How would you feel if someone asked you to sign a legal document that invites people to gaze into your yard, and signs away rights to part of your waterfront view forever? You might refuse – and less than courteously, too. But if it were Hap Hamel doing the asking, you’d probably at least hear him out.

Hap is a soft-spoken, retired lawyer from St. Louis, whose conversation is full of affirming expressions such as “You’re absolutely right.” He and his wife April knew they wanted to move somewhere near the ocean, and after visiting places all along the East Coast, decided they liked Edgartown best. In 1993 they moved into a house on South Water Street and Hap immediately immersed himself in his new community, serving on the land bank advisory board and as a library trustee.

Living in town, Hap came to appreciate the views of Edgartown harbor and Chappaquiddick that can be glimpsed between the houses along North and South Water streets. These views of sails and sparkling water are as essential to an experience of the street as the green lawns, the verdant flower gardens, and the tall old houses themselves.

But as plantings mature and new wings and ells are built on these homes, the views are being obscured and lost. So Hap had an idea about how to preserve the remaining visual lanes down to the water. He’s the prime mover behind a quest to persuade homeowners to donate view easements that would grant the town the right to see from the street to the harbor through corridors on private property that are at least fifteen feet wide. Owners would continue to have the right to use their land in any way already allowed, so long as the use didn’t block the view.  

Four years ago, Hap convened a committee made up of stalwart town leaders Ted Morgan, Edith Potter, and Peter Vincent. Then, pretty much single-handedly, Hap took on the task of talking to each owner of a property that has a view of the harbor from the street. After many conversations, there were four or five potential easement donors, two of whom signed the legal documents in 2003.

The first two easements were conveyed to the town by the Federated Church’s Mayhew Parsonage on South Water Street, and, around the corner on Dunham Road, by Edith Radley. The parsonage easement is fifteen feet wide, and Edie Radley’s easement includes the marsh and tidal pond between Dunham Road and her house on the harbor’s edge. No structure or vegetation will ever block anyone’s view across these properties because the easements are attached to the deeds.

In his undemanding way, Hap – who now lives with his wife on Sengekontacket Pond in Oak Bluffs – draws you into his vision of what’s good for the town as a whole.  

“You have to be totally objective,” he says. “You’re really talking for your town; we’ve enlisted the support of a lot of people. I’m not there to push people – just to let them know what we can achieve and how we can all benefit.”

Hap likes to “memorialize good deeds,” so the two finalized easements are celebrated by plaques set at the edge of each yard. “The people of Edgartown gratefully acknowledge [this] generous gift,” they read, “for the enjoyment of all persons who walk along or live on” North and South Water Streets and Dunham Road.

The town board of assessors agreed recently to a tax reduction to compensate owners for the value of the land in the view easement area, which Hap thinks will be an incentive, especially as property values along the waterfront rise. He says, “Most people are of good will, but we concluded from the beginning that there was a need to have a tax break as a way to convince people.”

The cost to the homeowner is nothing. As Edith Radley says, “I didn’t have to lift a finger. I just had to sign some papers.” The cost of the fair market appraisals to determine the tax reduction was paid for by the town conservation commission, and the original legal work of the easement wording was done by the land bank lawyer.     

Now that Hap has the town’s support for a tax reduction, and with two view easements in the files, he plans to go back to all potential donors along Water Street. (At presstime, a third easement was nearing agreement, the first on North Water Street.)

His hope is that this program, which he believes is unique in all the world, can be a model for other Island towns and waterfront communities everywhere.
Hap would be willing to help get it all started, but he says, “It’s important that the initiative be started by members of the community who already know the people. In Edgartown, I had the same interests [as other potential donors] because I lived there.”

Who ever thought that keeping your hedges trimmed and a few feet of your lawn unbuilt would be good for society, and earn you a tax break besides?