Against Zoning? Tough Tooties
After months of dressing up the Planning Board’s desire for more power and control over people’s property through their “mandate from the people” in their “master plan”, and after holding six zoning meetings that several Planning Board members lamented were sparsely attended (the nerve of people not being interested in their important work!), Planning Board member Tom Cleveland committed a political faux pas at their most recent meeting, where he proclaimed: “Who doesn’t want [a land use ordinance]?!…doesn’t want an ordinance at all? Well there’s gonna be an ordinance! Tough tooties. There is going to be an ordinance.” Other Planning Board members were quick to point out that they would only be writing the ordinance and it is 51% of the voters who will decide if the Planning Board will gain more control over 100% of the properties in Tamworth.
At one zoning get-together, two Conservation Commission members weighed in on the subject:
Bill Batchelder: “I think there’s a misconception about zoning. A lot of people seem to think that zoning tells you what to do with your land. And it doesn’t. Zoning tells you a few things that you might not be allowed to do without special permission. The idea that the town is going to tell you what to do with your land, is just totally incorrect.”
Ned Beecher: “Land use restrictions are sort of based on that principle, as I understand it: we sacrifice something as an individual for the greater good.”
Clearly the town government’s good intentions are being misconstrued: you are to sacrifice your private property rights for the collective good, but you may be allowed to seek special permission from the bureaucrats. Who wouldn’t be yearning for that peachy arrangement?
Never fear though, it shouldn’t be too onerous, as Planning Board member Nicole Maher-Whiteside stated: “We’re going to start with something small, and think that it’s not going to get bigger: you’re right, it’s logical, it gets bigger. But I think if we can start with something that’s reasonable we may be able to head in a direction that doesn’t allow it to snowball into things that a majority of people don’t want.” – this is the promise with every new endeavor at every level of government, and one would be hard pressed to find a single instance where this promise was upheld over the years.
For all the purportedly awful scenarios that have been dreamt up that more government control of private property is supposed to prevent, the biggest problem on the horizon is a bunch of control freaks on this and future Planning Boards.