Wauwinet Property Owners Fined For Illegal Clear-Cutting

One month after the Conservation Commission learned that contractors at a property in Wauwinet clear-cut a half-acre of vegetation without a permit, the commission on Thursday set an example for what ConCom Chair Seth Engelbourg called the most egregious violation he’s ever encountered.

“We have to be serious as a conservation commission,” Engelbourg said. “Our goal is always to uphold the Wetland Protection Act and its interests, and its resource areas and performance standards, but we also in cases like this have to set an example that it’s not acceptable to do egregious violations with no consequences.”

The ConCom voted Thursday night to fine the owners of 14 Plover Lane $300 per day until a restoration plan is presented to the commission, following the clear-cutting on the lot that stretches west from Plover Lane to Wauwinet Road.

“This type of behavior, which is blatantly in disregard for the Wetlands Protection Act and our local regulations, will not be tolerated,” Engelbourg said.

The ConCom had ratified a Natural Resources Department enforcement order on Feb. 6, requiring the owner — a Kingston, Massachusetts-based limited liability company listed as ACK TU LLC — to cease and desist from clearing the property. The LLC is registered to Paula and Matthew Dacey, the president of Champion Builders Inc. Dacey purchased the .91-acre property for $1 million in 2022. It is assessed at $4.49 million.

Brian Madden, a consultant with LEC Environmental Consultants, represented the property owners during Thursday’s meeting and said they plan to develop a restoration proposal to bring the property back into compliance, and will file that plan in the next two to three weeks. But even with a restoration plan in place, commission members and neighbors were doubtful that any restorative effort could replace the mature vegetation that had been there for years to come.

“People have to get a grip that they’re going to be held accountable for this,” commission member Linda Williams said.

Neighboring property owners were outraged by the clear-cutting, and many wrote letters to the Conservation Commission in advance of Thursday's meeting urging it to take action. Read the letters by clicking here.

The $300 fine — officially for the widespread removal of understory vegetation on the wetland resource area — is retroactive to the date of the enforcement order on Feb. 6 and runs through the time property owners submit a restoration plan to the ConCom. That puts the financial penalty at $11,700 and counting. The commission subsequently voted to require the property owners to submit a restoration plan by March 20. If that date comes and goes without such a plan, property owners must explain at that time why they do not have a plan. Only once the plan is submitted and approved can any restoration work begin.

It’s also just the latest example of unpermitted clear-cutting, a fact that weighed on ConCom members Thursday night. Just before Christmas in 2022, a 'Sconset property at 2 Gully Road was clear cut by property owners following the Sconset Trust’s $4.75 million purchase of the property. That clear-cutting removed at least 137 Japanese black pines and eastern red cedar trees in the coastal bank.

“It’s still going to be a small amount of money,” Engelbourg said about the fine. “It might only end up being in the thousands [of dollars] compared to the value of the land that was destroyed is, but we still need to do it.”