So far in its short life the Plymouth Independent has shown admirable skill and patience at explicating the arcana of Plymouth’s town government for us average citizens. Maybe you can explain this one, or know someone who can: why is it that the current EJ Pontiff proposal for 71 Hedges Pond Road doesn’t require a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals? No one among a group of fairly intelligent local residents who attended Tuesday night’s Planning Board meeting could adequately explain that, let alone how a piece of land with a conservation restriction on it for decades was suddenly about to be logged off, strip-mined, and populated with structures of dubious usefulness, purportedly because someone forgot to file a piece of paperwork 30 years ago. We here in Cedarville like our conservation land conserved, same as anyone else, and there’s a general feeling of betrayal and mistreatment in the air over this issue. And then there’s the added insult of the dangled $2 million offer for a traffic study [and road improvements]. That’s rich for a project that will add volumes of traffic to Cedarville’s already overburdened intersections before a study will begin, let alone any actual work. I’m pretty sure that lots of neighborhoods across the Commonwealth get their dangerous intersections improved without selling off nearby conservation land to pay for it!
I also need help understanding why the Planning Board claims its hands are tied and it has no choice but to rubber stamp the proposal – if this were the case, why was the project even put before them? If it was to attach conditions to the project, the ones they found seem weak and unlikely to mollify the people of Greater Cedarville. Not surprising as it’s a tough ask – how to redress the broad range of harms incident to taking conservation land into private hands for the sake of sand mining and pointless development?
What with that Pontiff proposal and the concurrent Landers one just down the road (which the Planning Board wisely voted not to support but is still on the agenda at the ZBA [meeting] Dec. 16), little Cedarville is a veritable hive of angry bees right now, as anyone who’s been within 100 yards of a steering committee meeting can attest. Not only is it hard to get a good explanation of how these projects come about and why they seem to be so fast-tracked, it’s impossible to find a single person locally who is in favor of them, unless they happen to drive a sand truck. And speaking of the few profiting from the exploitation of the commons, what’s with the Plymouth Foundation, anyway? I was very disappointed to see some of my favorite public servants listed among the board members of this organization which is somehow a 501(c)3 public charity, yet by all evidence appears to be deeply embroiled in the business of privatizing public lands for the purpose of sand mining.
I realize that my “one question” has proliferated, but if the Plymouth Independent can get to the bottom of any of these issues, you would be providing a public service for which many citizens would be deeply grateful.
– Paula Marcoux