It's a sad day in our neighborhood. After a long hard fight with the powers- that-be in our town, developers won over the people who abut a beautiful wooded lot in our neighborhood.
Here's the thing, this lot never should have been allowed to be developed because it doesn't meet our town's road frontage requirements. That is a fact. It is part of a larger lot that has an older, established home and enough frontage, but the developer wanted to eek all they could out of their purchase and develop the wooded lot that extends behind the home into three new home sites. None of which, after the initial subdivision from the original house lot, would have the road frontage required to build.
Our town, sadly allowed the developer to count the road frontage of the established home, as frontage for the lot that was being subdivided from it. That will have nothing to do with the original home or lot. They call it a pork chop lot. Our zoning board initially put it this 'pork chop lot' clause, as a means for families,wishing to put another family home on the back part of a lot they owned, to do so without the frontage requirements. Problem is, our town is now allowing developers to use this clause.
We did our best as a neighborhood to fight it, to no avail. We prevented the lot from being split into three home sites and that is something, and I am grateful.
More importantly though, our town didn't care enough to prevent this destruction of this piece of land that should have been held in higher regard, especially since it abuts conservation land to one side.
More than 100 trees have just been mowed down in little more than an hour. All in the name of money and profit. Click here if your'e reading by email (and be sure to turn up the volume so you can hear the machine taking each tree in one fell swoop).
It was a beautiful woods. Was.
Sorry for the unusually 'heavy' post, but I am just sad that so many beautiful, healthy trees were just obliterated in short order. And that our town didn't care that my friends and neighbors across the street, Tom (who served his country in Vietnam) and Joan, who have lived here more than 30 years would now not only be surrounded by two roads, but a driveway that is so big and obtrusive that it will surround them on two sides. They will now be completely surrounded by what can essentially be deemed roadways. It just makes me sick.
It's gray here today. Perfectly representative of the kind of atmosphere in our neighborhood today.
Hope your day is happier.
Ciao for now,
That's really awful! I hate that sometimes it doesn't matter how good of an argument you have against something like this! Sorry to see those trees go!
ReplyDeleteWell isn't that the truth! Sometimes, it doesn't matter. They go ahead and do things regardless of the harm to the nature and the people who abut these projects.
DeleteIt is way too sad. Listening to that monsterous machine just shred everything in it's path. Heartbreaking.
I agree, it is really sad. There will be nothing left for our children to hike through. And all so people can have (and be in debt over their heads) for a 2000+ square foot home for a family of 3 or 4. Just yesterday Hubby and I were remembering all the deer and farmland that surrounded us when we moved here in 2000. With 2 new housing developments we have lost most of our deer. Luckily we still have farmland, but that has grown and overtaken the woods.
ReplyDeleteDebbi
-yankeeburrow
Very sad. I'm betting the developer made a hefty campaign contribution to the powers-that-be.
ReplyDeleteUnchecked Capitalism is killing democracy as I once knew it. Very, very, very sad.
The old Joni Mitchell song comes to mind, "They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot."