:bounce:

permit to subdivide DENIED BABY!!!

we came in numbers and kicked THEIR ASSES!!

they didnt' have the frontage, were looking for an exception, we cited safety (traffic), ENVIRONMENTAL RULES (yup, that was MY baby), grandfathered properties, etc...

PERMIT TO SUBDIVIDE AND BUILD

DENIED!!!

:bounce:

vote was 6-1 IN OUR FAVOR!!!

i am SOOOOOOO happy!!

:)

Any chance they'll appeal or are you home free?

he COULD appeal but the planning board doesn't seem to think he will. the WAR might not be won but today's BATTLE sure as hell was!

WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Good work!

:thumbsup:

:thumbsup:

Winning feels so good. Fight the power! Fight the greed!

Congrats.

:thumbsup:

Good on you guys! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

stick it to the man! :woohoo:

:bounce: :woohoo: :bounce: :woohoo: :bounce: :woohoo:

NIMBYism keeps your home valuable, and keeps renters from becoming owners, but fuck them, they aren't you.

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and there isn't enough LAND to build another house (hence the appeal to Town Hall for an exemption), and there is a PROTECTED watershed less than 90 feet from the property, and it would have been a hazard to traffic and children (sharp curve), and its listed as an historic neighborhood (my house was built in 1877), and the 7 kids of the deceased couple who owned the home only wanted to subdivide and build to then sell so they could buy yet ANOTHER Lexus (did i mention one of the kids who ownes a construction company would do the work), AND considering that despite the fact that the petitioner (son) used to be a Selectman in town and was STILL DENIED, feel free to judge away.

Matcom=Evil Vassal holding down the great oppressed feudal masses. Where's my flaming pitchfork?!??!?! :grr:

Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed! :rofl:

:grr: Matcom is the reason why I have to move to Portland, OR to buy! :grr: Matcom is trying to take God out of the pledge, while burning flags with his other hand and simultaneously running over old ladies in the crosswalk with his huge SUV; that fucking bastard! :grr:

Portland is lovely in the spring :D

:hide:

:cry:

you'll be very happy there

which would be enough in my book. However, the other arguments fall on deaf ears here. There's only so much land to go around, failing to develop in already urbanized areas means that farmland and forest must be developed to provide housing, pushing the edge of development further afield, exacerbating sprawl, and committing billions of dollars worth of buildings to an automobile (and oil) dependent community.

Traffic hazards can never be completely eliminated, but there are many options for 'traffic calming'.
Historic neighborhoods are nice, but we can't live that way for ever. You don't see too many wigwams still standing, do you? In the DC area, historic designation is usually a means for the neighborhood to inflate it's prices (and equity) while keeping the riffraff out. The motivation of the sellers is irrelevant, it's the motivation of the buyers I worry about. Generally people want to own homes, and due to the recent housing inflation, generally those who rent today are going to be renting for a long time. It would help if the housing supply were increased, lowering, or at least checking, housing prices. While new housing would generally be expensive, the houses that those buyers vacate would also come on the market.

right. see #14

keeps housing scarce, and thus expensive. Conversely, if every bit of privately held, urban land were built on, or built more on, people would spend less on housing and less on commuting / transporting goods.

this is new england. there is NOTHING scarce about housing in my neighborhood or town. again, if you had bothered to read, the neighborhood is already OVER developed

buh bye now

who would buy the houses there? I read that you say the neighborhood is already overdeveloped - you saying its so doesn't make it so.

I suppose you feel that first come, first served is an equitable and just way of dividing up wealth?

come on up for a beer and take a LOOK at the neighborhood in question before YOU decide what is overdeveloped or not :eyes:

cause you know, "MY saying its so doesn't make it so"

idiot

I disagree therefore i must have a low IQ. Fuck off.

Just like every neighborhood in the world, people want housing, stores, etc. in SOMEONE ELSE'S NEIGHBORHOOD. Why would yours be any different?

