By Bill Vogt

Carole,

Please print the following in Stockbridge Updates. Thank you, Bill

Bill,

Delighted to. So pleased so many of you recognize the necessity to control our growth and control our own destiny. With help of people like you and others, by next Town Meeting, we will get the votes for the best plan — so keep thinking and keeping writing. Thank you.

Carole

At the Annual Town Meeting there was a long debate about the warrant article for the town to purchase land owned by the Moffatt Trust. The owner had an offer to buy the land, requiring its removal from a real estate tax program that reduces the tax assessment on land kept in its natural state. In return for this reduction, when the owner wants to sell the land for development, the town can purchase it if they match the valid offer, in this case $600,000, by a town meeting vote.

The warrant article was overwhelmingly rejected.

There is a better way to do this that both requires no town funding and also conserves features of properties that should not be developed.

Several years ago, when I was chairman of the Planning Board, Christine Rasmussen and I proposed a new zoning bylaw which would have required that larger properties be developed in a way that preserved most of the land as open space while allowing a house, or houses, to be erected in a clustered way on a small part of the property. The proposed bylaw included a sensible feature whereby the owner and the town would cooperate in determining which major portion of the property would be preserved as open, e.g., a lovely stream or wooded area or special view, and which smaller part could be built on.

The Planning Board reviewed several drafts of such a bylaw and visited communities where this kind of bylaw was in effect so that we could see what a property looked like when it was developed. The examples were enlightening.

However, after much discussion and review of bylaw drafts, it became clear that the Planning Board could not reach unanimity or near-unanimity on whether to proceed to a final recommended bylaw. We felt that in order for the new bylaw to pass at town meeting, the Planning Board needed to be unanimous, or nearly so, in its recommendation. Reluctantly, we agreed to cease this work.

The future owner of the Moffatt Trust land seems to have plans to develop it in a way that closely conforms with the open space residential zoning bylaw that the Planning Board considered. If the town can agree to put such a bylaw into effect there would obviously be no need for town money to be involved in future transactions. The owner would be required to comply with the bylaw, preserving most of the land as open space while building on only a small part of it.

I urge those who were behind the proposal for the town to acquire the Moffatt Trust property to urge the Planning Board to reconsider an open space residential zoning bylaw. Responsible development of the fifty or so Chapter 61 properties can be done at no cost to the town and with the benefit of preserving a great deal of open space now and for future generations.