Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved (9 page)

*
XEROX MACHINES
and laser printers have replaced Fred’s mimeograph machine, and voicemail would make Mary redundant at the Barnstable Town Hall. Here, the Town Hall is a three-story dark brick building designed by H. H. Richardson, that great architect of public buildings. It was once the Normal School, a training ground for young women who wished to teach. Through the years, this handsome building has morphed from college to elementary school to maritime academy before lending its space to county business. It is only since 1979 that Town Hall has been Town Hall, probably around the same time the county offices moved over to the new addition on the courthouse in Barnstable Village. Maybe it is because the building has served a succession of public masters that some of the town offices have a haphazard feel to them. The Building Department comes to mind: housed in the attic, with angled ceilings and exposed beams, floors covered with indoor-outdoor carpeting. Chief Ralph Crossen’s office looks like an indoor shed, complete with roof and window. I have wondered if they got all the inspectors together one Saturday and said, “Go build your offices.”

After so many years of passing right by, I am beginning to feel like a resident here. I know building inspectors and health officials and conservation agents, and I no longer need to check the directory to find them. Tonight, I am turning into the parking lot for the Thursday night meeting of the Conservation Commission.

Three months have passed since I first played Goldilocks in the cottage colony, three months of running around and making calls and deciding to go forward even knowing I may be stopped in my tracks this very night. Tonight, at the end of a heavy agenda, the commissioners will decide whether my cottage will be allowed to live four feet into that buffer zone. Erika’s dad, Dave, is here with Nick, the bog scientist he hired, and Scotty is here, too. Tina is visiting from Boston, her timing coincidental but perfect.

As I walk into the hearing room, a large space equipped with microphones and video equipment, I think of my grandmother. So many years at City Hall. She’d know just how to handle this situation. I invoke her spirit and ask for her blessing on the project. And when I sit down next to Tina, just in front of Dave and Nick, with Scotty over to the left and ahead of us, I sense Nana is near, maybe even in the empty chair next to me. “Why look who’s here!” In my head I use the same tone of mock surprise my grandmother used all those years ago. Beside me, Tina grins.

Tonight’s agenda is ordered by the perceived complication of the requests before the commissioners. It crosses my mind that they might do better to get the hard stuff out of the way first, but perhaps taking care of a number of smaller items in quick succession gives them a feeling of accomplishment, warms them up for the tougher stuff. Last in line, I don’t personally believe my situation is so complicated, especially as I listen to an engineer defend a project his company wishes to undertake. In Barnstable Harbor is a tank they want to remove. He displays studies and evidence that there will be no hazards involved in the removal, but the commissioners are skeptical. He cites water quality studies taken near the tank, at the top of the tank, at the bottom of the tank. There is no evidence it is leaking. It will come up easily. He shows them how. “But, why, if it is doing no harm to the harbor, do we want to haul it up?” inquires a commissioner. The engineer, a large man, clasps his hands tight behind his back as he speaks into the mike. This is the audience view: back of head, neck, shoulders, back, hands. His hands are clearly ill at ease.

He tries another tack with the commissioners, raising the possibility that there could be a problem with the tank and its contents (which are unknown). Wouldn’t it be better to get it out now rather than later? This does not go over well with the Commission.

“You just told us the test results indicate no toxicity. Now you are telling us we may have toxic waste in the harbor?”

An excellent point, I think, and I begin to wonder what exactly is the truth of the matter. Meanwhile, the man’s hands are moving from discomfort to frustration to anger. The commissioners are not pleased. It is evident to me that there is a history between this board and this engineer, his company, perhaps his mysterious client. Mr. Van Buren, the head of the Conservation Department, weighs in. He sits at one end of the dais, and although he is not a member of the Commission, it is obvious that the department recommendation he delivers before each vote weighs heavily on any Commission decision. Now he makes it clear to the engineer (and the room, and the TV viewers) that the Commission was very unhappy with the applicant and his company on their last project. These remarks lead to a heated exchange between Mr. Van Buren and the man I am now beginning to think of as the defendant. I hear the man’s voice tighten, even as it increases in volume. Mr. Van Buren remains calm. His sitting position, his height on the dais, his normal tone of voice make it clear who is in charge here, at least tonight.

