So (late) last night before signing the final Town Meeting warrant, with no discussion, our illustrious Select Board voted unanimously to insert the $500,000 Umass effluent water giveaway and as a result the entire 5-year “strategic agreement” will be within “the scope of the article.” Sniperscope that is.Apparently the Select board never voted to “close the warrant” a month or so ago. In order to avoid chaos the law allows the Powers That Be to set reasonable deadlines for Town Meeting warrant articles (for our article it was about a month ago for zoning articles perhaps six weeks). But since the board never officially voted to say “okay, that’s it folks: we’re not taking anymore” they had to accept whatever came in to their office by close of business yesterday.
Unfortunately everybody’s favorite aging activist, Vince O’Connor also snuck THREE zoning articles in yesterday —all of them anti-business, anti-development. Yikes!
I'm seeing so much revilement aimed at those who feel people come first: "Anti-business," "anti-development," NIMBY," and so forth.
ReplyDeleteThere's a case to be made for development that is sensitive to its potential impact on neighbors. But some projects are not at all sensitive. Sadly, those who advocate for neighbors run afoul of the local media and other business interests.
Yeah, a (selfish) case to be made indeed. And in Amherst the NIMBY's make that case all too well.
ReplyDeleteOne reason why new growth revenue is down by about one-half in this Fiscal Year. And it really doesn't matter if you want to build housing or commercial, the NIMBY Boogeyman will get you! (or Boogeywoman as the case may be)
So, Larry O, can you point me at the part of the zoning bylaws that will tell me if my project is "sensitive" or not?
ReplyDeleteA development process that goes something like this:
1. Buy some land.
2. Create a development plan.
3. Present the plan to the Powers That Be, and hope that they decide that it's appropriately "sensitive."
... is NOT reasonable, and sane businesspeople will simply go someplace where the rules for development are clearly spelled out in advance.