A new appeal from a Chappaquiddick land owner is questioning if The Trustees of Reservations has the proper permits for its oversand vehicle trails on Cape Pogue.
Richard Murray, a retired oceanographer whose family has owned property on Cape Pogue for decades, rekindled the long-running debate over the Trustees management with his appeal, which is set to go before the Edgartown zoning board of appeals on Nov. 4.
Mr. Murray filed his appeal late last month, and he is asking the board to consider if the Trustees needs a special permit to sell oversand vehicle stickers to drivers who wish to take their four-wheel drive vehicles out on the prized beaches on the eastern edge of the Vineyard.
The sandy spit has been the subject of several lawsuits and appeals in recent years, as some Chappy residents claim the Trustees are violating town zoning bylaws by operating without municipal sign offs.
In his appeal, Mr. Murray wrote that his challenge was not simply based on a disagreement with the Trustees or over public beach access. His family, in fact, has donated many acres on Chappaquiddick to the Trustees over the years, he noted.
Instead, the request was intended to secure compliance with zoning, and should include a review of the existing sandy vehicle paths, parcels, operations and conditions deemed necessary to protect the fragile barrier beach, Mr. Murray said.
“I’m not asking to judge whether the Trustees are doing the right thing or the neighbors are too much up in arms,” he said in an interview last week.
Instead, he just wanted to determine what the Trustees need permit-wise, he said.
“You have to follow the process,” he said. “This part of it, I just don’t understand why it’s controversial…In the modern era, they’ve never applied [for a permit], they’ve never received [a permit].”
Questions over the permits for oversand vehicles have taken a long and winding path to get to Mr. Murray’s appeal. The Trustees have been operating the trails on Chappaquiddick since the 1950s, and seemed to have received formal authorization from Edgartown officials in the 1990s.
But during the recent legal battles, which include lawsuits that debate which trails and easements the public can drive over, it was discovered that the original ‘90s permit was missing. Town officials couldn’t find it and the Trustees had no copies.
With no permit in hand, the zoning board ruled in 2024 that the Trustees needed to apply for a new permit.
The Trustees was granted a special permit for several of its buildings on Chappaquiddick this past May, though several Chappy land owners argued that the Trustees needed to get a special permit for the operation of the oversand vehicle trails — a claim the conservation nonprofit has denied in the past.
Early this year, William Gazaille filed an appeal similar to Mr. Murray’s that questioned if the Trustees needed another layer of review. But the merits of that argument were never dealt with after the zoning board determined that Mr. Gazaille, who doesn’t own land on Chappaquiddick, didn’t have standing and wasn’t aggrieved by the alleged transgressions.
A former select board member in Scituate, Mr. Murray said he had watched the process play out in the past, and decided to take a more active role in this appeal to attempt to settle things.
“I’m just asking, go through the process for [the land],” he said.
Mr. Murray’s challenge is formally appealing a decision of Edgartown building inspector Matt Rossi from Sept. 1.
In August, a group of Chappaquiddick residents asked Mr. Rossi to issue a cease and desist to the Trustees for the lack of a special permit, claiming there was an increased intensity of use over the years that necessitated a new review process.
Mr. Rossi determined that there was no violation of the zoning bylaw and there was no special permit needed.
“Additonally, no evidence was provided to indicate the number of OSVs utilizing the properties has increased to a level that would constitute an ‘increased intensity of use,’” Mr. Rossi wrote in his denial.
The Trustees declined to get into the details of Mr. Murray’s appeal, but said in a statement last week that the organization has done everything the town has required.
“It would be premature for The Trustees to comment on the Murray appeal before the ZBA meeting, other than to emphasize that the Trustees are in compliance with all town zoning bylaws and requirements,” said Darci Schofield, the director who oversees the Trustees’ Vineyard and Nantucket properties.
“We look forward to the meeting on Nov. 4 to discuss what is at the heart of our work — protecting and providing public access to Cape Poge, one of Massachusetts’ most special places, as the Trustees have done for over a half century,” she said.
Though not directly connected, Mr. Murray argued that the town should consider a recent court order that found the Trustees had overburdened an easement on the northern end of Cape Pogue.
Last month, Land Court Judge Sarah Turano-Flores granted Victor and Dawn Colantonio, a pair of Cape Pogue homeowners, a preliminary injunction that halted public access on a trail just north of Tom’s Neck.
“The court further concluded that the public OSV program impermissibly intensified use because the unconstructed, shifting sandy trails cross fragile wetlands and are susceptible to erosion, flooding, compaction and deterioration,” Mr. Murray wrote in his appeal. “The Court’s decision further outlines other matters relative to overburdening on the particular private ways for which [the Trustees] has no Special Permit to operate.”
That injunction and the potential for another appeal was concerning to several beachgoers and fishermen, who worried about losing the ability to drive their vehicles out to the remote parts of Cape Pogue.
Joshua Benton, an Edgartown homeowner, said his grandmother was born and raised on Chappaquiddick and he grew up driving out to Cape Pogue with his father to fish and scallop. As he grew older, he said he loved to take his daughter out to the same spots.
After the court decision, he said he was devastated.
“My father is heartbroken by what has happened. I am heartbroken by it,” he told the Gazette. “Our entire family is. And I worry that my daughter’s generation may be the first in our family that cannot experience Cape Pogue the way my grandmother’s generation, my father’s generation and my generation did.”
The Martha’s Vineyard Beachgoers Access Group, which has rallied in defense of keeping the oversand vehicle trails open to the public, wrote to the zoning board and asked the members to support the building inspector’s decision.
The group’s president Peter Sliwkowski argued that the appeal was searching for a potential zoning violation, and wasn’t based on a new trail being created or a new use on the Cape Pogue land.
“We are not asking this Board to take sides in the larger dispute between the private landowners and The Trustees,” Mr. Sliwkowski. “We are asking the Board not to make the community collateral damage in the dispute.”
The zoning board will hold its hearing on Mr. Murray’s appeal on Nov. 4 at 4:45 p.m.