The opponents of affordable housing in Truro have rallied around the slogan “Keep Truro Rural.” Now we are hearing the same line about the Maurice’s Campground project in Wellfleet.
We should ask what they mean by “rural.” With much of the land in a national park, it can’t mean open space.
One of those questioning the master plan for Maurice’s last week was Gerry Parent, chair of the Wellfleet Planning Board. “With the town’s gracious support,” he said, “we have been able to keep Wellfleet rural.” The plan envisions about 250 housing units, the “largest development seen in Wellfleet ever,” Parent said. He warned that “once it goes forward, it’s not going to stop.” He called for the usual slow-death tactic: “step back, do more analyzing, and cut the number of units back.”
An online petition organized by Brian and Karen Stern, whose property abuts Maurice’s, also rings the rural alarm, asking people to vote no on the “Mega City” being planned for the campground. “A ‘mega-city’ approach,” reads their petition, “including 3-story buildings, to accommodate up to 289 housing units or higher (~867 people) creates an extremely high-density environment. … Such overcrowding will introduce unintended consequences to our rural area, such as increased traffic, strain on our emergency services and handling of waste management.”
Brian Stern argued that three-story apartment buildings were “not aligned with the character of Wellfleet.” Another abutter said, “There’s no way that’s a Wellfleet lifestyle.”
Actually, creating 250 places for people to live year-round would hardly be an extreme change in the campground’s density. It has 212 trailer sites, nine cabins, and 16 campsites, with 500 to 600 people living there every summer — using 35 cesspools. The proposed project would actually solve — not create — a wastewater problem.
Some of Wellfleet’s most beautiful old houses have three stories. And the town’s charming old downtown and harbor are attractive precisely because of their “density.”
It’s perhaps understandable that neighbors would oppose construction where tents and trailers have dominated the landscape (although most neighbors of the Lawrence Hill apartments going up in Wellfleet enthusiastically supported them). But Parent has no such excuse. If he cared about preserving Wellfleet’s character, he’d be endorsing the Maurice’s plan.
The average price of a Wellfleet house (many of them built and sold by developer Parent) is more than $900,000, requiring an annual income of $268,000 to afford it. Meanwhile, the average retail worker here makes $37,000 a year; the average construction worker makes $56,000. A first-year reporter at the Independent makes $45,000.
We need these people who can’t afford to live here. We won’t have a town (or a newspaper) without them.
The “character of Wellfleet” has already changed, and the town faces the biggest threat to its survival in its history, with its median age of nearly 60, its shrinking school population down to 78 students, and its inert Main Street. Let’s keep Wellfleet alive.
