Brewster’s population by 25%.

Because of density and traffic fears, town selectmen recently voted down a 174-unit condominium complex that would have included a subsidized, affordable housing component.

Brewster Selectman Robert Wilkinson owns a real estate office and is involved in Cape conservation efforts.

“The Cape isn’t what it used to be, but neither is New England,” Wilkinson said. “New England is prosperous, and when people have money, they seem to want to spend it.

“Clearly, if the pace of development that took place over the last two years were to continue, we would lose the attractiveness that brought us here.

“There are some parts of the Cape that have lost it already. Along Route 28 as it meanders through Yarmouth, Dennis and into Hyannis, the dollar bill rules. It is not a place that I would find particularly attractive on Cape Cod--or anywhere else.”

The preservation movement began in 1961 when the federal government created the Cape Cod National Seashore and started acquiring 44,600 beachfront acres in Truro, Wellfleet, Provincetown, Eastham, Orleans and Chatham. It saved 39 miles of ocean beach and 6 miles of Cape Cod Bay coastline from developers.

“When I was a kid, the ‘National Seashore’ to the locals was considered communism. Now, it is the thing that has saved us,” Wilkinson said.

But escalating land prices make it more difficult for local governments to continue the open-space movement. Twenty-two acres of rolling property in Truro, home to the endangered broom cranberry, was sold three years ago for $200,000. It now sells for $2.7 million.

‘Suburbanization of America’

“The suburbanization of America is taking place in a big way on Cape Cod,” said Esther Snyder, executive director of the Assn. for the Preservation of Cape Cod.

“Certain people in the business community say when you take land off the market for conservation, you’re boosting the cost of land. What they’re not saying is, if you take land off the market for development, you’re also boosting the cost of land.

“Isn’t it better to boost the price for purposes that will give future generations a chance to have the natural resources that they are going to need?”

In the early 1970s, the APCC was a catalyst in the movement for protection of the Cape’s limited ground water supplies. Its efforts now include calling attention to the peninsula’s growth dilemma.

The association predicts that the Cape’s winter population of 167,000 will rise to 216,000 by the year 2000, and the peak population will grow from 414,000 now to 497,000.

“Public officials are beginning to grapple with the problems of rapid growth. Certainly, the volunteer planning and zoning boards that have to deal with it are being swamped,” Snyder said. “The general public on the Cape is becoming very concerned, and officials are sitting up and taking notice.”

Efforts are under way to help Cape Cod by regionalizing the way issues are handled.

A home rule charter for Barnstable County, submitted in April to the Legislature, would create a strong county government to address issues concerning the entire Cape. If approved, local voters would then get their say on the governance change in a series of local referendums.

A separate move would centralize land use regulation in a Cape Cod Commission, an agency that would replace the region’s Cape Cod Planning and Economic Development Commission (CCPEDC).

The proposal would give towns and the regional body shared responsibility for land-use control and allow designation of certain districts for critical planning standards, including water supply protection, estuaries, wildlife protection or historic and cultural importance.

“The quality of growth is the foremost issue on everyone’s mind,” says CCPEDC Executive Director Armando Carbonell. “Environmentally, it is time for future projects to pay their own way. Millions of dollars of required remedial investment in the basic infrastructure--schools, waste management and government services--must be made to accommodate the growth that has already taken place. We should be able to tell people what it will cost them ahead of time to do certain things, so they can be prepared to pay for it.

‘Certain Fundamentals’

“There is not a presumption of guilt here on the part of growth. It is more a sense that there are certain fundamentals that have to accompany growth. We have had a history of putting those issues off until long after growth has taken place.”

Home builder Joseph Polcaro of Barnstable says growth is inevitable but agrees that it should be channeled to the least sensitive parts of the Cape. He is not sure if regionalization of government or land-use control is the answer.

“It would have been nice had we planned our infrastructure 30 years ago so there would be no traffic jams, so there would be town water, town sewers. It would have been nice. But it didn’t happen. That’s no reason to halt everything,” said Polcaro, president of the Home Builders Assn. of Massachusetts.