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Orleans Historic Preservationist Supports Tighter Zoning in Seashore

“Native Cape Codders are tough, used to making do with very little, and the traditional architecture reflects these values. Trophy houses are not at all like that. What offends us is the unwillingness of the owners of these houses to acknowledge the local values, and what is infuriating in the process of approving their building designs is that there seems to be no way for the local community to input information about these values. …

 

“Right now zoning is the only tool we have for involving proposers of new housing in a discussion of neighborhood values, and within zoning the only way to express these values is in the regulations limiting the size of new buildings. In Wellfleet, a group of citizens is promoting the idea of a limitation on floor area of houses to be built on properties within Cape Cod National Seashore. The group reached its collective boiling point when a small, admittedly clunky modernist house was slated to be torn down and replaced by a monster in a prominent location on Wellfleet Harbor. I support their effort.”

 

excerpt from “Guest Commentary: Time to Set Limits on Building Size“, Jim Hadley, President, Orleans Historical Society, Wicked Local: Wellfleet, May 30, 2008

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 6:17 pm and is filed under 3. Do We Need Stronger Zoning for Out-of-Scale Houses?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Orleans Historic Preservationist Supports Tighter Zoning in Seashore”

  1. gooz Says:
    May 31st, 2008 at 9:46 pm

    The process of “engagement” between community interests and private ones, in this instance involving housing developments whose scale, size and mass forever alters the amenities of place, is precisely what is needed.

    Here in Wellfleet a concerted effort is underway to try and get the Town of Wellfleet to adopt Eastham’s model of Site Plan Review to provide us with just such a process of reasonable engagement for “mutual understanding”.

    I believe adopting Eastham’s SPR (with revisions) for Wellfleet’s needs is the best zoning method of engagement we can ever hope to devise, to enhance our prospects of promoting and protecting our community interests, while still allowing for reasonable fulfillment of private interests.

    Trust and courage to embrace this zoning engagement change is all that is needed to make it happen and be successful.

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