As Erosion Threatens More Homes On Sheep Pond Road, Town Plans For Alternative Access Road

With severe erosion claiming more homes along Nantucket's southwestern shoreline and threatening to cut off portions of Sheep Pond Road, the town is working through a complicated process to create an alternative access road.

The goal is to create a 2,000-foot long, 20-foot wide unpaved new section of Sheep Pond Road that would be located behind the existing homes in that area and cost roughly $500,000. But the Select Board, acting as the County Commissioners, must first embark on a complicated process that includes easement acquisitions, a land swap with the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, permitting, construction, Town Meeting votes, state legislative actions, and betterment assessments on some of the property owners along Sheep Pond Road that would ultimately reimburse the town for the costs associated with the project.

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 parts of Sheep Pond Road had lost three to five feet in just the past two months.

On Wednesday, town staff presented the alternative access road project to the County Commission and outlined the next steps ahead.

"It's located near a very active area of significant erosion," town manager Libby Gibson said. "Sections of the road have been lost or are close, and a section of the road was already relocated 10 years ago or more. So this has been in development for several years."

Gibson was referring to a previous deal the town struck with abutting property owners for a temporary easement to allow alternative access to Sheep Pond Road via Head Of Plains Road. That easement has been renewed several times and is set to expire in March 2025. Gibson said the abutters have told the town that another renewal is not guaranteed.

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.

"There’s been aggressive management by homeowners to stay out of harm’s way but we still have access concerns," Carlson said on Wednesday. The new road would "end the sawtooth pattern, coming in behind the existing properties, so the proposed roadway layout is behind all the houses. So if this is threatened, all the houses served by the road will have already had to have been relocated and removed. It’s not an ideal situation, but we want to get something in that people can use to access their properties."

In the near term, the town is seeking execution of a memorandum of understanding between the NCF, Sheep Pond Road property owners, and the county, which would outline the responsibility of each entity under the proposed arrangement for the new road. The town is also pursuing permitting through the state's Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program.

The demolition of 28 Sheep Pond Road earlier this month marked the latest in a string of difficult decisions by property owners along Sheep Pond Road driven by the severe erosion along Nantucket’s southwest shoreline. The meandering dirt road - at least what is left of it - has been an erosion hot spot for decades, leading to a number of remarkable real estate deals, demolitions, and homes lost to the waves.

In October 2023, the house at 21 Sheep Pond Road was demolished after a storm undercut the southeast corner of the home, causing a deck to collapse and a condemnation order by the town.

In March 2024, the home at 4 and 6 Sheep Pond Road was sold for just $600,000 after a combination of severe erosion and a motivated seller led to the original asking price of $2.2 million being slashed down to six figures.

A house at 16 Sheep Pond Road that was set to be sold at a foreclosure auction in December 2024 was condemned by the town due to severe erosion. The foreclosure auction was later postponed and the house was moved back from the edge of the bluff.

Fourteen years ago, the late Gene Ratner lost his long battle with erosion when his home at 19 Sheep Pond Road collapsed into the ocean. Today, the entirety of Ratner’s property is now submerged.

And just a few months earlier in 2010, the property owners of 3 Sheep Pond Road lost their home after it toppled over the coastal bank and into the surf.