If they were building a cape cod, they had room for a rowhouse, ergo, it's not overdeveloped. If you don't want anything built on that land, I suggest you take up a collection and buy it. Or, in your case, get all of your fellow homeowners to vote someone else out of their potential home.

WE WON!!! :bounce:

so be it. i just love it when people make blanket statements over something they have never seen.

much like Ann Coulter talking about all the 'good' happening in Iraq

re: overdevelopment :eyes:

there's no room for any new houses, or even so much as a division

OTW, it's merely the opinion of the planning board, who usually have a vested interest in representing the existing property owners in keeping out newcomers, unless they buy into the ever appreciating (due to scarcity) real estate pyramid.

out, and had the town deny an exemption. I don't know what dog you have in this fight, why you care, or even why you think you know the area, but the system worked and if you don't like it stay out of Massachusetts. Thar be liberals in these here woods.

Lots of people are liberal when they get to vote on other people's property.

The fact that an exemption was required points to the fact that restrictive zoning ordinances exist.

This is just another example of people acting in their own self interest at the expense of the greater good.

You are totally backwards.

Construction puts people to work, gives them homes, and gives them places to work.

Dense construction reduces transport distances and energy use, while leaving greenspace open for farms (local low energy produce) and ecological buffering.

When done by fiat - a la Portland, OR, where laws prohibit density in the city's 'greenbelt', the effect is to make housing scarce and expensive, pushing the dream of homeownership out of reach of regular working families with no inheritance.

Conversely, if most communities, including the ones far away in Massachusetts, allow MORE development to occur in already developed areas, we can put more homes closer to more jobs, we can make mass transit economically viable, and we can get out of our cars & SUVs. We develop in towns, reducing development pressure at the edges. You want greenspace? Approve funds for a park. You want farms? allow further development in town - I suggest a land value tax.

But, it's been said that the only thing people hate more than sprawl is density. Everybody's got to have a car for every driver, and preferably a garage to keep them in. Most people like the idea of density SOMEWHERE ELSE, as is the case here. Unfortunatly, because people can dictate what others do with their property this is how it works.

Want to make a million dollars? Get your zoning commission to grant development permission for your parcel. Quick easy way to profit from the public's work.

there's no room on that street. Fine, construction workers get a job for a couple weeks, but nobody NEW is going to be moving in, it's one family wanting more room for themselves.

All they'll be doing, as matcom pointed out, is making a tight street unsafe, and creating environmental issues.

I believe the request was for permission to subdivide, forgive me if I'm wrong in thinking that means making another buildable lot.

They get to build on their house, they don't add to demand for a new, gated community where a farm once stood.

There are plenty of streets in just about every city, where the buildings touch each other, come within feet of the road, and are 3-4 storeys tall. No street is safe if it's open to traffic, but with the appropriate signage, humps, circles, etc., they can be made reasonably safe.

If they were building too close to a watershed, and the public deems that watershed worthy of protection, then the public should condemn and buy the land necessary. Make it a park, which would increase the land values nearby, and pay for it with increased property tax revenue.

Why should everyone else subsidize the profiteering of one family for the "greater good", or is that a good thing because it creates temporary jobs and lowers the value of housing for the neighbors.

local property owners, owners of registered vehicles, road users. All jobs are temporary, it's aggregate demand for labor that's important. You cannot legislate continually rising property values without leaving people behind, which was my original point - it's selfish.

Alternatively, you could view your house as a place to live, shelter, a home, rather than an investment: if more people did that, we wouldn't be in the speculative bubble we're in now - and perhaps people would spend more of their money on productive things like goods, services, houses rather than on speculative things like land. (it's not a real estate bubble, it's a land bubble).

I doubt that someone building an addition to a house would seriously affect a neighbor's home value - rather, I think that any decrease or slowing of value due rightly to a deflating land bubble would be erooneously attributed to your neighbor's sunroom.

You are rising property values in the neighborhood and leaving people behind. You know, people who lived in their homes for 30 years and can barely afford the rising property taxes on their fixed retirement incomes.

