Barnstable County Report

Cape Cod Commission Writes its Own Laws

Applying imagined intellectual superiority

By Peter Kenney

Something dramatic happened at the Barnstable County complex on Thursday, October 4. The Cape Cod Commission (CCC) voted to accept for review a single-family residential project -- one owner wanting to build one house on nine acres of residentially zoned land -- as a development of regional impact (DRI). This marked the first time the CCC had accepted, at its own recommendation, a single-family residential project outside a historic district. The 6,500-square-foot residence that Donald and Andrea Kline want to build in Truro would have a magnificent view of Cape Cod Bay and will cost an estimated $12 million for the land and the actual construction. The Klines have stated publicly that they intend to build their house on a portion of the land and to place a conservation restriction on six acres of the nine-acre total parcel. This would be more than the town of Truro or any conservation groups or private citizens have ever done to preserve the site and views made famous in paintings by Edward Hopper.

No delay…just a look

The Kline house complies with local and state regulations in all respects. In fact, the Massachusetts secretary of environmental affairs has issued a certificate allowing its construction, denying that the project requires a Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) review. And Robert Jones, chairman of the nineteen-member Cape Cod Commission, has stated on the record that the commission does not intend to delay the progress of the project, but merely wants to look at it. He has agreed that the CCC cannot stop construction of the house.

So why take this project under review at all? The word blackmail comes to mind. The CCC might well repeat what they have done many times in their seventeen-year operating history and allow the Klines to proceed with a project they are allowed to build as a matter of right. Everyone seems to agree that the Klines have the right to build what they propose at the site they have chosen. Even the often-testy Jones says so. But can we believe him or any of the other CCC members who voted to “accept” this referral?

Another victim on the CCC rack

Odds are the Cape Cod Commission is dealing from the bottom of the deck again and that they have no intention of being honorable or law abiding in the Kline matter. They intend to make this project “better” by applying their imagined intellectual superiority. If they do not intend to change anything, thus slowing the project’s progress, why make the Klines go through any review at all? I am taking bets on how much the CCC will try to force the Klines to change -- to redesign the house, to relocate it on the lot, to modify their overall plan for the lot. And it is most likely, in my opinion, that Jones and his fellow extortionists will attempt to force the Klines to purchase additional land somewhere else and place it under a permanent conservation restriction. Jones and the rest of the environmental fascists in Barnstable Village know they have a well-heeled victim on their rack and they will stretch every Kline sinew until money drips from their pores.

Stunning arrogance, deceit and conflict of interest

The way this project has become nailed to the CCC cross tells the story of the CCC’s lawlessness. Susan Kadar, the CCC representative from Truro, personally led a citizens’ petition drive that yielded 400 signatures on a petition demanding the CCC review of the Kline house. She then grandly announced that she would not herself vote on the matter. Such arrogance and deceit and conflict of interest are stunning, even for Kadar, a veteran of many years of meddling in private development proposals. She should be stripped of her office without delay. Kadar has never, to my knowledge, done anything positive in the way of raising money to save this tract of land from development. Nor, for that matter did Hopper himself. Now come the unsuspecting Klines and the Kadars of the world smell blood… actually, gold.

The Town of Truro has annually taxed these nine acres as buildable land. The Klines paid $6.75 million for it and then spent untold sums for world-class architecture and even for environmental engineering. Donald Kline has stated that the original house location was shifted more than once on the site to accommodate concerns about various flora and fauna. This, of course does not satisfy the Cape Cod Commission. Nothing is right until they say it is.

Making the Cape a better place -- one petition at a time

Worst of all, the new executive director of the CCC said at public meeting in Hyannis last week that one must take into account the significance of 400 people in the Cape’s smallest town signing a petition. He likened it to getting 8,000 signatures in the town of Barnstable. What if 400 people in Truro signed a petition demanding a return to slavery? A limit to the number of people who could cross the canal on summer weekends? A limit on the number of children people could have? Or what if they demanded that every Cape Cod house be painted white, only white?

Time's running out to vote for Peter Kenney, the Great Gadfly for a Best of the Blogs award.I might just take it into my mind to get 4,000 people Cape-wide to sign a petition telling the people of Truro to raise the money from their own funds necessary to buy the Hopper view from the Klines. Perhaps we could require prior approval for Susan Kadar to enter any other town on Cape Cod. We should do to the Cape Cod Commission what it claims to do for its applicants; we should make it better.