New Chatham Cut - Bailout?

[Saltheart]

I think if you grant a permit to build the house on the waterfront , you should also grant a permit to build a wall if the structure gets threatened.

i would be totally in favor of no building private property within some distance of the waterfront.

i always thought that in this time of supposed enlightenment about environmental issues and access , that all waterfront property should eventually become part of a public land bank. No more building on the aterfront and any house that gets sold would have to be sold to the state for fair market value. A property could be handed down within a family for zero dollars but if any money is to change change hands , the property must be sold to the state. In 200 years , there would be a belt of publicly owned land along all the shorelines with free access to all people.

i think RI made some huge mistakes in the last 10 years not buying and turning into state parks the property at rocky point and quonset point. those where once in a lifetime oppurtunities that they let slip by.

its a nice dream. I think maybe in the year 3007 , people might actually be enlightened and something like this could happen.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Mistakes aside...

in RI, (not speaking for mass)
the set-back distance to build now is 30x the annual erosion rate + 25ft of set back. Alot of lots are unbuildable because of that.

Again, building a wall or other structure is a terrible idea. good for the house behind it, but it cuts off the sediment supply to areas down drift of the longshore sediment transport, and can increase local erosion due to edge effects where the structure ends... Not to mention you just put a hard line in the sand, where the shoreline can no longer migrate landward as it is supposed to. given some time/erosion, the front of a seawall that was once passable is now impassable, as it is underwater at low tide and high-tide... think about the revetment at the East end of S.K Town beach in Matunuck.

As much as your beltway of land is a great idea, it is unfortunetly unrealistic. Given the cost of land along the waterfront, conservation groups and governments have a hard-time outbidding private landowners, and dont want to get into the lawsuits that result from taking the property.