The Planning Board will hold a formal public hearing in collaboration with the Sustainable Northampton Steering Committee and City Council on the draft Sustainable Northampton Plan on Thursday, November 8, 2007 at 7:00pm in the Cafeteria at Bridge Street School. Cecil Group consultants will hold an informal Open House question and answer session on the […]
Author: NorthAssocAdmin
Letter to Gazette: Planning Board too lax with developers
This weekend’s Gazette publishes a letter from Tricia Reidy and Greg White of Leeds, “Planning process ignores concerns of residents”. An excerpt: In the case of the proposed Beaverbrook Estates project here in Leeds…citizens have repeatedly expressed profound unease about the project’s impact on the environment, traffic, pedestrian safety, water pressure, and storm water drainage… […]
Gazette guest column: “Don’t ease controls on wetlands”
Proponents of Northampton’s new wetlands buffer zone regime, which authorizes development as close as 10 feet to wetlands in nine zoning districts, tried to reassure critics by saying developers wouldn’t automatically be entitled to get that close. The reality, however, is Northampton’s Conservation Commission will now be on the defensive whenever it asks developers for more […]
Maintenance of Drainage Systems on Conservation Commission Agenda for October 25
We are glad to see that maintenance of Northampton’s drainage systems is on the agenda of the next Conservation Commission meeting. Failing systems were an issue during the recent debates over wetlands regulation. Northampton Conservation CommissionAgendaDate: Thursday October 25, 2007Time: 5:30 PMPlace: City Hall Hearing Room (use back door or main Crafts Avenue door) 2nd […]
The Republican: “Home sales decline in region”
Today’s Republican reports: September home sales fell 10 percent across Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire counties, while the median price slipped 1.2 percent to $205,000… [Source: Realtor Association of Pioneer Valley]By county, sales dropped in Hampshire County by 12.8 percent in the third quarter, from 392 to 342 homes sold…The median sales price in Hampshire County […]
Maintaining Stormwater Management Systems
Stormwater, the Journal for Surface Water Quality Professionals, discusses the challenges of maintaining stormwater management systems (September 2007): Jacobson [Jake Jacobson, general manager with Escondido, CA–based Downstream Services] saw some filters neglected so severely that they’d be completely clogged with plastic bags, soggy newspapers, and forgotten fast food containers. He’d see retention ponds overgrown with invasive species, […]
Blog Action Day
NSNA is proud to support Blog Action Day, October 15, 2007. Over 15,000 blogs are uniting “to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better […]
Gazette editorial: “Protecting the environment”
The lead editorial in today’s Gazette calls for improvements in our system of environmental compliance: “Protecting the environment”…the state has abdicated its responsibility to developers, who are essentially allowed to monitor themselves by hiring their own environmental consultants. Meanwhile, local conservation commissions are finding there are limits to what they can do to ensure compliance […]
Condo Completions Surge While Demand Ebbs
Yesterday’s New York Times observes these are challenging times for condo developers… Many condo projects that started during the real estate boom are just being completed, and developers must begin repaying construction loans taken out before the market turned sour…Nationwide, the number of condos completed this year will be up 45 percent — 232,933 vs. 160,239 […]
Gazette: “Should developers police own projects?”
The lead article in today’s Gazette discusses how in Massachusetts, “land developers are often responsible for policing environmental standards on their own projects”. Concerns are raised about weak compliance, underscoring why the North Street Neighborhood Association derives little comfort from phrases like “extraordinary mitigation” in the new wetlands ordinance. Developers’ plans typically look good on paper, but the real-world […]