To the editor:
I am writing in opposition to Article 15, the petition article to repeal the town’s current zoning.
Others have given good arguments in favor of the current zoning and against repeal, and I won’t repeat them. What I want to emphasize is that there is no good reason for repeal. It solves no current problems the town is facing and would make some problems much worse – high tax rates and the lack of affordable housing, as two quick examples.
I do hear a lot of fear being raised, which seems odd since we’ve had the current zoning for years, so we don’t have to guess what it does. Want to know what we’ll get by keeping the current zoning? Walk around the new cottages on Vine Street, that turned a dead parking lot into a charming and desirable neighborhood, returning tens of thousands of dollars to the town in property tax. Walk around West Peterborough, which remains pleasant and livable. Walk up Winter Street, or Pine, which were the patterns for our current zoning.
This is what you get when your zoning matches what people want: livable, vibrant neighborhoods. What will we get with repeal? Walk out Sand Hill Road. (Don’t, it’s not safe. The cars drive too fast and there are no sidewalks.) There’s no sense of neighborhood, every house costs the town money, and only by building McMansions can a developer afford to build out there.
I’m not throwing shade on the people who live in these areas, of course. But as a town, we have to decide how we want to grow and what kind of town we want to be. The current zoning is meeting our needs very well. We should keep it.
Hugh Beyer
Peterborough