Also, as pointed out, YOU HAVNT SEEN THE PROPERTY IN QUESTION, so I dont care what you argue, you are arguing WITHOUT IMPORTANT FACTS!

Buying a house once doesn't give you the right to that land forever, painful, but true. Sell and take a profit. Move someplace cheaper. Otherwise, the only people with property would be the descendents of the first people to 'legally' claim it - in our case, throughout most of the US, it would be a whole bunch of WASPs - and given our tendency for primogeniture, mostly male wasps.

And, no I haven't seen the property in question, but it's the nature of an internet forum to post in reply to the information given. Wouldn't make much sense to make a post and then declare responses off-limits to everyone else.

The facts as presented: someone in the neighborhood wanted to subdivide and build his property. Other people didn't want him to, and used beaurocratic means to block the first person's wishes for his own property.

My argument: In doing so, they contributed to out of reach housing prices as well as urban sprawl, and by extension: oil dependency, imperialism, global terror, global climate change, corporate fascism, loss of civil rights, unemployment, poverty, crime, etc.

The effect is small, but the direction is definite. Thousands of neighborhoods make similar decisions, and the effect is multiplied.

You got some 'splainin to do!

As in, wtf you are talking about

no one to buy them...your argument is paper thin. Sorry. Good on you, matcom...even if you did take away food from my kids mouths...:hi:

Last I checked, prices in MA are still rising - indicating an increasing demand for housing? Perhaps it's slowing, but I'm quite sure that there are plenty of people living with their parents or roomates in MA, who would like to buy their own house, if it were affordable.

If the price is too high, more than likely the sellers have overvalued the lot, perhaps they paid too much for it originally, perhaps the lot has decreased in value due to a decrease in speculative value, perhaps, simply, no one can afford it. Either way, they have to come down on their price. Regardless, it's the builders prerogative to build a house that noone wants.

speaks with other appraisers nationwide, we are glutted with houses. Again, I am sure there are homes for sale in matcom's neighborhood. You just argued against your point. i.e. "Regardless, it's the builders prerogative to build a house that noone wants" and it's matcom's prerogative to fight it. Cheers.

I'm sorry, I'm not an appraiser. One of my best friends is. I have a cousin that works in the title business. Another friend of mine has his own mortgage business. If houses aren't moving, they're priced too high. You're an appraiser - how much is a lot worth? How much did the lot cost to build? If the market won't support the price of construction, things won't be built. If houses can go for more than the price of construction, they'll be built - unless the property owner feels that he can hold out for a better price on the lot in the future. This speculative witholding of land, PLUS restrictive zoning ordinances, is what contributes to sprawl and inflated real estate prices.

And price it for at least $500k. I dont see how thats "affordable".

and the family that buys that would vacate a $200,000 split-level. And the family buying that would be moving out of a $1200 / mo rental. And the young couple moving in there would be moving up from a $600 / mo efficiency. And the new tenant their would be renting her first apartment.

:rofl:

Such a strong opinion when you know absolutely nothing about the specific circumstances. Congratulations, you've just made a complete jackass of yourself!

:rofl:

I've noticed more and more subdivisions popping up in my area in the last few years. The average house in a sub in my area is starting at around 175(sounds cheap but cost of living is low in my area so that is actually a high amount), construction is poor and the areas are tightly packed in. In my area the subs are just awful-they are taking away farmland and not really providing a whole lot of housing. But they are allowing to "white folk" to move away from those darker sinned people:sarcasm:
We have entire areas of town that could be renovated into affordable housing. There are beautiful old houses that are falling into ruins that no one wants to move into since the new subs are supposedly the place to be. Our subs have nothing to do w/ affordable homeownership. They are all about status and white flight.

We had a similar thing happen here recently and we won as well. People don't seem to get that more houses means more schools, hospitals, etc.

:yourock:

A little activism goes a long way.

It's always good to hear when the system works for the people instead of the other way around.:thumbsup: