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Case Study: Acquiring a Public Boat Launch

 

photo of Pettegrew BeachFor decades, residents of Machiasport enjoyed the use of Pettegrow Beach, a 1.5-acre cobble beach on Bucks Harbor, as if it were town land. The gentle slope and compact surface of the beach made it an ideal launch site for fishermen, clammers, wormers and recreational boaters. The former landowners generously "overlooked this intrusion," says town selectman Douglas Campbell, "but we were concerned that if the property changed hands, we might be excluded someday."

To ensure permanent community access, town officials sought to buy Pettegrow Beach. The Pettegrow family, which had held the land for many generations, agreed to sell the shorefront parcel to the town for its appraised value. With the support of a visionary investor, Jim Lowell, and the land-use consultant Brian Kent, town officials approached the Land for Maine's Future Program for a grant of $116,000. Machiasport received the state grant, contingent on a one-third local match from the town. Town residents gave their unanimous support to that funding. "We're a maritime community," Campbell says, "so water access is vital to us: all our eggs are in that basket."

[Adapted with permission from an article in the Summer 2002 edition of Maine Heritage, the newsletter of Maine Coast Heritage Trust.

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