Our View: Pond Property Housing Study Necessary

 A lot of passion surrounds the proposal to study locating housing on the Sea Camps Pond Property in Brewster. As our front page story this week demonstrates, four select board members strongly support their vote last week to give the affordable housing trust the go-ahead for a feasibility study of using a portion of the parcel for affordable housing, while member Pete Dahl vehemently opposes the move. That passion, and the division in the community, is also reflected in this week’s letters to the editor.

 Opposition to the study, however, seems to us premature. There has been no decision regarding whether or not to use 10 of the pond property’s 66 acres for housing. The vote was to authorize the affordable housing trust to look into the feasibility of doing so. 

 Certainly, some of the concerns expressed are justified. The parcel is within a so-called Zone 2, an area that contributes to a public water supply well. Wastewater would have to be strictly controlled to prevent further nutrient loading in critical watersheds. That’s not insurmountable given current technology, and it will take years to develop housing on the property, if that path is chosen, during which time even better technology is likely to emerge. Whether voters assumed the entire parcel would remain as open space when they approved its purchase is another issue.

 But a feasibility study does not commit the town to building housing on the property. That’s the whole point of the study — to determine if housing at the site makes sense, both physically on the land and psychologically in the community. There will be copious opportunities for public input as the study moves forward, and we anticipate that no decisions about moving on to further steps will be made without the concurrence of voters in town meeting. And frankly, those sorts of decisions, pro or con, can’t be made without the information that a feasibility study will provide.

 Brewster has a considerable amount of protected open space — think of Nickerson State Park and the Punkhorn Parklands — and the pond property is a key element in that inventory of green space. But the lack of affordable housing is as critical an issue to the town as protecting coastal resources and groundwater, and looking into whether 10 acres could help house a couple dozen families is an exercise worth doing.