Faced with the dual threat of declining water quality and the increasing lack of affordable housing, isn’t it rational to look for new answers to these long-standing problems? Both problems have similar origins: the way we manage the landscape and how we decide where we build and what we protect. The results have been bad across the board. The Cape’s housing market is distorted by a lack of inventory that has driven prices to levels requiring annual household incomes approaching $200,000 for those fortunate enough to find a house to qualify for a mortgage. The lack of housing has forced roughly 50 percent of our work force to commute from off-Cape and that is bad for everyone, especially the businesses forced to restrict hours due to worker limitations. Lastly, and most near and dear to our hearts here at APCC, the landscape, critical habitats, and water quality have all suffered because not enough land has been protected. Sprawl has been encouraged and wastewater treatment has been inadequate.
Faced with all these challenges, and hearing nothing but calls for more of the same approaches that have led us to the problems we face, we at APCC looked for something different to change the discussion. APCC put a big idea on the table in a letter to Governor Healey (PDF) and Lt. Governor Driscoll that proposes the rethinking of the use of Joint Base Cape Cod in a generational opportunity to solve some of the Cape’s most difficult economic and environmental challenges. APCC asked the Healey-Driscoll administration to formally evaluate retaining remaining essential JBCC functions such as the Coast Guard while utilizing the underdeveloped, already disturbed areas of the base to develop much-needed housing to help address the Cape’s lack of affordable housing. We suggested that action be paired with strengthening the current faux protections of the Upper Cape Water Supply Reserve on the northern 15,000 acres with a permanent conservation restriction.
We expect a wide range of reaction to this big idea, but that is the point. We are facing big problems that will not be solved by nibbling around the edges. We can’t pretend to address big problems without being willing to challenge assumptions made decades ago about what is in the region’s best interests. What made sense in the late 90s and early 2000s may no longer make that much sense in today’s world. Maybe the same decisions about what’s most important now will be the same the last time the best uses of JBCC were looked at, but that would surprise me. There are bound to be disagreements, but that is the way hard questions get resolved.
Bring on the discussion.
