Land Bank Frowns On Neighbor's Request To Restrict Public Parking At Maxcy Pond

The Land Bank Commission is considering a request to restrict public parking at its Maxcy Pond property off Cliff Road that was submitted by neighboring property owners of the popular freshwater pond and fishing spot.

But judging by the response of the commission during its meeting last week, it appears the request will likely be rejected.

"...on a regular weekly basis cars park directly at the bottom of our property in full view of our house for undetermined purposes and not related to walking, fishing or picnicking," Michele and Van Velle, owners of 10 Maxey Pond Road, wrote in an email to the Land Bank in December. "We are NOT asking the Land Bank to eliminate the paper road or restrict access to Maxey Pond for walking, biking, and recreation. We are ONLY asking to eliminate parking in an undesignated parking area. Unfortunately this small area invites people to park in full view of the entire back of our house."

The Land Bank has acquired land abutting Maxcy Pond since 2002, and five years ago, it completed its largest transaction with the purchase of 13 acres around the pond from the Nantucket Anglers' Club for $3.2 million. 

Michele Velle told the commission during a hearing last week that she and her husband had purchased the property in 2019. They have been year-round residents since 2020 and before that, were in Madaket seasonally for 40 years.

The Velles built their house on the Maxey Pond Road property in 2022.

"Our son is the architect. It's a family home and we are here year-round,” Velle told the commission. “So that's the other reason it's important to us because as the foliage changes, the cars are really noticeable. It's slightly uncomfortable because they're parking there. We are not discouraging in any way access to the pond (whether it be) walking, hiking, biking, whatever. It's just having a parking lot right there, it would be fabulous if it could be either discouraged by a couple of posts in the way that you've done it on other places on the road or if it was necessary, making an official parking area somewhere a little bit further from our backyard.”

Commission member and treasurer Neil Paterson said he would not vote to change the parking area because he fears it could set a precedent moving forward at other Land Bank properties.

"I don't know why this would be good for the public," Paterson said. "I'm trying to put myself in your footsteps. We'd be setting a precedent where we've now allowed to ban parking and the optics of it, I can't agree with. I'm really sorry. I will not be voting to do this because this is a tradition. All over the island people drive and park and it's a tradition that people would sit in their trucks. I’d like that a long time ago. I can only presume what they're doing is legal, but that's not really mine to judge. But I definitely would not vote to support banning parking.”

Van Velle said it is generally the same five people or so that utilize the spot directly across from their fence and that there are never more than one or two cars there at a time. However, the Velles have had issues in the past with littering from these individuals, such as beer cans being left behind.

“The other kind of issue for me is they throw their beer bottles or other debris over our fence to our property," he said. "So I clean that up on a kind of regular basis. I don't think there's any way we can eliminate that, but at least if the parking area were away from our property a little bit, I think we discourage them just tossing things over on our side.”

A vote on the matter was postponed until the Land Bank’s next meeting on April 8^th after commission member John Stackpole said he wanted to see the area in question in its current state before making a decision.

When the Velles reiterated that they did not want to ban parking entirely and are requesting a restriction of a certain portion of the parking area, Paterson said he understood but couldn’t overlook the possibility that the commission would be setting a precedent moving forward.

"People parked there before you built your house," Paterson said. "For us now to set the precedent saying, 'Well I'm sorry but anytime somebody builds a house, we should ban the parking in front of it in case it upsets their view or whatever. I just have a really tough time getting on board with that.”

The Land Bank owns four parcels of land totaling approximately 25.79 acres surrounding Maxcy Pond off of Cliff Road. In 2002, the town sold the Land Bank 7.30 acres of land for $450,000. In 2004, the Land Bank purchased 2.54 acres for $850,000. In 2009, the Land Bank purchased 2.14 acres from Heather and Gregory Keltz for $2 million. Most recently in 2019, the Land Bank purchased 13.81 acres of land – including the parking area in question by the Velles – for $3.2 million from the Nantucket Angler’s Club.

Commission Chair Kristina Jelleme reiterated the historic value of this property to the island and said she couldn’t buy into disturbing more land in a different area to provide parking where there is already existing parking for the few cars that go there.

“That's really getting back to that precedent of changing things because it affects a view or affects somebody new who moved in," Jelleme said. "This was public land and given to the public to use for the public the way the public uses it. So, unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to support moving a parking lot either.”