Betterment Assessments On Sheep Pond Road Homeowners Will Pay For New Access Road

The Select Board has approved the assessment of roughly $295,000 in betterments on Sheep Pond Road homeowners to fund the construction of a road providing alternative access to their properties due to erosion. The betterments could be a sign of how the Board will handle larger upcoming coastal resilience projects, including the massive Baxter Road alternative access project now pending before the Conservation Commission.

As portions of Sheep Pond Road continue to become inaccessible due to erosion, the town has worked to secure alternative access to the homes along the road. The betterments assessment will cover the full cost of construction, meaning the rest of the island’s taxpayers won’t have to fund it.

“They're going to be receiving a benefit for access over this roadway easement that the general public does not need,” town counsel Vicki Marsh said. “That amount...would then be assessed proportionally to the residents who will be receiving the benefits of the project.”

The betterments approach could signal how the town will handle a similar, but far larger, alternative access project on Baxter Road. In total, the Baxter Road alternative access project is estimated to cost around $37 million, and it remains unclear how it will be funded. The town failed to create coastal resilience betterment districts at the Annual Town Meeting in 2024, which complicates a betterments approach for now—but, as the case of Sheep Pond Road shows, that doesn’t mean betterments can’t be assessed.

Property owners can choose to pay the betterments fee all at once or over the course of 20 years. Select Board vice chair Matt Fee was well aware of the precedent Sheep Pond Road could set at Wednesday’s Select Board meeting, raising the question of what would happen if a home collapsed into the ocean before the homeowner finished paying.

“Is there a way to ensure that the town isn't left holding the bag, especially if it's a really expensive thing that we're bettering?” He asked. “My point isn't about this. My point is about the future when we have projects that are millions of dollars.”

Fee suggested that this is an issue the town is likely to face often as sea-level rise progresses.

“I think the realities of sea level rise are starting to hit people, and I think betterments weren't really thought of with sea level rise in mind and with people just walking away from properties in mind,” he said.

The new alternative access road would run through property owned by the Nantucket Conservation Foundation (NCF). To facilitate the deal with NCF, the town will swap its five-acre Altar Rock property in the middle moors to the conservation organization, which already owns the surrounding area.

The new road would remain dirt and gravel and would be constructed by the town's Department of Public Works.

Since 2014, seven structures along Sheep Pond Road have been demolished due to erosion - including the demolition of 28 Sheep Pond Road earlier this month - while another three have been relocated farther back from the coastal bank. The town's Natural Resources Department has stated the erosion rate in the area is roughly 7 to 10 feet per year. Department head Jeff Carlson said in January that parts of Sheep Pond Road had lost three to five feet in the last two months of 2024.