To the editor:
This is an open letter to fellow Rockport residents.
Please come to Fall Town Meeting tonight at 7 to protect your rights as a homeowner.
In the last few years, you may have seen an old building in town just disappear, and in its place a huge building springs up.
People ask, “Don’t we have zoning? What’s going on here?”
Sometimes, neighbors find that all those new roofs and paved surfaces are catching a lot of rainwater and letting it run off in the wrong places.
We have a zoning article called “Site Plan Review” which is meant to require that large residential and commercial projects be reviewed, so that the rights of neighbors are protected.
Maybe it is time for Site Plan Review to be improved.
A group of citizens formed and has been holding meetings since last February. They call themselves “PreserveRockport.”
They circulated petitions several months ago, and over 200 citizens signed them, asking for articles at Town Meeting that are intended to require public notice before old buildings are demolished, and to require a slightly smaller threshold for reviewing large residence construction.
We urge you to vote “Yes” on Articles J, K, L, M, N and P. PreserveRockport has worked with the Planning Board on all these articles. The Planning Board takes no position on Article P, which PreserveRockport recommends you approve. That’s the one that seeks to have all proposed residences of 5,000 square feet of Gross Floor Area subject to Site Plan Review, instead of the current 6,000 square feet.
Please help protect your rights as a homeowner — and ask your neighbors to come to Town Meeting, too!
SAM COULBOURN
Mill Lane, Rockport
