Cape Cod Beach Dispute Pits Neighbor Against Neighbor
BOSTON (CBS) - It's a Cape Cod beach dispute pitting neighbor against neighbor. The argument: who should be allowed to walk down a path to the ocean.
The fight has been going on for years, but this summer it escalated when a fence was put up closing White Cap Path in Sandwich. "We put the fence up I would say a month ago. We put that up to protect the dune," says Paul Schneider, the head of the condo association that erected the fence.
The fence means about 400 residents can't use the path they've been using for decades to get to Town Neck Beach, access they say their deeds give them a right to, and an earlier court ruling supports. "I've been using this pathway for 63 years. It's a right of way. It's in our property deeds that it's a right of way and it's always been a right of way back to 1949," says Carolyn Savory, a resident in the neighborhood who wants to be able to get to the ocean using the path.
Here's the complicating factor: The town beach may actually be gone most of the time. "At high tide it's probably underwater 15 to 20 feet," Schneider says.
The condo association says erosion wiped it away, leaving mostly their private land. They've spent tens of thousands of their own dollars to bring in sand and build a dune to protect their homes, and they don't want people climbing over it. "If foot traffic goes over it, it knocks down and makes it weak," Schneider says.
The lawyer for Sandwich says if the town beach is, in fact, underwater: "It's my opinion that this beach area is privately owned and is not subject to a public right of use."
But the neighbors are vowing to fight. "They are our neighbors and they should be our friends and I don't understand what the fuss is over just the people in this neighborhood going down and sitting on the beach," says Savary.
The town is going to do a new survey to figure out which is town beach land and which is private land. This dispute could definitely end in court.
