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Having watched the Massachusetts town that I grew up in become filled with clustered housing developments, dirty deals over wet land use, the intentional filling of ponds over long periods with 3ft dia. x 3ft long tree trunk segments and other methods to make ponds into swamps or to stop runoffs that were brooks, etc. I must side with DW. I believe that there is plenty of land available for use without wetlands interferance.
Won't matter soon anyway.... interest rates on the rise, realtor inventories extremely high, foundation companies slow, condo's empty everywhere along the 101 corridor, thousands of union construction workers on the available list.
As well the 5 bedroom 3 car under garage properties up here won't have the Boston travellers shopping this way now with gas nearing 3 bucks a gallon. I see empties everywhere on my way to work.
Top all that with these outrageous property tax bills and the current plate fees and NH is absolutely not worth it unless you are single and renting an apartment.
Thank you for the support. I have been working very hard along with our neighborhood to try and stop the building of houses on wetlands. But small town politics can be trying. It is nice to read support, and I also agree, there are more houses for sale in our town than ever, and alot of the new homes are unsold and just sitting there.. I don't see why the developers don't see the trend.. Regards, Dreamweaver
I just wanted to let you know, DreamWeaver, that I fully support you in your quest to save your town! Here in the Scranton Area of Northeastern Pennsylvania, we've experienced a population NOSEDIVE for the past several decades since the anthracite mining industry, which used to fuel the area's economic engines, collapsed, forcing thousands out of work and off to greener pastures. During this same period of rapid population loss, our area also sprawled out very heavily, to the point where we now have core cities in the region with housing vacancy rates above 10% and booming suburbs that are now so oversaturated with new housing developments that many new homes just aren't selling! What have we accomplished thanks to a lack of long-term planning? Well, we now have traffic congestion issues, less open space, and poorer air quality. Our cities have become run-down and home to low-income residents and an accompanying infestation of crime due to the sense of "despair" while our suburbs have become downright "snooty."
In fifty years we've transitioned from having neighborhoods where people would stroll down tree-lined streets to chat to their neighbors to having cul-de-sacs where people spend more time commuting to and from work than they do raising their children! Scranton is well on its way to becoming NYC's next "bedroom community", as the nearby Pocono Mountains are already becoming overdeveloped with housing developments. The sad part is that we've created an area full of "pods"---We have "housing pods", such as Willow View, Glenmaura, Oakford Woods, Harmony Hills, etc., we have "shopping pods", such as the Arena Hub Plaza, the Shoppes @ Montage, the Viewmont Mall, Dickson City Crossings, etc., and we have "working pods", such as the various industrial and office parks that dot our once-rural landscape. People spend time doing nothing but commuting from pod to pod everyday, and they NEVER get the chance to experience that true feeling of COMMUNITY that we had as recently as the 1960s! As more and more people from NY/NJ continue to flood into my own hometown, I'm watching helplessly as more "big-boxes" are coming into my town, our roadways are becoming more congested, and trees and deer are being replaced with McMansions and roadkill! Is this truly the American Dream? Is this truly what you want NH to become as well? If it can happen to Scranton, the humorous "whipping boy" of economic jokes to the elitist NJ/NYC crowd, then it can happen anywhere! Best of luck to you in saving Auburn!
You go Dreamweaver! Seems EVERYPLACE is becoming one giant cookie cutter development! BLAH! You could just be thrown randomly in Anytown, USA & not know where the hell you are! What happened to towns/cities having their own unique "personality"?! I'm so tired of hearing the same old - the young people, the jobs, blah blah blah. So what the hell did young people used to do?! I'll tell you...They didn't have to compete with a zillion illegal immigrants and outsourcing for jobs! They didn't have to uproot because of gangs/lower class people running them out! I mean, yeah, that has ALWAYS exsisted, but not to this extent! And another reason -
Hey people- STOP HAVING SO MANY FREAKIN KIDS UNLESS YOU CAN ACTUALLY AFFORD THEM!!! I swear it seems like 90% of the people who are "struggling" have kids!!! Um, how 'bout WAITING til you have your sh*t together (or til you're no longer a kid yourself!) before you add another financial (not to mention enotional!) responsibility!
Sorry for the rant guys! It just really bugs me that people complicate their lives and then try to "fix" it. OK people make mistakes, but if more people would THINK, yes I said THINK!!! before making very serious decisions - like having a kid (or 10!!! ) , it just might help a bit.