Finally the engineer loses it. “You’re calling me a liar,” he says. Behind his back, his hands are clenched together, tight and bright red.
Red-handed
,
I think, and I decide that I am with the commissioners. Perhaps the tank should be taken out of the harbor, but I’m not sure I want this man or his client in charge of the operation. In the end, the project is “continued” to a meeting almost two months away. The commissioners want more information. Is it dangerous or is it not? If it is hazardous, how will the removal be handled to ensure the harbor is protected? It is up to the engineer to return with the answers.*

*
DURING ONE OF THE EARLIER
, less complicated cases, Dave and Nick and Scotty and Tina and I met on the bench in the hallway outside the meeting room. Nick, the bog scientist, took over as our strategist. “You go up there with Dave, and field their questions,” Nick said to me.

Dave nodded his agreement, and I remembered what John Baxter said about the Commission hating big shots. “I’ll review the plans with the commissioners, walk them through the photographs we submitted with our application. I won’t say any more than what is necessary,” Dave said. Erika’s dad is a gentle, slow-spoken man of few words. It struck me as funny that he could even imagine a situation where he might say too much.

“You sit at that table, where the other mikes are,” Nick instructed me. “Just tell them why you want to do this—if they even ask. They may not ask anything. Emphasize how small your house is now. Do you know the exact square footage of the cottage?”

“Yes,” I said, “just 386, and the original house is 750.”

“We are not talking trophy home. How much of this will sit in the no-disturb zone?” Dave gave him the number, 4 feet into the buffer times 24 feet across, 96 square feet.

“I’d have avoided the buffer altogether,” I said, “but this is the only way we can attach the cottage given the contours of the land. And the cottage is the size it is. It isn’t as though I’m building from scratch.”

“Excellent!” Nick said, pleased with me. “Remember to say that if you have a chance. Very good point.”

As a bog scientist, Nick has an interest in preserving wetlands, rather than destroying them. He’s willing to coach me and support our application because he doesn’t believe my project will harm the bog—or the plant or animal life it supports. He gives me some more pointers. “You’re using small equipment, and you’re going out of your way to minimize disturbance in the buffer. That’s key. And don’t forget to mention the driveway,” Nick continued. “If they start talking about nondisturbance, your neighbor’s driveway is already in that zone.” I never thought I’d be grateful for my neighbor’s driveway, but it’s now true that I am. “We’re here if they get technical,” Nick assured me, nodding to Scotty, who was pacing the hallway, “but let’s not even mention us unless we have to. They have more sympathy for homeowners than they do for experts.”

I see that Nick is probably right as I watch the red-handed engineer stalk out of the room, angry to be “continued.” Had his client been in evidence, perhaps the engineer’s case would have been bolstered. Now he has another nine weeks of waiting before he has a shot at convincing the Commission again. Many of the more complicated cases, I notice, are continued for dates in May, June, even July. I think of my little cottage waiting in Harwich Port, already up on blocks. The developers have been kind to store it, but they will not wait forever. If the Commission doesn’t give me an answer tonight, I’ll have to give up the whole idea. I wonder if the stalling tactics cause a certain number of applicants to give up the fight.

“I just had no idea how much drama occurs at Town Hall,” Tina says to me during the break between the tank removal case and the next case on the docket. “Do you think this happens in Boston, too?” she asks. But before I can answer she adds, “Even if they have hearings I could go to in Boston, I bet there wouldn’t be any clam people.”

