Board mulls access to Tuckernuck subdivision
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Saying that insufficient access exists, the Tuckernuck Land Trust is contesting Building Inspector Bernie Bartlett's approval-not-required plan to subdivide part of his 9.4-acre property on Tuckernuck's northern shore.

Bernard A. Bartlett hopes to add one more lot to his existing three lots (all contained within the area bordered in black) on the north shore of Tuckernuck by dividing his eastern lot in two.

Bartlett, who received Planning Board approval for a nine-lot subdivision in 1977 on land that is zoned Land- Use-General-3 - three-acre zoning - now wants to further subdivide the northeastern lot into two lots, said Senior Planner Leslie Woodson.

Only three of the original nine lots remain. Bartlett sold the southernmost six lots, totaling 18.4 acres, to the Tuckernuck Land Trust, which then sold the land to Laura Hussey on Oct. 16, 1998 for $550,000. That same day, Hussey granted the Nantucket Land Council a conservation restriction on the property.

That restriction allows Hussey to build one primary dwelling on the land no taller than 22 feet and two accessory structures no taller than 15 feet. She has yet to build on any of the lots.

Bartlett's paper road starts at his beach and dead-ends into Hussey's last two lots to the south. The Tuckernuck Land Trust, however, believes that Bartlett does not have legal access to the land. When he received approval from the Planning Board in 1977, it allowed access to the property via a dock on his beach and a narrow road leading from the beach to connect with Bartlett's proposed 40-foot-wide road, Sandbar Lane, which he never constructed.

"The likelihood that someone is going to take a car over there is pretty slim and is why the board waived pretty much all of the roadway requirements except for an eight-foot path," Woodson said.

The Tuckernuck Land Trust, through its attorney Arthur Reade, disagrees, saying that with no public ways and roads on the island, it is nearly impossible to create subdivisions on the island.

"Basically, the concern is the adequacy of access," said Reade. "In recent years, there have been no subdivisions endorsed on Tuckernuck. They were not approved because of their inadequacy of access. Any subdivision on Tuckernuck gets looked at very closely and should be looked at very closely."

Proposed developments that do not have legal access to a public way must be reviewed by the Planning Board as definitive plans, and show at the very least a proposed access road between the lots and the nearest public way. Subdivisions with frontage on a public way are not subject to the same review by the board and are therefore known as approval-not-required plans that the board just scans for any inaccuracies and makes sure the land truly is on a public way.

Woodson is confident enough that Bartlett's land has frontage on the Planning Board approved public way he created in 1977 that she will most likely recommend that the board approve his ANR plan at the board's next meeting on Oct. 22.

"There is a dock, and the access would be from the dock," said Woodson. "The Planning Board required an eight-foot-wide road that is really more a path of wood loam and hardening.

"From the staff perspective, and I do need to do some more research, our opinion is the Planning Board set a standard for access when it approved it in 1977, and if those standards are still being met, the Planning Board should approve the ANR."

For his part, Bartlett said he has no building plans and declined to comment further on his ANR application before the Planning Board.

Representing the Tuckernuck Land Owners Association and Tuckernuck Fire Department, Bancel LaFarge said his main concern with Bartlett's plan is emergency vehicle access should there be a fire or medical emergency. Emergency vehicles would have to pass over Hussey's property to reach Bartlett's.

"This road is barely constructed," LaFarge said of Sandbar Lane. "There is a bank at the end of it and we have never been given access to any of it and I just can't believe they would allow them to have an undersized lot [Lot 1 on

Bartlett's proposed plan]." I