Cape Cod History

1988: A Cape Cod commission planned. 1999: Drawing up plans for the National Marine Life Center

1988: Panel on Cape's Development Gains Backing

On this day in 1988, the New York Times reported on the progress made towards what is today's Cape Cod Commission. The story on this day read:

Cape Cod may soon get what environmentalists have been working for all year: a commission to control all development that would affect the cape's environment or endanger its water supplies and coastline. The prospects for quick action on a commission brightened Wednesday as Gov. Michael S. Dukakis said his administration would push for introduction of legislation next month, before the 1988 Legislative session ends.

"If we do not get a Cape Cod commission through the Legislature this winter, we will demand a moratorium."
      - Susan Nickerson, APCC.

Susan Nickerson, executive director of the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod, the environmental coalition that led the fight to control development, said today that the group's first priority was creation of a commission. Stated Goal Is to Direct Growth ''Our effort is not to stop growth,'' Ms. Nickerson said. ''We want to direct it in a way that maintains the quality of life on the cape.'' ''But if we do not get a Cape Cod commission through the Legislature this winter,'' she added, ''we will demand a moratorium.''

To do so, the environmentalists are prepared to use the political muscle the cape's voters gave them Tuesday. Cape voters approved by a 3 to 1 margin a nonbinding resolution asking the Legislature to create a cape-wide commission with full power to regulate development.

Voters also approved, by a margin of more than 2 to 1 a second nonbinding resolution calling for a moratorium on new construction until development was controlled. A parallel measure establishing a new form of county government was endorsed by 2 to 1..

That measure included the election of a 15-member Assembly of Delegates, one from each of the towns on the cape, and a three-member board of county commissioners. It gave that body, whose members are to take office early in January, the authority to regulate traffic and waste disposal and control water quality throughout Cape Cod.

Previously the individual towns had separate authority over these matters, with no single agency empowered to coordinate them.

Ms. Nickerson said a second priority for the coalition was to try again to get the state legislature to approve a ''land bank'' for Cape Cod similar to those on the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. That would enable the new county government to impose a special surtax on real estate sales. The money would be earmarked to buy land on which development would be prohibited. A commission would also have the power to overrule a town planning board's approval of large-scale developments if the developments would affect an adjoining town. If a moratorium was approved, it would not apply to the building of owner-occupied single-family dwellings. Legislators Look for Quick Action

The cape's state legislator, some of whom oppose a moratorium, have promised to begin working immediately for a commission bill in the hope of starting action on it in December.

The environmentalists say they know that getting the commission and land bank bills through the Legislature will be difficult and it will be even more difficult to win approval of a moratorium. The Home Builders Association of Massachusetts, as well as most of the cape's real estate industry, oppose both proposals, and both groups have well-financed lobbies in the state capital.

"It's quite clear that this is what the people of Cape Cod want,'' Ms. Nickerson said. ''If we go on plundering the Cape's environment, there won't be any reason to invest here or live here or come here to vacation. Our pleasant life will go on eroding away."

1999: Plans fomulatd to build an National Marine Center here.

On this day in 1999, the long-planned National Marine Life Center at the old Grossman's Lumber Complex on Main Street in Buzzards Bay took a step closer to reality with the announcement that center trustees and directors will begin working on a design and construction plans with a Boston architectural firm. The $5 million project will serve as a rehabilitation hospital for stranded whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles.

The NMLC was invited by Bourne selectmen and the town's Economic Development Task Force to use the four-acre site, with land donated by Mobil Oil Corporation, at a lease payment of $1 annually for 50 years.

The Army Corps of Engineers agreed for the center to use two adjacent acres bordering the Cape Cod Canal to provide a dependable source of sea water for the facility's animal life support systems.