Calls Made For Removal Of Sears Rd. Guardrail

CHATHAM – A guardrail installed along the east side of Sears Road, near the town landing, is impacting the availability of parking for those who use the landing to access Stage Harbor and the Oyster River.

The guardrail was placed along the roadway as part of a wetlands restoration project approved by the conservation commission. Its stated purpose is to prevent erosion of the edge of the roadway.

But officials believe that the guardrail at 185 Sears Rd. may be within the town’s maintenance easement of the public road, and waterways users say it has eliminated traditional parking space for the popular landing.

The guardrail is about 10 vehicles in length, said Select Board member Jeff Dykens. He noted that the select board asked the waterways committee to assess all town landings after last year’s controversy over use of the Cow Yard landing, and it’s the board’s obligation to protect public access to the water.

“I take the building of the guardrail as an encroachment on how we can access our town landing at Sears Point,” Dykens said at the board’s Nov. 28 meeting.

“Town landings need to be protected,” he added, noting that landings are ways to the water for the public to launch boats, access shellfishing and moorings. Access to landings like the one at the end of Sears Road are vital for the ability of commercial fishermen and shellfishermen to make a living.

“The board needs to be sensitive to encroachment on town landings,” Dykens said.

Michael Westgate, a member of the South Coastal Harbor Plan committee, argued for the town to take the strip of land by eminent domain and remove the guardrail to preserve access to the landing. Select board member Dean Nicastro said he’s reluctant to go that far, but said the town should investigate its rights under the maintenance easement.

In an email, Town Counsel Patrick Costello wrote that the easement authorizes the town to remove private structures, “including this guardrail,” as required to exercise its easement rights.

“It, thus, appears that the guardrail installation is analogous to the installation of a fence or wall on the abutting private property, which we be permitted subject to the above-noted conditions,” Costello wrote in the May email to Town Manager Jill Goldsmith and Public Works Director Robert Faley.

Faley told the select board that the property owners, Richard and Sandra MacDonald, reached out to the DPW, and he expressed concerns that the guardrail would interfere with both parking and snow removal. The conservation commission’s order allowing the structure, he said, cited the need to prevent vehicles from parking along the edge of the pavement, which over the years has destabilized the road shoulder and caused erosion.

“It was clearly built to preclude parking, which was there for decades,” said Dykens. “We ought to do everything in our power to remove it.”

Select Board member Shareen Davis was skeptical of the claim that parking caused erosion. “There was poison ivy on that bank; it wasn’t being eroded,” she said. She’s had many people who have traditionally used the area contact her complaining about the guardrail, she added.

“It changed the whole vibe of that landing, it really did,” she said. The issue highlights the importance of people who own property adjacent to town landings being aware of the need to preserve the working waterfront, she said.

“I’m not sure if it would change minds, but it’s becoming an increasing problem for the town, the increasing disconnect,” Davis said.

The waterways advisory committee was unaware of the guardrail plan, said member David Oppenheim. When a proposal such as this impacts a town landing, officials need to be proactive and approach the situation with a strong bargaining position so that a compromise can be reached, he said.

“Now we have no leverage whatsoever,” he said.

Goldsmith and chair Cory Metters agreed to reach out to the owner to discuss the issue. The conservation commission should also be included, since it approved the guardrail, suggested Nicastro.