From the Mashpee Enterprise · August 6, 2021 · By Richard DeSorgher
This is a history column, not a current news story. Part of the Enterprise’s “Magnifying Glass” series, it looks back at the fight over South Cape Beach in Mashpee, on the south shore of Waquoit Bay. After a 1964 special permit let the New Seabury Corporation plan its development as a whole, the company turned to two projects near the beach: Teal Harbor and the Sandpiper Inn. The column says Teal Harbor would have dredged a deep-water basin in Waquoit Bay for 100 boat slips, with 750 condominiums, a large inn and shops. Sandpiper would have added houses, a second golf course and a beach club. Longtime residents, conservationists and the town’s Bicentennial Commission pushed the state to take the land. On September 22, 1980, 864 voters at a Special Town Meeting backed a state taking of about 432 acres by eminent domain (the government buying private land for public use). The state claimed more than 700 acres in 1982, and on January 1, 1983, New Seabury said the two projects would not go ahead.
The column is a local history illustrating that public land along the bay exists because of choices made in this period. South Cape Beach is now a state park along the shores of Waquoit Bay. The bay’s other large saved landmark, Washburn Island, has its own story, told in CPWB’s project page Saving Washburn Island. That was a separate but related fight. The column also gives some dates and names inconsistently, so treat it as one writer’s account and not a full record.
Read the full story in the Mashpee Enterprise: “The Magnifying Glass: South Cape Beach Is Saved” →
This is CPWB’s summary of a news article. The full article and its photos are published by the Mashpee Enterprise.
Drafted with AI assistance from the linked source.
