Massachusetts Will Take Over Homes to Build New Sagamore Bridge
Using their power of eminent domain, Massachusetts officials plan to take over homes near Cape Cod to build a replacement for the old Sagamore Bridge, which was built back in 1935.
They’ll use several properties in Round Hill as staging areas for equipment during construction, then turn them into public parks later. Marc and Joan Hendel are among the homeowners who will lose the house they worked so hard to buy.
“We were looking and looking. It was very hard to find a home out here that we could afford on the Cape,” said Marc Hendel to CBS Boston.
The news caught the Hendels completely off guard through an official letter. “We cried, right, because it’s devastating to us. This is heartbreaking to us that they’re just coldly giving us a letter that says we’re going to destroy your home,” Marc Hendel said.
Legal expert George McLaughlin says homeowners can’t stop the project. “With the Sagamore Bridge project, you’re not going to be able to defeat that taking. It’s clearly a public purpose, and so the sole issue is, what is the fair market value of the properties taken on the taking date.”
State officials say they’ll meet with affected residents about compensation, timing, and where they might move. They point to structural problems and traffic backup as main reasons for replacing the bridge.
This is the newest change to infrastructure on the peninsula, where previous projects also required taking over properties. Local businesses are worried about how construction will hurt their bottom line.
After holding community meetings to get feedback, officials explained that more residents and tourists mean new infrastructure is needed. The existing bridge just can’t keep up with today’s traffic.
Joan Hendel talked about why they loved their property: “Upstairs from this very view, you can see the canal. Another reason why we chose this positioning of our home.”
Before taking any properties, MassDOT needs to show how the project benefits the public. The bridge is showing its age after 90 years, making a replacement necessary.