I'm not trying to stop the growth, I am trying to get the developers to play by the rules already established. You seem to have taken a pretty negative approach. And when the time comes that I will not be able to have my horses I will sell and move! But I moved here to an already established home that had a barn for my horses. I didn't come in and try to change the zoning or ask for variances. I came in and played by the rules that were already established.
Well said.
Most "developers" are really little more than moder-day carpet-baggers. They aren't trying to improve or add anything to a community. They aren't building a home for themselves in order to be part of a community. They're out to make a quick buck. Tell them to move to LA, where no one will notice one more strip mall or block of condos.
We have wetlands in the Hampton, NH area and I agree about them wholeheartedly. We also have a few developers in town that are killing the landscape around here. There's a group of condos that were absolutely beautiful when they were all first built and when the people all first bought them? Well now there's so many of them that we nicknamed them behind there backs of course (the high end projects!) I'm not kidding you either, and you can't get one for under $450,000, they always get some sucker to buy one from either down in MASS or some where else around the country. There's another builder in our town that built a yellow motel at the north beach area of town, well it has a light house at the corner of it, and the rest of it is yellow painted over cement. It's something that you'd probably see in Florida, you know what I mean? You couldn't imagine seeing a building like this in New England, it's extremely tacky lined up beside all these charming older New England style homes! We kind of feel bad for the property owners along North Beach area now after seeing this monstrosity; it's also got a nick name, it's the Golden Banana in town! It's so hideous! Somethings absolutely got to be done about these builders, developers and also the people that buy up these properties need to get a grip I think, I mean really, I think it's time to call a spade a spade, don't you? It's pretty ridiculous, I'm sure it's happening like this all around the country and it's not an isolated issue, it's just that somethings really got to be done about it, the question though is WHAT can we do now about it, after the fact! I've tried to understand the NH policies and procedures with their town government, but for the life of me I still think unless some one can change my thinking on it, that it's nothing but political agendas in the state of NH---just like MASS, and I think it's been like this for years even before all the MASS influx of people started flooding in.
Well it's all over now but the building! We did manage to cut down on the number of houses they were going to build, but the town gave the builders conditional approval at the last planning board meeting. They have agreed to build a new road so that the houses won't line the road and the builders have agreed to redo Calef Rd and build a burb so the head lights from all the trafic we will have won't shine in the windows and they are going to build a sis tank in case of fire. They are basically going to hide all these new houses up this new road they are going to build. Probably so the new people who buy these house won't know that we have a neigborhood full of horses and goats and llama etc. All I have to say are two things! (1) Buyer be ware and (2) the Auburn town surveys for our future plan are in your mail boxes fill them out and let them out and let the leaders of this town know we want it to stay rural.
Regards to everyone who supported this and good luck..
I'm with you, Dreamweaver. Where I current have been living(for a very long time) has seen the developers come- and now they are gone(much richer, needless to say; it didn't take too long for them to convince the town's governing force to bow to their wishes for some chump change)- where we had wild game running, is no longer- it's all condos; where the wetlands were is now the Justice Center- Most of the locals have left, and most of the condos are vacant 80% of the yr.,yet there is an acute shortage of affordable housing for workers in the community.
We, too, had a Master Plan, but one rarely saw a developer who abided by it. They all came tooting that they were going to build affordable housing, and would do so if the variance was granted. They paid the controlling interested parties, got their variances, build totally unaffordable units, and left after soaking the newcomers.
There used to be lots of activities for the kids- now there are two or three things to do. There used to be a lot of community activities; those also have shrunk to a few, as more and more locals left, and strangers who were less sociably inclined moved in for a short time(until they figured out they couldn't pay for their over-priced new house that was falling apart).Now we have tons of empty buildings that no one can afford to rent, or to buy- a seriously shrinking job availability market, as there is still no affordable housing.
Personally, I'd rather see a mill town that offered people jobs doing something that was needed vs. paper-pushing jobs that produce nothing but waste(ever consider that all that paperwork goes in the trash after three yrs? Consider all the trees- which provide the oxygen we breathe- cut down to sustain that!) Not to mention the lesser quality of the goods we are pushed into purchasing by our over-seas sourcing of jobs...
