The following was submitted and printed in yesterday's Keene Sentinel in the Reader Opinion section...
To The Sentinel;
Winchester residents, it is your money! Is this a laughing matter? Some of the Planning Board members thought so.
Most people of Winchester know about the conditional approval given to Robert van Dyke by our town planning board for his 32-unit condo project on the hillside of Franklin Mountain on Route 10, behind Shamrock Realty.
What you don't know is that this planning board has been under the watchful eye of our town attorney, Barton Mayer; because of complaints of favoritism and pandering to the advantage of Mr. Van Dyke.
Most residents aren't aware that an appeal has been filed in Superior Court on behalf of the abutters, who are questioning the conduct of the planning board in reaching this decision, naming Chairperson Margaret Sharra and board member Dean Beamon personally.
In my previous letter to the editor of the Keene Sentinel, I raised several questions about the conduct of several members of this board and the possibility of a lawsuit being filed if they continued pandering to this applicant.
Just why wasn't the board afraid of being sued by the abutters, the very people they swore to protect, several of whom are disabled and on fixed incomes? For what reasons did they overturn their denial of this application?
No reasons were ever given, except to say they may have acted to hastily.
Were there suddenly new changes to the town's subdivision rules and regulations or was this simply Margaret Sharra using her influence as chairperson to once again help Mr. Van Dyke?
The granting of a waiver to allow Mr. Van Dyke relief from having to submit a completed application, as required by the town zoning laws on any building project, under the premise that this would cause him undue hardship of having to spend the money required to submit completed plan and design changes, was an outrageous motion from the board.
The issue of hardship is relative to the property and not the applicant. Having to spend the money to do things right is not a hardship. Every other developer who has submitted an application to the planning board has had to comply with the laws and submit a completed plan.
Either we elect people and become a town with laws that everyone must abide by equally, or have none at all.
We cannot allow elected officials to be influenced by special interest, they must all be of good conscience and capable of reaching a fair and lawful result on their own and shouldn't cast any doubt of implication of impropriety.
ROBERT DAVIS
893 Old Westport Road
Winchester
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I suppose once people in town read this and then it dawns on them that the town will soon be raising their taxes to pay for it's defense in this matter, the abutters will be getting some nasty phone calls from irate residents asking them what the hell they think they're doing. They actually should be calling the members of the planning and zoning boards and asking them those questions. The abutters are simply standing up for themselves and the town's other residents and are refusing to bend to the will of those who would circumvent our town subdivision and zoning laws. Perhaps if more residents had paid attention and attended these meetings and raised their concerns then; the town would not find itself in this position and have to defend itself in a court of law.
This is not the first time this has happened; nor would I suspect the last. As long as people refuse to get involved and to stand up and be counted, there will always be those who feel they can do whatever suits them and get away with it.
About time someone stood up to those in town who think they can force their will on everyone. I never knew this site existed until this morning and will spread the word. This is exactly what this town needs. I don't know who you are Bob Davis, but it's more people like you and the people running this web site that we need to keep our town officials in line. I for one am going to express my disgust in a letter to the selectman over this. With costs on the rise for everything from food to heating oil, the last thing we need to be paying for is the defense of our elected officials over giving a contractor special treatment. What's wrong with these people anyways, don't they know any better?
What do you expect to gain from all of this? You know you can not fight City Hall. All you will succeed in doing is raising our taxes and causing more hardship for all of us in town. It's too bad they want to put this development near your homes but think about the rest of us, why should we have to pay for your fight? I'm sure the Planning Board followed the rules and did everything lawfully as they always do otherwise the town's lawyer would have put a stop to the proceedings. I think you have all made a big mistake and we will all suffer because of it.
What we expect to gain is the protection afforded us under the town's subdivision and zoning laws. There have been many irregularities during these proceedings, right from the beginning. If you had been in attendance over the past 15-16 months, this would have been obvious to you and because of this we were forced to hire an attorney who has now filed an appeal of this decision based on facts of law. We are not a bunch of NIMBY's but people like yourself who feel that the board has not acted in the best interest of our town nor afforded us the protections to our homes and property as required by town law. Word has it that the town attorney warned certain members of the board time and time again about their conduct and in fact at one public meeting he attended, he warned them NOT to give Van Dyke any conditional approvals until he had all of his permits in hand and final plans had been submitted; but his advice was not heeded.
As for us being the cause of the town's taxes being raised perhaps you should address these concerns with your selectmen, seems they went way over budget last year long before this appeal was filed. The last thing we wanted to do was to take the town to court to force it to follow it's own rules and regulations, the actions of certain planning board members left us no other choice but to take this matter before a judge to seek relief.
If these board people aren't following the town laws then they should be removed from their positions. If they are giving special treatment to certain contractors or others who come before them they should be held accountable and be replaced with more competent people immediately. We as a town can not afford to keep having to go to court over the conduct of a few who think they have the powers to decide right from wrong. This is the second lawsuit I have read about in the past couple of months. What's going on with the Dunkin Donuts thing, do you know if that matter is going before the courts too?
Other than what was printed in the newspaper article, there is no further information available on the Dunkin Donuts proposal. There hasn't been any posting of Planning Board meeting minutes since June making it nearly impossible to follow this situation. So much for public information being made readily available in a timely manner as required by law. As soon as more information becomes available we will attempt to answer your question.
Post a Comment