Big Plans for Truro: Proposed Pamet Harbor Development, 1969 • Cobb Corner
Courtesy of The Truro Historical Society, Cobb Archives
1969. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The Woodstock music festival attracted 350,000 people. Paul Newman and Robert Redford starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And Truro got its very first Truro Comprehensive Plan. Entitled “Truro, Mass. Town Plan Summary,” the nine-page booklet, including photographs and illustrations, proposed changes that would have altered the town in dramatic fashion.
The Plan was created by professional planners and funded by a federal grant under the leadership of Planning Board local notables Lloyd Rose, Patricia Duarte, Irving Gernt, George Tenney, and Joseph Schoonejongen. A copy may be found in the Cobb Archives. Here are some highlights from the first Truro Planning Board Comprehensive Plan, followed by the brief story of its fate. In the text, voters are alerted: “The destiny of Truro lies in your hands, for Implementation is solely your responsibility.”
MAJOR LAND USES AND CIRCULATION PLAN
● “Relocate Route 6 easterly, using existing Route 6 as a local traffic carrier from Pamet Crossing to South Hollow Road. This new road will effectively separate the more intensive residential zone from the motel-restaurant zone… “
● “Realign parts of Route 6A, easterly, along Pilgrim Beach [aka Beach Point], closer to Route 6 to provide for greater depth of lots and better utilization of land, and to encourage development of larger motels.”
● “Develop the mouth of the Pamet into a new town center with a small civic center, including the town hall and possibly a branch library. Also create recreational facilities in the form of [bayside] beaches, and a marina [500 slips] with associated commercial development. The creation of a charming old New England Harbor would be an economic asset to the community: it would support commercial enterprise, provide job opportunities, and provide a sightseeing attraction …. This type of development would create a focus in Truro, something that is sadly lacking.”
● Build two new roads leading from Route 6 to the proposed marina at the mouth of the Pamet, along both sides of Pamet Harbor, “primarily through the lands of the National Seashore Park. So as to avoid traffic increases along residential streets in Truro.”
● Develop a recreation center with tennis courts in the vicinity of Central School.
● Expand the Highland Golf Course to eighteen holes…”It could easily be made into one of the most exciting courses on the eastern seaboard.”
When the Town of Truro Annual Reports came out in 1969, the Planning Board committee of five had lost one member. They had spent about $1000 on the above described booklet. In April 1970 at the Special Town Meeting, an article to raise and appropriate $5000 more for the nascent Pamet Harbor Fund lost: Ayes 31, Nos 46. By 1972, a new Planning Board (three more members had resigned) under the chairmanship of the indefatigable Irving Gernt proposed to begin a new Master Plan for Truro.
The fate of the 1969 Comprehensive Plan is already known to anyone who travels along Depot Road to the current Pamet Harbor or drives, bikes, or walks throughout Truro. The Plan was, apparently, so disliked by Truro residents that it never made it to the floor of town meeting for a vote. In their efforts to “preserve, protect and at the same time develop Truro, along with sound economic and environmental lines,” the Planning Board seemed not to have anticipated the difficulties in working with the Commonwealth and with the National Sea Shore to build and move roads; and perhaps most significant, they forgot the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 (nicknamed “The Long Island Express”). The storm had brought a fifteen-foot storm surge and roaring seas along the coasts of Massachusetts. Such a calamity on the Cape, and in Truro, most certainly will happen again. It’s probably a good thing that, today, town hall is not located at sea level on the Pamet Harbor.