If you don't like it here, try...

Here, when developments impact existing homeowners, we make much effort to ensure the impact is minimized and to mitigate for negative impacts. A commercial development going up near a neighborhood, for example, might be approved with the condition that screening be provided by planting trees or shrubs between the properties.

Public hearings and appeals are built into the process to protect the rights of other property owner and enable mitigation for the aggrieved. Even some who recognize the importance of such process for protection of individual property rights sometimes express frustration for the "delays" that the public hearing and appeals process introduce.

I'll take lengthy public hearing and appeals process any day, however, over this situation: in Beijing, two elderly women seeking a legal process to protest the demolition of their homes for Olympics related development were sent to re-education labor camp, the New York Times reported.

August 11 Planning Board Meeting

The Planning Board met last night. We discussed a schedule for Legacy Farms master plan special permit review and other concurrent activity with other town boards and state agencies.

Topics included:

• A couple "Approval Not Required" (ANR) plans, including a lot delineation that will allow transfer of the Land behind the WarrenLodge to neighboring Bill's Pizza.
• A subdivision plan for a property on North Mill Street, where the owner would like to subdivide the lot and build a second home behind their existing home; complicating factors are the extensive wetlands on the property, and specific requirements for open space and buffers.
• A transfer of open space land from a developer to a conservation group, with stewardship provided by a second conservation group, eliminating any burden for the town's conservation commission.
• Policy discussion and vote on requiring that members of the Zoning Advisory Committee should be residents of Hopkinton (not other towns). This was an interesting discussion as there were good reasons on both sides. In the end, I voted to require residency based on input from non-involved neighbors who I asked opinions of, my observation that we have many very experienced people right here in town that we can draw from. In the future, I can imagine, with some planning ahead, in the interest of regional planning, setting up with other towns a kind of 'exchange' where one spot on each town's board was reserved for one resident of the neighboring town.
• Approval of bills and minutes of prior meetings.