EXTRA...

Home sales improve; Plymouth votes for its movie studio; First oyster reef restoration effort here; Blue shark in Wellfleet

TODAY's quote: "Sarah Palin is a woman who is able to be promoted on the kinds of attributes that were once the exclusive province of unremarkable white men." Judith Warner.

Homes sales show improvement

For buyers of rental property on Cape Cod, the lower sales prices make it easier to cover a mortgage with a reasonable rent, Mr. Azarian said.

The state's home sales jumped in September, offering a glimmer of hope after months of gloomy news about the housing market, according to two reports released Monday.

Local Realtors welcomed the news as evidence sellers are pricing their homes more realistically for the current market and buyers are seizing the opportunity of the lower prices. Home prices in September were lower than the same period last year, the new data show...

Bristol County's single-family home sales grew by 13.4 percent in September over the same month last year. Plymouth County's sales rose by 9.6 percent, and Barnstable County's sales shot up 18 percent, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman... Standard-Times.
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Mass Audubon, Nature Conservancy launch first oyster reef restoration effort
Project aims to boost local populations of the wild American Oyster

"Oysters are a keystone species; they have the very valuable ability to form reefs that attract a variety of marine life. It’s likely that their decline has impacted the overall diversity of marine life in Wellfleet Bay."
                 - Loring Schwarz

They're often called the "coral reefs of the Northeast," nursing the next generation of oysters while offering a labyrinth of habitat where fish and other animals can grow, feed and hide.

Now, Mass Audubon, The Nature Conservancy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have launched an innovative oyster reef restoration project - the first of its kind in Massachusetts - at Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary on Cape Cod. The project's aim is two-fold: to restore oyster reef habitat and the ecological services it provides, and to boost local populations of the wild American Oyster, famously known on restaurant menus as the "Wellfleet Oyster."

"Habitat restoration should not stop at the high tide line. We have lost much of the intertidal and sub-tidal habitats and the ecosystem is stressed," said Bob Prescott, director of the Mass Audubon Sanctuary... The Nature Conservancy.
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Hundreds cheer yes votes for Plymouth film studio

PLYMOUTH - Town Meeting easily passed two articles last night that will allow Plymouth Rock Studios to move forward with the construction of a $400 million film studio on a 240-acre golf course, after months of negotiation between local officials and studio executives.  The votes were enough to bring the hundreds of residents who came to watch the deliberations to their feet with raucous cheers and applause.

"I'm flabbergasted," said Plymouth Rock Studios cofounder David Kirkpatrick. "I'm new to the experience of Town Meeting so I was surprised there wasn't a lot of debate. We were all out there giving each other high-fives." Kirkpatrick pledged the studio campus will have the feel of a "New England village in the 21st century rather than Hollywood."

The first article created the zoning necessary for the film operation, and made the studio an "as-of-right use," which means no special permits are required. That concession will greatly reduce the chance of appeals being filed that could slow construction at the site on the Waverly Oaks golf course... The second article afforded the studio a series of exemptions from local real estate taxes over the next 20 years... Globe.
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The work of architects Polhemus Savery DaSilva at Cape Cod Museum of Art. Nov.1 through Jan. 4. For more information visit www.ccmoa.org.

Stopping Seashore road changes not likely, says Delahunt

Provincetown Selectmen vowed to continue their fight against a million dollar redesign of the Route 6 intersection into Herring Cove despite a response from Congressman William Delahunt that there is little he can do.

Selectmen sent a letter to Delahunt in September requesting that he ask Congress to halt $900,000 in federal funds approved for the project. But in a letter dated Oct. 10, Delahunt told board of selectmen chair Michele Couture that a contract for the construction had already been awarded.

"The federal government is now under a contractual obligation to move forward and complete the work. Given the current status of the project, it is unclear what, if any, steps the Congress can take," Delahunt wrote... Banner.
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 Eleven foot Blue Shark washes up on Wellfleet Bay beach

The Cape Cod Times reported that an eleven foot Blue Shark, one of the ocean's top predators, was discovered on the tidal flats of Wellfleet on the Cape Cod bay side earlier this week.