Graveses grapple with necessary development
PLANNING
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Loath to develop their family's 42 acres off Cliff Road to pay inheritance and property taxes, William P. Graves III and his sister, Lydia B. Graves II, brought their six-lot sketch plan subdivision to the Planning Board Monday night.

"I'm not the developer type like I told you last time," William P. Graves III told the board. "If I wasn't in a partnership with the Internal Revenue Service, I wouldn't have anything to do with you guys."

Of the 42 acres at 129 and 137 Cliff Road willed to their family by their late aunt Alice DeJonge, the Graveses are proposing to develop 22.6 acres and keep the existing 19.4-acre waterfront lot that contains their house, a large wetland and Reed Pond. They also plan to deed one to three of the remaining five lots to their cousins and sell one or two more to pay their tax bills.

Securing preliminary plan approval from the Planning Board at its July 23 meeting, the Graveses came to the Oct. 22 meeting seeking advice on a proposed road ending in a cul-de-sac and lot configuration. The informal setting of the sketch plan review allows the board to steer applicants toward acceptable subdivision designs.

The Graveses' main concern for their land is the subdivision's road layout. To avoid the wetland, the road would have to be longer than the board's 1,000-foot maximum for rural roads. If the road is longer than that, a secondary access for emergency vehicles is required. Planning Board member Sylvia Howard offered that 50 extra feet might be acceptable for the board to grant a waiver from the 1,000-foot maximum.

"I'm not opposed to you going a little bit further to stay away from the wetlands because it is a benefit," Howard said.

But engineer Jeff Blackwell of Blackwell & Associates said the Graveses would like the road to be several hundred feet longer.

Graves also told the board he wants to build a 16-foot dirt road, but the board said gravel is more likely to be approved for reaching the lots, which are all in the Land-Use-General-Two zone and range in size from .67 of an acre to 9.3 acres. Although the board said it liked what it saw this time around, Planning Board member Barry Rector expressed concern that because the Graveses are developing in the LUG-2 half-acre zone, the potential is there for many more lots with secondary dwellings.

"It took me a little bit to get my head around this, but I think you've made some improvements since the last time," said Rector. "I would think with this culde sac that you would think about what kind of road you're going to do in there. At the end of the day, you're in LUG-2, and I think you could have a field day with this."

Assessed as the fourth most valuable residential lot on the island, the 33 acres at 129 Cliff is valued at $33,186,100. The 10.5 acres at 137 Cliff Road just west of 129 Cliff Road comes in at $20,293,700. Graves said development of his family's land would be just enough to sate the IRS, and that no dwellings would be built along the shore.

"I'm going to go right on record that we're not going to put a house here and we're not going to put a house here because I don't want to look at it," Graves said, pointing to the waterfront west of his house in the northeast corner of the lot at 129 Cliff Road. "Maybe they could put in a little beach house to keep their rubber rafts in."

While the Graveses already have a wetlands delineation from the Conservation Commission, the Planning Board said the family needs to work with the ConCom on siting the access road before submitting a definitive plan to the

board for its review. I