THE TIME HAS
FINALLY ARRIVED FOR THE CAPE COD COMMISSION TO PAY THE PIPER
If politics were baseball,
the Cape Cod Commission would lead the league in strikeouts. After 24 years in
existence, this "mega-regulatory" agency has done little to safeguard
Cape Cod, preserve open space or stimulate a healthy economic environment.
It broke its promise to
keep hands off single-family homes. It failed dismally to keep its staff size
within limits as promised. Staffing and costs have risen disproportionately.
Claims to the contrary are misleading and dishonest, if not downright lies to
the public they are supposed to serve.
Today the Commission
routinely intervenes in local matters involving single-family homes just as it
did a number of years ago with an old Cape Cod family's homestead in Cotuit.
The house was rotting -
too costly to repair and ready to be demolished with approvals from the town.
The family was selling the property to satisfy heirs. Last-minute intervention
by The Commission to "save a historic building" put a stop to that.
The cost to the family in time, money, emotional stress was outlandish.
The biggest disasters
engineered by this group of "problem solvers" have been loss of
enterprise, annihilation of private property rights and a single-minded
anti-business strategy that allows only the most affluent developers to
proceed. Folks of conventional means don't even try to go through the long,
costly process the Cape Cod Commission has devised to give itself meaning.
With the Dennis Lowes
project only being their latest strikeout, along with the part they played in
the Golden Triangle fiasco, one is similarly reminded of their indiscriminate
decision to hold up phase 2 of the South Cape project in Mashpee, rendering the
property virtually useless to investors. For seven years, the project inched
through the burdensome Commission process. As appears to be so often the case, In
phase 2, the Commission was not satisfied with the "traffic
mitigation" plans by the developer.
And then of course there
is the headaches they have caused over the years in the Town of Bourne. The
setbacks they handed Len Cubellis in his quest to bring a major
commercial-residential development to Bourne are nothing short of cruel.
Commission staff members apparently made up their mind to kill the project at
the outset and they found justification to stop it. It has cost Cubellis
millions to respond to continuing demands by the Commission.
Cubellis cut his project
back repeatedly, and eventually planned to load the site with Chapter 40B
"affordable housing." He was asked to pony up hundreds of thousands
of dollars more to satisfy the Commission's insatiable appetite for power and
money.
As for Barnstable, the debacle
surrounding the opening of BJ's in Hyannis revealed how petty the Commission
can be, even to this day under its current crop of bureaucratic demagogues.
Developers spent millions to meet onerous demands by the Commission. Hundreds
of thousands of dollars were drained off for "mitigation"
fees/exactions.
Because Commission staff
members were at odds with the Town of Barnstable over off-site highway
"improvements" opposed by local public safety officials, they delayed
opening the new store, which threatened jobs of dozens of local workers. This
latest bureaucratic snafu has led to renewed calls for Barnstable to withdraw
from Commission.
Another strikeout came when
the Commission jumped into the Cape Wind debate. Again, the Commission, it
seems, reached its conclusions based on politics and is unable to work through
exactly how to reasonable justify those conclusions.
The Commission costs
Barnstable well over half a million dollars to duplicate what the town can do
better on its own. We spend more than another half million in local tax
revenues to support town planning and regulatory agencies. We don't need the
Commission.
Some communities may want
the Commission "nanny state" running their affairs. Barnstable, Bourne, Sandwich, Mashpee, Dennis, Chatham,
Brewster, Harwich and Orleans can get along without it. Regional needs can be
met through well-crafted inter-municipal agreements.
Barnstable has better
technology at its disposal than the Commission. It has professional staff
capability to recognize and direct developments, which threaten damage to the
community.
It's time to take another very
close look at what was once a 100-pound gorilla on our backs. It has evolved
into an 800-pound beast with an insatiable appetite for power and control.
The Barnstable Town
Council and the respective Cape Boards of Selectmen need to truly reassess
their relationships with the Cape Cod Commission, and if they deem it
necessary, begin the long process of divorce from it.
