Crowes Pasture Beach would be protected if Dennis officials get a District of Critical Planning Concern designation for 250 acres in the northeast part of town.
It is home to rare wildflowers like the Plymouth gentian and New England blazing-star and animals that are on the verge of extinction.
The spotted turtle has been known to wade through the area’s freshwater ponds and the nearby beach supports the piping clover.
The 250-acre tract in Northeast Dennis is one of the few remaining large parcels of open space in town, and most residents desperately want to protect it.
In October, the Cape Cod Commission, the area’s regional planning agency, agreed to consider the town’s bid to designate the Quivet Neck/Crowes Pasture region as a District of Critical Planning Concern. The DCPC designation would put a temporary stop on any type of construction in the area until the town works out new rules and regulations to protect the region’s natural, coastal and historic resources.
This Wednesday, the CCC will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. at the Wixon School in South Dennis to discuss the Quivet Neck region. The commission will use comments from the hearing to make a recommendation to the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegate, which will ultimately decide whether to grant the DCPC.
The DCPC designation is typically given to areas of particular significance, including regions that are home to important natural, coastal, economic, archaeological, architectural and historic resources.
The Cape Cod Commission has had the authority to recommend designation of certain areas as Districts of Critical Planning Concern since the commission was created in 1990 by an Act of the Massachusetts General Court. Martha’s Vineyard has been designating DCPCs much longer and has a number of districts already identified.
It is praised by open space preservationists who say a DCPC designation gives towns breathing room to come up with more updated rules that reflect the current building climate. Supporters also say the DCPC prevents some developers from bypassing new zoning rules, even if they have submitted plans before the new laws are in place.
It allows towns to escape the grandfathering provision on zoning that exists under state law, and that means that the regulations which are ultimately adopted by the town through the DCPC will affect all property within the DCPC equally, said John Lipman, chief planner and deputy director of the Cape Cod Commission.
In the commission’s 10 year-history, the DCPC has been granted to five communities.
West Falmouth was successful in protecting Black Beach/Great Sippewissett Marsh, an area that is subject to coastal erosion and storm damage, when it won a DCPC designation in 1995. Over the next six years, DCPC designations were awarded to Bourne, Sandwich, Harwich and Barnstable.
In Bourne, town officials got a DCPC designation for Bournedale in order to address the density of potential building.
Sandwich has a DCPC designation for the Three Ponds area, the southern section of town that features ponds and other natural resources, and Harwich set up a DCPC in the northern part of town known as the Six Ponds area.
Perhaps the most far-reaching and controversial DCPC designation was granted earlier this year for the entire town of Barnstable, which was under tremendous development pressure and wanted time to address affordable housing and growth issues.
In Dennis, town officials want to preserve land that includes two freshwater ponds, a barrier beach along Cape Cod Bay and an adjacent salt marsh with a tidal creek that supports a herring run. The area has been used for hunting and shellfishing.
In March, town officials were considering applying for a DCPC designation, but didn’t follow through because several of the landowners stepped forward and agreed to work with the town in coming up with new zoning rules for the area, said Town Planner Daniel J. Fortier.
Sub Plots
The land in question is currently zoned to accommodate homes on 60,000-square-foot lots. About 99 out of the 250 acres of the land is owned by the town, which bought the land in 1970s with the help of state money. Of the remaining land, 35 acres are within a conservation easement that has been granted to the Dennis Conservation Commission. That leaves about 116 acres open for residential development, with seven private homes already occupying part of the land. Under the current zoning rules, at least 70 additional homes could be built on the land.
Most of Dennis is zoned residential with home lots of about 40,000 to 60,000 square feet, and like many other Cape Cod communities, large tracts of open space are quickly disappearing.
In this area, there is also a concern that overdevelopment could lead to the contamination of groundwater that would seep into Quivet Creek or Cape Cod Bay and cause the disappearance of rare plants and animals.
Thus, Dennis officials were eager to work out zoning changes to protect the resources of the land.
Just as the town’s planners were poised to start presenting zoning changes for approval, in August several landowners submitted subdivision proposals for the area that would have put at least 38 houses on the land.
One proposal called for a 19-lot subdivision on approximately 37 acres on the east end of South Street. Another proposal seeks to create a 12-lot subdivision on a little more than 25 acres in a nearby area.
If the developers hadn’t submitted plans back in August, we would have had zoning changes in place, said Fortier.
Fortier expects that the process to get the DCPC designation will run smoothly and relatively quickly.