Development or 'progress' is only 'inevitable' if one doesn't defend what they already have(The population is not growing in leaps and bounds like it did in the 40's and 50's). If one wants to live with the so-called conveniences' of a developed community, then go move to one. Some of us appreciate a quieter quality life, even if it isn't up to the fast-track standards that so many are lulled into thinking is 'good'. That is why we set up 'barriers' to keep things a tad more in tune with nature- why we don't want developers -who come in dangling coins to get variances granted-and leaving with fattened wallets, and a mess where once there was trees instead of a parking lot with empty buildings, cheaply made and over-priced.
One of the problems with the developers is that they come in all 'buddy-buddy', promising the moon- complete with their attractive drawings, saying that once the developments go in, more jobs will come to town, life will be improved- They take the town father's to lunch, wine and dine them, bring their lawyers in with intimidating tactics, and eventually get their way when the town father's cave in. They are well practiced in the art of 'persuasion' and manipulation. They know what to say, and when. They are very good at getting one of their party involved in the town's processes (we had one join the planning and building dept.- of course, he only stayed until all their goals were met and then he left with the developers!). They act as if they will be there for the benefit of the area, with their "hey! I live here, too!" lines- setting up their businesses on the main drag, and becoming 'involved in the community'(only for the duration of their stay!), and they are very good at getting those variances- usually at a much cheaper price than a private citizen who actually needs one, I might add.
The more we can keep these snakes in the grass at bay, the better, I say. MAKE them follow the rules, or get out and let them go do their damage elsewhere.
Those that are so pro development need to ask themselves whether they can actually EAT or WEAR the products 'produced' in those office bldgs- you know, those old 'ugly' mills (that, ironically, are still standing strong) that once made quality cloth and textiles. Meanwhile, some foreign worker in Thailand or China is working for sub-standard wages in a sweatshop to make those non-quality goods today, which are sold to conglomerates like Walmart, so you can buy cheaper made goods that don't last. But, hey- that's progress!
And all that has happened due to people who did not have the foresight and courage to stand up for, stay strong and protect what was good when someone came to town jangling some change in their pocket and professing to act for our own good by demanding variances that were put in place to protect what we knew to be good....
This kind of change we can do without, thank you very much. Soon we will be a nation with no viable skills with which to sustain ourselves- unless, of course, you consider writing things down on a computer, or paper(which will be thrown away in three yrs. max), a skill. It won't clothe you or feed you, or house you once the business goes belly-up(which they have a habit of doing). Knowing how to make cloth, grow food, and build are much more viable, and sustainable, skills. This nation was set up to be a self-governing, self-sustaining country; we have strayed a bit from that course, to our own detriment. The sooner we recognize what is important to sustaining our lives, the sooner we will be self-governing. The way thing stand at the moment, we would have a lot of people starving when the monetary system collapses( and history tells us that that can certainly- and most inevitably- happen).
To allow further development along the paths that have been thus far exhibited occur is folly, at best. We made those rules for good reason, and it is critical we uphold them. The price we pay for allowing our officials to grant these variances to developers is far too costly in the long run.
Thank you Laura. The economy has stopped the developers for now. So maybe I will have a few more years of peace and quiet. It is sad that the economy had to turn so bad.
Thank you Laura. The economy has stopped the developers for now. So maybe I will have a few more years of peace and quiet. It is sad that the economy had to turn so bad.
Click on the individual towns on the city-data homepage and then scan down to where it lists number of new building permits issued. Some towns are still building like crazy while others have pretty much dried up.
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Thank you for the support
Seems EVERYPLACE is becoming one giant cookie cutter development! BLAH! You could just be thrown randomly in Anytown, USA & not know where the hell you are! What happened to towns/cities having their own unique "personality"?! I'm so tired of hearing the same old - the young people, the jobs, blah blah blah. So what the hell did young people used to do?! I'll tell you...They didn't have to compete with a zillion illegal immigrants and outsourcing for jobs! They didn't have to uproot because of gangs/lower class people running them out! I mean, yeah, that has ALWAYS exsisted, but not to this extent! And another reason - 
) , it just might help a bit. 
You seem to have taken a pretty negative approach. And when the time comes that I will not be able to have my horses I will sell and move! But I moved here to an already established home that had a barn for my horses. I didn't come in and try to change the zoning or ask for variances. I came in and played by the rules that were already established.
My Two Cents....
