Truro’s protracted battle with the Klines continues. The issue in recent months is the $178,000 it had cost the town by July to attempt to enforce the law—that is, tear down this house declared illegal by the courts—and whether the town can afford to go on enforcing its own zoning. A former selectman (who happens to be employed by the Klines as caretaker) thinks the town should throw in the towel.
Several letters to this paper have agreed, suggesting that the opposition to the Kline house is petty jealousy and that the town needs to stop fighting this silly battle and move on.
Beg to differ. There is nothing petty about this. It is in fact nothing less than one of those struggles the outcome of which helps determine the future of a town.
Let’s call this what it is: out-and-out class struggle—the town in class struggle with its own wealthy nonresident taxpayer. It’s a David vs. Goliath struggle in which the town is the little guy with the slingshot. It’s costing the Klines a lot of money too, but it hurts the Klines a lot less than it does the town.
When the Klines were told some years back by the court that if they went on building the controversial house they did so at their own risk, they went ahead anyway. This was both an expression of their arrogant confidence that their money would win out in this smalltime setting, and also an indication that even if they lost, the millions spent on the house wouldn’t really hurt.
In neighboring Wellfleet we never had that problem with our most famous rich guy, town son L. D. Baker, the Banana King, founder of what became United Fruit. On the contrary. We tell with pride the story of how he went out and discovered the banana (well, figured out to get them back north) and built himself a big house, shown in old photos with big bunch of bananas hanging from the porch ceiling.
Yes, it was a different era, over 100 years ago. But also he was a native. He was a capitalist, but he was our capitalist, his wealth a colorfully-gotten product of this town, or at least that’s how it gets told. Besides the house didn’t (and doesn’t) dominate its neighborhood as the Kline house does.
It was very different with the infamous Blasch House, our trophy house issue of a few years ago. Blasch was not a native like Baker. Like Kline, a wealthy non-resident whose house erected in one of our most prominent settings (a big 360 view being the point) seemed to thumb its nose at local values and scale from its eminence. The town’s fight against Blasch was more limited than Truro’s against Kline since there turned out to be no zoning basis for turning him down.
The house stands as one of the more disliked structures in town, an imposing house imposing itself on passersby, inspiring nasty jokes by those who know the story.
In the local struggle of 1 % vs. 99%, it seems that a whole town is no match for even one of its deep-pocketed citizens. A town does have another weapon, though: zoning. Shortly after our own losing battle with a casa non grata, Wellfleet passed bylaws against outsized houses in the National Seashore. (But not in the third of town not Seashore, which is thought by many to be a mistake.)
If Truro wants to protect its Hopper view or modesty of scale or anything else that seems vital to a style, a quality of life favored by most citizens, they may be able to figure out a way of making zoning express that preference.
I’m rooting for determined Truro citizens to fight the good fight and persevere in this class struggle. And to do something with zoning to make itself less vulnerable in the future.
No Comments