LOSING GROUND
BAXTER ROAD OWNER SEEKS EMERGENCY PERMIT TO MOVE HOUSE
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
In the aftermath of last week's storm that caused a Sheep Pond Road house to topple onto the beach at Madaket, 87 Baxter Road owner Sam Furrow is working to move his house away from the edge of the crumbling 'Sconset bluff.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Rough seas battered the bluff along Baxter Road for four days last week, obliterating the terracing installations along the bluff face, exposing beach dewatering systems and leaving several property owners with less than 10 feet of solid ground between their houses and the great beyond. An intensive cleanup effort is underway, and the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund is preparing to rebuild the terracing to hold the bluff in place while it pursues permits for a beach nourishment project.

Acting as Furrow's representative, David Boyce of Boyce Realty in 'Sconset, filed a request for emergency certification with the Conservation Commission on Monday because there are only about five to 10 feet of lawn left between Furrow's house and the edge of the bluff, said ConCom Administrator Dirk Roggeveen.

The commission is due to rule on Furrow's request in the Other Business segment of this afternoon's special Conservation Commission hearing on the 'Sconset Beach Preservation Fund's beach nourishment proposal.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Sam Furrow, whose 87 Baxter Road house, marked with a red star above, is within several feet of the edge, is seeking emergency permits to move his summer residence away from the disintegrating bluff.

Coincidentally, the permit Furrow secured on April 23, 2004 to move his house just expired on Monday, as ConCom permits are good for three years. Furrow got the permit to hedge his investment in the bluff terracing project that SBPF built to stabilize the bluff face and whose timbers and coconut and jute fiber mats are dispersed up and down the beach as a result of the storm that totally destroyed the installation.

In order to have obtained an extension, Furrow needed to re-apply 30 days before his permit expired, said Roggeveen.

Furrow also needs to re-apply for a Zoning Board of Appeals variance from the 30-foot frontyard setback requirement that expired last year, said Zoning Board of Appeals Administrator Linda Williams.

Williams said that Furrow's plan is to move his house to one foot from his lot line on Baxter Road, essentially all the room he has left on his lot. The Zoning Board of Appeals will consider Furrow's request at its May 11 meeting.

Furrow's woes over his shrinking real estate - that was .57 of an acre when he purchased it in August 2003 for $900,000 - are certainly nothing new to the ocean side of Baxter Road. His immediate neighbor to the south at 85 Baxter Road, Daniel Lugosch, got a Conservation Commission order of conditions to move his house to within several feet of Baxter Road on March 11, 2005. Although Lugosch has lost some of his property as well, he still has more than 30 feet of lawn between his house and the edge of the bluff.

In February, 2005, Lawrence McQuade of 97 Baxter Road lost half of his seaward cottage to a three-day nor'easter, and had to cut away the section of the house that was hanging over the edge of the bluff.

Efforts to restore the terracing bulwarks and protect the bluff face until SBPF can get its beach nourishment project permitted and completed are continuing in earnest right now as crews work to clean up the remains of the terracing that were scattered during last week's storm, said SBPF Executive Director Cheryl Bartlett.

"We have at least 16 people out there every day," she said. "Our clean up requires coordination, so we met with the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and the Trustees of Reservations. We are also working with the town on monitoring Codfish Park."

All three entities are watching out for terracing debris that may wash up their beaches that SBPF can then come and collect. In order to get going on rebuilding the terracing, which is now jute fiber matting folded accordion-style up the face of the bluff with sand in between anchored with four-inchby four-inch pressure-treated posts, SBPF has 30 days from the date of the storm to file a complete damage report with the Conservation Commission, a filing that Bartlett said cannot come soon enough.

"Obviously, the homeowners are very concerned that the beach got very, very narrow," said Bartlett. "It's the first time since I've been on the board that

the properties are unprotected." I