Julia Wells
Marking a key win for the town of Aquinnah in its long-running legal battle with James J. Decoulos and Maria Kitris, who want to open up Moshup Trail for development, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled yesterday on two separate fronts, finding:
• Mr. Decoulos has not won the right to subdivide two lots he owns off Moshup trail.
• The Aquinnah townwide district of critical planning concern is valid.
A Middlesex superior court judge ruled late last month that the town of Newton may not renovate two large recreational parks using funds from the Community Preservation Act (CPA) because the parklands were not acquired with CPA funds.
A longstanding and unprecedented gift of 156 acres at Quansoo Farm in Chilmark from the late Florence (Flipper) Harris to the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation is now complete, leaders at the foundation announced this week.
Donated to Sheriff’s Meadow by Mrs. Harris over a period of years beginning more than a quarter century ago, the Quansoo Farm gift is the second largest land bequest in the history of Sheriff’s Meadow.
A staff report released by the Cape Cod Commission this week gives a decidedly mixed review to the controversial plan by Cape Wind Associates to build 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal. The report finds that Cape Wind’s plan to connect the turbines to land in West Yarmouth through underwater electricity transmission lines meets only eight of 32 performance standards set by the commission.
In general, the staff report concluded, a good deal more information is needed in order to satisfy the requirements of the commission.
Chappaquiddick Homes Allowed
Appeals Court Backs Edgartown in Affordable Homesite Case; Attorney for Town Blasts Ten Suing Neighbors
By JULIA WELLS
Without reservation, the Massachusetts Court of Appeals upheld the town of Edgartown last week in the Chappaquiddick affordable homesite case that has attracted attention throughout the Cape and Islands region.
Lady Bird Johnson, the gracious widow of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was credited for her steadying influence on his volatile personality, died Wednesday at her home in Austin, Tex., of natural causes. She was 94.