Further thoughts on the Stow thing

[aroraborealis]

It never seriously occurred to me that we might lose at town meeting. It was one of those theoretical risks that, I thought, just don't pan out, and we go our merry way, build Mosaic and move in, make nice with the neighbors eventually, and settle in to life as Stow residents.

One of the things that I'm struggling with the most, in terms of my mental space, is knowing that those ASSHOLES on Red Acre Road "won", and I can just imagine how smug they are feeling today, and it makes my blood boil. ARGH!

And in a piece of bitter irony, the Trust for Public Lands, the shiny non-profit that probably turned the tide, is probably a nonprofit to whom I would, under other circumstances, give money, and/or vote for in a town meeting. Ahh, life, thanks for that lesson, if only I could interpret it.

Comments

So, I'm ignorant...

[zzbottom.livejournal.com]

Could you tell me what issue you were trying to get approval for? With the unsuccessful bid, what's the next step?

Re: So, I'm ignorant...

[razil.livejournal.com]

In short (or trying to be short :), my cohousing group <http://www.mosaic-commons.org/> had a piece of land in Stow, which, due to some weird zoning, when it changed hands, the town had right of first refusal on the land. (This may ultimately turn out not to be true, but that's a different story). Last night was the town meeting where the town voted on the warrant article put up by the neighbors (who are against our project -- development = bad, esp. in OUR back yards! they say) to have the town put up $300,000 to help a nonprofit purchase the land, through the town passing off its right of first refusal to the nonprofit. So the town didn't vote AGAINST us, so much as FOR the warrant article, but the result is the same.

From here, we can either walk away and restart our land search elsewhere, or follow some sort of litigation, if there are grounds for it. Or some combination thereof? It feels bad, but my inner optimist is starting to peek out again, which is good :)

oops

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

That was my post, but I was logged in wrong. Oops :)

(Ah, the complications of ghostwriting someone else's lj :)

Re: oops

[zzbottom.livejournal.com]

I wondered about that, since I knew you were ghosting. :)

So it sounds like you've been told that you're not allowed to develop the piece of land you own and you're being forced to offer it to the town or sit on it? And this is just to build a home? Seems like they'd have to stretch a good ways to justify that.

Re: oops

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's a blindingly complicated issue. Boiled down, where we are now (ignoring possible legal avenues of escape, which may or may not a) exist and b) be worth following), it's no longer our land -- it will be bought by a nonprofit and our earnest money refunded. The justification from the town's point of view is that the land gets preserved as open space/conservation land (although the vast majority of it would have been under our plan, too) and less development.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

My inner optomist says that this is just happening because there's something better out there that we were missing because we were so focused on THIS property. Something walking distance from the T...with an awesome school district...at less cost...with friendly neighbors...an easy site plan...pastoral yet walking distance from a funky downtown area...no heaps of manure...etc.