Applicant withdraws Nantucket variance request after town, neighbors raise legal and neighborhood concerns

The applicant in a disputed Low Beach Road zoning case withdrew a request for variance relief without prejudice at the Sept. 11 meeting of the Town of Nantucket Zoning Board of Appeals. The application sought to permit ground cover credits from three noncontiguous lots the applicant owns so more coverage could be placed on the lot with the existing house.

The request mattered because the applicant said the arrangement would let the town obtain the lower beachfront parcels as open space while the house lot would receive roughly 4,500 square feet of allowable ground cover, a figure the applicant and attorney said was slightly less than what would be obtainable if the parcels were formally combined via the town’s yard‑sale process. Town counsel and conservation specialists warned parts of the property — including a former railroad bed — were subject to Article 97 protections and other legal limits that make conveyance or reclassification difficult.

Applicant representative Linda Williams and attorney Steve Cohen described a decades‑old practice in which the town conveyed “yard sale” paper streets and adjacent land to abutters, and said the Cloutier family had paid taxes on the three lots and expected the town to complete a previously agreed transfer. Williams said the Cloutiers would donate about two acres of the lower parcels to the town for mitigation and asked the board to apply the total area of the three lots to the house lot’s ground‑cover calculation. Williams said the house lot would receive about 4,500 square feet of coverage under the requested relief.

Town counsel Amy Questle of KP Law told the board the green parcels shown in the applicant’s materials remain town property. Questle said a town meeting vote authorizing disposal does not itself convey the parcels and that removing Article 97 protections from any land that was taken for open‑space or recreation would require multiple approvals including a two‑thirds vote by town meeting and state approvals through the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA). “The railroad bed is really off the table,” Questle said, adding that the town has not agreed to convey the parcels as represented by the applicant.

Tracy McDonald, the town’s real‑estate specialist, explained how the town evaluates yard‑sale dispositions and the procurement steps required when a parcel has market value above the department threshold. She said parcels in question would require an RFP and Real Estate Assessment Committee review; she estimated a combined price for two small adjoining parcels at the square‑foot rate used by the committee.

Neighbors and conservation groups urged the board to deny the variance or require a clearer path before the board acted. Attorney Sarah Alger, representing abutters, argued the variance standard (soil, shape, or topography hardships) was not met, said the request could “substantially derogate” from the zoning bylaw’s intent to regulate ground cover, and recommended denial. Emily Molden of the Nantucket Land and Water Council said approving the request could invite similar noncontiguous‑lot claims elsewhere and noted the site is near a coastal dune area that may constrain buildable areas.

Board members expressed concern about approving a variance that depends on separate conveyances and state approvals and raised questions about neighborhood scale: several members said placing an extra 2,000 square feet of ground cover on a single house lot would make that lot out of scale with adjacent parcels. After discussion the applicant’s team asked to withdraw the application without prejudice so they could pursue additional coordination with town counsel and real‑estate staff; the board approved the withdrawal.

The withdrawal leaves open the option for the applicant to return with new documentation or a new application addressing Article 97 constraints, the town’s procurement/yard‑sale process and clearer evidence about the parcels the applicant proposes to rely on.