She’s referring to an earlier case, when one of the commissioners, after listening to the town’s own request to rebuild a crumbling boat ramp in Cotuit, looked out into the hall and said, “Are the clam people here?” Sure enough, they were, though they were on hand to testify against another project. Still, they were happy to step up to the table and express their opinions and concerns about the impact on shell fishing if the ramp were constructed as outlined. The issue once again was dredging, disturbing the beds where the clams lie sleeping. How much would be required? Too much, thought the commissioners, as deeper questioning revealed that the town had money left over in the dredging budget. It appeared they were intending to enlarge the ramp simply because they could afford to do so.

The clam people said the area was in enough trouble already; a boater in favor of a new ramp asked who goes clamming under an active boat ramp anyway? A neighboring resident said a bigger boat ramp would only mean more traffic, more disturbance to the people as well as to the clams that lived nearby.

“You’re right. If you want clam people, you’ll have to come down here. Every other Thursday night. I’d love to have you.”

“I just might come,” she says.*

*
FINALLY, IT IS OUR TURN
. Dave walks up to the lectern; I move to the table nearby. I am aware of the video camera, staring down from its perch in the corner of the room. The hearings rate local TV coverage, but evidently not a cameraman. I sit silently as Dave begins to explain what we wish to do. He refers the commissioners to the plan, to the photographs, walks them through the process of moving the cottage, lifting it, attaching it to the house. In our discussions, we have anticipated many of the issues Conservation might raise. The narrative indicates that we will use only small equipment, John’s mini-excavator and a Bobcat, to do the digging, and the plans show the equipment will enter the property outside the buffer zone, on the other side of the front yard, and travel around and through the backyard to reach the side where we will be working. “We’ll be able to reuse the fill,” Dave continues, anticipating their next question. “There is a dug-out area, indicated on the plan, which we will refill.” This too is outside the buffer, so the Commission will be less concerned about it. I am pretty certain that the dug-out spot is a result of an illegal attempt to fill the cranberry bog many years ago, an attempt that was halted by the state, according to the records I’ve seen. It seems to me appropriate that we will replace the soil stolen those many years ago.

When he is finished, Dave asks for questions, and there are plenty. Surprisingly, they are all directed to me. Why can’t the cottage be placed outside the buffer zone? Because it must be lifted with a crane, and given the contours of the property, there is no other place to put the cottage. Why move a cottage in, why not add on—outside the buffer zone? I explain that I have wanted to add on for many years, have looked at many plans, that I am a writer and work from home. I tell them that I would like a room where I can work, just work quietly, and remind them that because I do work from home, any addition would disturb not only my home but my workplace. This would result in the least amount of disturbance, I say, both to me and to the property. I point out that the hill slopes almost straight up on the other side of the house, that although it is outside the buffer, building there would require much more disturbance of the land, and create a larger possibility of erosion on the bog side of the house. When they seem to accept that I am intent on moving the cottage, they get more detailed in their questions.

“What about this hallway?” An older man on the Commission asks me. “If you eliminate this hallway, you’d be within the fifty-feet rule, or pretty close. Am I correct?”

I was expecting this question, though hoping it would not be asked. I can’t bear the idea of giving up my hallway. The hallway is what makes the plan work; it is the elegant connection between the houses, the neutral space that makes the union possible. “I did consider that,” I say to the commissioners. “But without the hallway, we’d have to eliminate walls and do some major demolition in both buildings. We’d be compromising the structural integrity of the main house, which is on a concrete block foundation. It would be very expensive work. At that point, I’d lose the savings I anticipate by moving a fully built structure. The cottage is in good shape. It is structurally sound and doesn’t require much cosmetic work either. The beauty of the hallway is that both buildings remain intact—and I get the full use of the new space, rather than cutting into it to create a passageway.”

They take this in silently. I look at the Commission, waiting for their next question. It comes from a small white-haired woman, seventy-five if a day, sprightly and intelligent and ready with the pointed questions. I’d been watching her all evening. I had to laugh when she quizzed the engineer representing the town about the Highway Department’s application to repave a road. “This application says repave,” she said, “You aren’t planning to widen it, are you?”

“No ma’am,” the man replied. “There may be some minor topographical changes when we repave—”