The Planning Board is throwing a party on Saturday! The place: the Council on Aging. The time: 9-11:30 a.m. If you care about Wellfleet, do try to be there. I received an email this week from Planning Board member Griswold Draz, influential in getting new regulations passed for the Seashore, ie. 61% of our town. Now the board has written a similar plan to regulate house size for Wellfleet’s R1 and R2 districts as well. Here’s a brief summary:
“The zoning revision proposed would do away with our present 15% Lot (or footprint) Coverage, which allows for a 2-story 9,000+ square foot house (not including habitable cellar space) to be built By-Right (or without recourse to alter) on a 3/4 acre lot! Bear in mind that most of the lots in Wellfleet are between 1/4 to just over 1 acre in size. Instead we are proposing a new Site Coverage sliding scale standard (one that reflects our existing housing stock averages) that would limit by-right house size on such a 3/4 acre lot to ~2,600 sf. And if anyone wanted to exceed the by-right sliding scale allowance for their lot size would be required to seek a Site Plan Review Special Permit.
Five of us on the Planning Board believe this sliding scale plan is a very reasonable and fair one. No zoning revision will be perfect in all regards, but we hope this is one the town as a whole will accept and adopt, and with your understanding of it and support we can make it happen.”
It would have been easy to illustrate this post with a photo of the Blasch house, which upset many Wellfleetians and regular Cape visitors last summer. Instead, reflect for a moment on how architects, featured by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust, created buildings that were harmonious with the landscape. Indeed, the Kugel/Gips house, above, seems to float, when seen from the beach below, and disappears almost entirely into the woods when viewed from the far side of tiny Northeast Pond, where Sven and I walked last weekend, in "scale" terms, a perfect 10.
Don’t miss this informative meeting Saturday, January 30.
