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April 9, 2008

Letter: Age-restricted zoning won't solve Hamilton's fiscal problems

To the editor:

I see that the Hamilton Planning Board, for the third year in a row, is wastefully channeling its time and energy into trying to change the zoning bylaws of Hamilton to allow age-restricted, dense development by offering a "Senior Housing Bylaw" at the next town meeting on May 5.

The Planning Board thinks that revenues gained from the property taxes on these developments will be a huge step toward solving the town's fiscal woes because they don't come with the attendant costs of extra children in the school system. That is why it is called "exclusionary zoning."

But there are drawbacks to pursuing this type of revenue. The bylaw does not contain protections for residents or the town. For instance, if the bylaw is passed, your control over these projects is taken away, as there is no Town Meeting oversight of individual projects. There is also no minimum acreage limits; so if your neighbor, who has a two-acre parcel of land in your beautiful neighborhood, sells his house under this bylaw, you could have eight new neighbors in a multi-family condominium building where your neighbor once lived.

And guess what? People who move into these developments who are over 55 years old who have no school-aged children, do you think they would be inclined to vote for Proposition 2 1/2 overrides at Town Meeting?

Anybody with even limited knowledge of the real-estate market would realize that the planning board's efforts are misplaced. Because the housing market has crashed and Hamilton is already surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of age-restricted condominiums, what will a developer do when he cannot sell these developments? The answer? He will go back to the town to have the age restrictions lifted. Then the condos will fill with children and the town's fiscal woes will worsen. Active adult zoning is a phenomenon whose time has come and gone.

Rather than looking to the past for answers, why doesn't Hamilton look to the future? Why doesn't the Hamilton Planning Board use its efforts wisely by studying the potential for commercial and residential growth in the downtown area in proximity to our train station, which we are so fortunate to have? This type of "smart growth" is growth of the future and the type of growth that our newest selectman, David Carey, touted during his campaign.

Let's not sell out the town to support the planning board's misplaced vision for the future or its desire for a personal legacy. Let's fight together smartly to solve Hamilton's ever-burgeoning fiscal problems.

TIMOTHY MACIEJOWSKI

Hamilton

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