Plans to Develop Gooseberry Island Denied: A Win for Our Wetlands

Gooseberry Island Trust and SN Trust requested several variances in order to develop a single-family home on the 3.9-acre island, a development that the Tribe has stood firmly in opposition of. The proposed home would sit on fragile wetlands and next to the Tribe’s First Light Oyster farm.

The owners of Gooseberry Island in Popponesset Bay struck out again in December with the Zoning Board of Appeals in their bid to build a home on the island with a bridge to the mainland.

Gooseberry Island Trust and SN Trust requested several variances in order to develop a single-family home on the 3.9-acre island, as well as a bridge that would extend from the end of Punkhorn Point Road. The Mashpee’s assessors’ website lists Matthew Haney as the property’s owner.

To build on the island, the two trusts needed three variances — one that would have relieved the proposed home from a bylaw requiring that it be located on a street; another to relieve it from a requirement of 150 feet of frontage on a street; and one to relieve it of a requirement that the property have an “unobstructed paved access roadway” within 150 feet of the furthest point of any building on the property for emergency personnel access, according to Brian Wall, the attorney representing the island trusts.

The trust applied for these variances in 2013, but the original proposal did not include a bridge, Wall said at the board’s Dec. 12 meeting. The variances were denied at that time.

The Tribe applauds the Mashpee Zoning board for seeing the long-term impact building on wetlands will have on the environment