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Jack said many of the houses in New Seabury were built back in the 60's. History has <br /> overtaken that with the Wetlands Protection Act and the Mashpee By-law, and many of those <br /> houses would not be buildable today. That's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. <br /> Ms. Turano-Flores said she was trying to say that the property is undeveloped and the <br /> significant wildlife habitat is small, so she doesn't think they would be setting a precedent. <br /> Mike said he looks at how the flood control interests of the bank were quickly dismissed, they <br /> were insignificant. Others could get a couple of experts in to say there aren't many trees here <br /> and therefore there's not much wildlife habitat. He actually thinks most of the buildable lots in <br /> Mashpee would fall exactly into these circumstances, so it would be a death by 1,000 cuts. <br /> People could find these, isolate them, treat them as little entities, rather than talk about the <br /> interests of the coastal bank as a resource area that actually provides protection and wildlife <br /> habitat value. He thinks it would set a precedent because it would be very easy to create the <br /> same set of circumstances if you had enough experts and attorneys, etc. to make that case. <br /> He's still concerned about the precedent, not so much because of the actual case here, but <br /> because how easily the interests have been dismissed. In essence, we would no longer have <br /> what appears to be any defense for protecting coastal banks from development. And if coastal <br /> banks aren't significant, then the buffer zones to the coastal banks have no significance either. <br /> It's not as though we have a lot of areas left to defend -- it would be little lots like this over and <br /> over again. <br /> Ms. Turano-Flores said no one is dismissing the significance, but they don't have a choice on <br /> this lot. <br /> Mike said recently we had a proposal for building a house and determined that since we have a <br /> 50 ft. buffer zone that is pretty inviolate, in essence the lot wasn't buildable. It wasn't that we <br /> declared that it was unbuildable; we just specified where they had to build. Then the Board of <br /> Health takes over to determine whether there's adequate space to put in a house. So it <br /> wouldn't be the first time we've been in this position. <br /> Motion made to close and issue an Order of Condition under the Wetlands Protection Act. <br /> Ms. Turano-Flores asked if there is anything they could do to address flood control. <br /> Mike said the issue is the location of the house— it's almost entirely on the coastal bank. <br /> Bob said if they want to come back with an alternative design, he thinks they could have a <br /> continuance. Mike said if they made some changes in the plan like pulling it back off the bank <br /> and making it smaller, he'd be open looking at it. <br /> Motion made, seconded and unanimously carried to grant a continuance to November 18th at <br /> 7:05 p.m., at the request of the applicant. <br /> 7:40 p.m., Chilton Development Co., Inc., 166 Waterway (continued from 1017/04). Cass <br /> stepped down for this hearing. Michael Grotzke represented the applicant and presented the <br /> plan. Bob summarized that 1) he did a mitigation calculation which showed that the current <br /> mitigation plan would not meet our standards, 2) he based that mitigation standard from the <br /> edge of the salt marsh line, 3) above the salt marsh is an area of phragmites, which is a <br /> problematical species but still may qualify as a wetland, and thus he feels we should have some <br /> more investigation on the status of the phragmites as to whether or not it constitutes a wetland <br /> at which time we would begin our wetland.calculations. <br /> 4 <br />