Past Meetings
I didn't get the same "vibe" from ZBA chairman Bob Anderson last night as I did last month. He seemed willing to answer questions
and guide people through the process. But, whereas Anderson seemed more mellow, some of the other members of the board looked quite miffed.
At any rate, we had 17 people show up, not the record-breaking mass of righteously indignant citizens I had hoped for but what we lacked in
number, we more than made up for in spirit. The meeting went till 9:00pm when they had to throw us out.
Almost every one of us had something to say. It was good to see. A few times, I thought it was going to break into an all
out brawl but for the most part, we behaved ourselves (barely). I thought many of the comments were right on, but might be better
suited for the planning board.
My take-away from the night is a better understanding of where we are at with Eastland Partners:
Eastland Partners is willing to give a little by removing some of the 80 lots from their plans (5 or 6), AS LONG AS they remain as
(fake) duplexes. But if we're successful in denying them the special permit for duplexes, they will be forced to put in single
family houses and if that happens, they will no longer be constrained by the requirement of a special permit so they are free to put in
as many single family houses as will fit: the quoted number was 120. And they will put them right to the edge of the property.
I believe that's called an ultimatum. We're up against a (frost) wall!
I hope that in the meetings to come, we continue to have a good crowd to insure that Eastland Partners implements whatever
concessions they are forced to make. And possibly more.
Was it just me?
At the Zoning Board meeting last night, I got the impression that our Zoning Board of Appeals
works for Turning Point Engineering, not the citizens of Northbridge. Quite a few times, I watched
Chairman Robert Anderson get annoyed at people asking questions.
In particular, when Jim Bernadino talked about how the duplexes support the Town Plan's Vision
Statement, it was all hugs and kisses. But when several of us brought up how duplexes do NOT
support it, Anderson got agitated and said "It's not a law, it's a vision" and "The Town Plan
is old and irrelevant."
Instead of being happy that 28 people were concerned enough to show up for a Zoning Board meeting
(probably a record), we were an annoyance and getting in his way.
I knew this meeting wasn't going to have much, if anything, to do with Fox Hollow but I went anyway.
The proposal is to ammend the zoning law to allow R6 to have a multi-family home. They want to put a
single building with 5 units there. It looked like it would be buffered on all sides by a lot of land
and the Victorian house that's there will remain. The owners, who were at the meeting, sounded committed
to keeping the Victorian house intact.
The only area in Northbridge that is zone R6 is marked on the zoning map in yellow.