Protect the Partrick Wetlands
and our Community
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Printed in the Westport Minutman
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So ARS Partners finally fessed up and told the Conservation Commission that the houses they want to build on the Partrick Wetlands were 4000 square footers. They kept that information secret from that commission and the public for almost a year.
They now want to build 24 of these steroid driven monsters on a wetland that is above the aquifer that brings us all our water. The potential for disaster is obvious. Besides the destruction of a wonderful nature habitat.
They say they are asking for fewer houses than the 1991 conservation commission approved for the developer FD Rich, who went bankrupt thus saving the wetland. True, that commission approved 25 houses. But here is the rub - those houses were only 2000 square footers. And more importantly the footprint, the dimensions of the first floor, the physical impact, was one third the size of what ARS has requested.
The resulting consequence on the wetland and the neighboring community is not the same. Add in that our understanding and desires for conservation are even greater now than then. ARS is asking for close to 60,000 sq feet of physical impact, before calculating in roads and driveways, compared to the 20,000 sq feet that was approved in 1991. They are asking for 100,000 sq feet of houses when only 50,000 was approved in 1991.
If ARS, who in public statements, is embracing the old approval, then let them live by it. Have them build smaller houses, or half of the ones they are proposing.
Westport should not stand for any more over-development or any more destruction of its precious open space and natural resources. Westport should not stand for slick developers manipulating the facts in order to line their pockets at our expense. I urge the Conservation Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission to do the right thing. Limit this development or better yet not allow it all.
Bert Aber
38 Partrick Road
Westport CT