The first four property owners to have their land, home, or business taken for the new Sagamore Bridge will see their deeds transferred to the state in just a few weeks’ time.
Last month, they received notice of the sale prices and closing dates.
One of the homeowners, 89-year-old Mary Gallerani, said the state has no heart, making the announcement so close to the holidays.
“We are coming up to Christmas, usually a joyous celebration,” she said in an interview following Tuesday’s public meeting on the project in Bourne. “To get something like that in the mail … let's say a month before Christmas, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. I've lived there since 1958.”
In all, 14 homes, one commercial property, and several vacant lots are scheduled to be taken for the Bourne and Sagamore bridges.
The state’s head of the project, Luisa Paiewonsky, addressed the neighbors’ concerns.
“We issued the notice in November, and we intentionally scheduled the recording of the property after Christmas because we didn't want to have this happen right in the middle of the holiday season,” she said in an interview.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has been talking about using eminent domain for the bridge project since 2023, she said. Property owners in the Round Hill neighborhood, where Gallerani lives, were formally notified in March of this year that their properties would be taken, according to Paiewonsky, executive director of the Transportation Department’s Megaprojects Delivery Office.
Although deeds will be transferred in January, the department often offers residents the opportunity to rent their homes until they can find a new place to live.
Asked after the meeting how long the rental would last, Paiewonsky said the state decides that on a case-by-case basis.
“We take a very reasonable position with them, because we understand that it's disruptive to be moved out of your house and to find a new location,” she said.
Owners have three years to appeal the price the state gives them for their property.
Construction of the first bridge, the Sagamore, is expected to start in late 2027 or early 2028.
Tuesday’s meeting was designed to review and solicit public comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, a document the state recently filed with the federal government describing the project at length.
Cape Cod residents aired several concerns.
Steve Buckley, of Chatham, said easier travel to the Cape will result in more people buying second homes and more young families displaced.
“And to simply say, … ‘Well it's not our intention to do that,’ — I don't care what it's intended to do; it's going to happen,” he said.
Another critic, John York of Bourne, said the layout of the pedestrian crossing over the Sagamore Bridge will make the walk to the park-and-ride too long to be practical.
Bourne resident Jay Batson objected to the at-grade crossing of the bike-and-pedestrian path across the canal service road on the south side of the Bourne Bridge, saying it presents safety and environmental problems. He called for a grade-separated bike-and-pedestrian overpass.
A public comment period on the federal filing ends Jan. 5.
Meanwhile, a threatened loss of funding to rebuild the Sagamore Bridge has not materialized.
Paiewonsky said a Trump administration tweet in October announcing a “pause” in funding from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for unspecified projects has not resulted in any loss of the $350 million in Army Corps funding for the Sagamore Bridge.
“Fortunately, that turned out to be not more than a tweet,” she said.
The post on X by Russell Vought, director of the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget, appeared to be tied to the government shutdown, which ended in November.
The Army Corps money is just one part of the combined cost estimate of $4.5 billion for the Bourne and Sagamore bridges. The Sagamore is fully funded, but to date, the Bourne is not.
The federal permitting process covers both bridges.
