Beach Erosion and the Plum Island Buyouts: Newburyport, Massachusetts
Plum Island, the barrier island at the Merrimack River's mouth, spans four separate towns — Newburyport, Newbury, Rowley, and Ipswich — and it is easy to over-claim which parts belong to which. The drawbridge that carries traffic onto the island crosses into the town of Newbury, not Newburyport, and Parker River National Wildlife Refuge — most of the island's land area — is mostly a Newbury property. What genuinely sits inside Newburyport's city limits is the island's northern residential village, including the numbered-street Reservation Terrace neighborhood, where storm and flood damage has pushed a handful of homes into an active FEMA buyout process. That is a real, current Newburyport city-government story — the City Council voted on it — and this page focuses specifically on that buyout program, the flood-zone numbers behind it, and what remains unresolved as of this research.
Newburyport's Slice of Plum Island: Reservation Terrace
Reservation Terrace is a numbered-street neighborhood — streets with names like 63rd Street and 64th Street — on the northern end of Plum Island, within Newburyport's own city limits and zip code (01950), the same zip as downtown. It is a genuinely direct overlap: Newburyport, the city, administers and taxes this stretch of the island even though the drawbridge onto the island crosses into Newbury, the refuge covering most of the island's acreage sits mostly in Newbury, and Sandy Point State Reservation at the island's southern tip belongs to Ipswich. Newburyport's own erosion story is this residential village and the buyout process tied to it — not the island's broader refuge or dune-ecology narrative, which belongs to the island as a whole rather than to Newburyport specifically.
The FEMA Buyout: Three Addresses, a City Council Vote, and Who Paid What
Three homes on Reservation Terrace — 15 63rd Street, 8 64th Street, and 12 64th Street — suffered storm and flood damage and entered a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program buyout process beginning around 2022. On June 24, 2024, the Newburyport City Council voted 9-1 to approve $143,535 in city funding as the required local match, with FEMA covering the remaining roughly $1.3 million; the city's share was drawn from $100,000 in the hydrant-replacement program and $43,535 from free-cash reserves. Ward 1 Councilor Sharif Zeid cast the lone vote against the amended proposal. Two homeowners, Lee McLaughlin and Helen O'Brien of 8 64th Street, committed to the buyout program at that stage.
What Happened Next: A $1M Closing, a Declined Offer, and a Pending Demolition
Lee McLaughlin's buyout closed in October 2025 — nearly three years after the initial 2022 offer — for $1 million; her home is scheduled for demolition in spring 2026, with the land to be restored to sand dune. She described the process as "frustrating at times" but said "it was definitely worth it." Not every owner has taken the deal: a third Reservation Terrace owner, Stanton Sacks, declined a roughly $750,000 buyout offer, calling it about half his property's actual value and insufficient compensation, and other residents in the neighborhood reportedly prefer beach restoration or jetty projects over managed retreat. For context, average Plum Island home sale prices exceed $1 million, which is part of why a $750,000 offer can look low to an owner weighing what a comparable home nearby would fetch on the open market. As of the most recent reporting found for this page, whether Sacks or other holdouts have since settled, and the actual outcome of the spring 2026 demolition, were both still unresolved — verify current status directly before treating either as closed.
Citywide Flood Exposure Behind the Buyout
Newburyport's own 2022 Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan puts roughly 1,517 acres of the city inside FEMA's high-risk Zone A flood designation and roughly 94 acres inside the moderate-risk Zone X, with about 19 acres of residential land sitting within a mapped floodplain. One specific, citable engineering vulnerability the plan flags: the Lower Artichoke dam's spillway sits approximately 3 feet lower than FEMA's 100-year flood elevation. The plan's primary identified hazards for the city are hurricanes, nor'easters, and tropical storms, with storm-surge modeling included, though this research did not turn up specific storm-by-storm damage totals for Newburyport proper — those would need to come from the full hazard mitigation plan PDF rather than being estimated here.
What This Means If You're Evaluating Property Near Plum Island
The Reservation Terrace buyout is a live, city-government-level example of what managed retreat actually looks like in dollars and years: a 2022 offer that did not close until October 2025, a 90/10 FEMA-to-city funding split, a City Council vote that was not unanimous, and at least one owner who decided the number on offer did not match what the market said the home was worth. If you are looking at property on or near Newburyport's portion of Plum Island, that combination — high average sale prices, real flood-zone acreage citywide, and an active buyout program working through specific addresses one at a time — is worth weighing together rather than separately. None of this is engineering, insurance, or real estate advice; for a property-specific flood determination, consult FEMA's Flood Map Service Center at msc.fema.gov, the City of Newburyport's own hazard mitigation plan, and a licensed coastal engineer before making a purchase decision. For the island's broader refuge, ecology, and erosion story beyond Newburyport's own city-limits portion, see this site's dedicated Plum Island coverage.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Plum Island's administrative span across Newburyport, Newbury, Rowley, and Ipswich, the Newbury location of the island's drawbridge and most of Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, and Sandy Point State Reservation's status as an Ipswich property are per this site's own Plum Island and Ipswich research and newburyport.com's "Plum Island Beach" page. The Reservation Terrace buyout addresses (15 63rd Street, 8 64th Street, 12 64th Street), the June 24, 2024 Newburyport City Council 9-1 vote approving $143,535 in local-match funding (drawn from $100,000 in hydrant-replacement funds and $43,535 in free cash), Ward 1 Councilor Sharif Zeid's dissenting vote, and homeowners Lee McLaughlin and Helen O'Brien are per Newburyport News, June 2024, "Newburyport City Council approves Plum Island buyout, recreation center zoning." McLaughlin's October 2025 buyout closing at $1 million, her home's scheduled spring 2026 demolition, her quotes describing the process, Stanton Sacks's declined roughly $750,000 offer and his stated reasoning, other residents' preference for beach restoration or jetty projects over retreat, and the figure that average Plum Island home sale prices exceed $1 million are per WBUR, December 4, 2025, "Mass. wants to buy flood-prone homes. Not everyone is ready to sell." This research could not confirm whether Sacks or other holdouts have since accepted a buyout or the actual outcome of the spring 2026 demolition, and none of that is asserted here. The citywide FEMA Zone A (~1,517 acres) and Zone X (~94 acres) flood-zone acreage, the roughly 19 acres of residential floodplain land, the Lower Artichoke dam spillway sitting about 3 feet below FEMA's 100-year flood elevation, and the plan's identified primary hazards (hurricanes, nor'easters, tropical storms) are per the City of Newburyport's 2022 Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan. This research did not confirm specific storm-by-storm damage totals for Newburyport, and none are stated here to fill that gap. Nothing on this page is engineering, insurance, or real estate advice, and it is not a substitute for FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, the City of Newburyport's own hazard mitigation plan, or a licensed coastal engineer.