Protect the Partrick Wetlands
and our Community
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1991 Con Com Approved Far Less |
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So ARS Partners finally fessed up and told this Commission that the houses they want to build on the Partrick Wetlands were over 4000 square footers. They kept that information secret from you and us, the public, for almost a year. We only assumed they would be this big, but now we know how big.
So now want to build 24 of these steroid driven monsters on a wetland with some of them above the aquifer that brings us all our water. They want to shoe horn these houses onto upland that can't support them. Besides the destruction of a wonderful natural habitat, the potential for disaster is obvious. And this commission so far seems to have turned a blind eye.
They say they are asking for fewer houses than the 1991 conservation commission approved for the developer FD Rich. 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, upland 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 over 100,000 sq feet of houses when less than 50,000 was approved in 1991.
In the upland to the south of the property slated for 2 houses #s 23 & 24, FD Rich asked for 2400 square feet of impact. They were given one house and 800 sq ft. ARS asked for over 4000 square feet of physical impact and were given all they asked for. How is this possible? How, in this day and age with our understanding of the need to protect wetlands, uplands, animal habitat and open space, this commission could approve 5 times the impact on a piece of upland that we all know should be left as a natural habitat.
ARS, who in public statements and before this commission, has embraced the old approval. Telling you, look we are asking for less than what was approved before. Then I say 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 this Commission to do the right thing. Limit this development or better yet not allow it all.