[WestMALocals] Agawam Advertiser News Letter

[Owen Broadhurst]

To be published this Thursday:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Owen Broadhurst <owen.broadhurst at gmail.com >
Date: Feb 6, 2006 11:47 PM
Subject: Letter to the editor
To: aan at turley.com

 Owen R. Broadhurst
> 96 Elbert Rd.
> Agawam, MA  01001-3202
> 413.786.1508
> owen.broadhurst at gmail.com
>






To the editor:



The City Council of Agawam unanimously passed on Monday night an amendment
to the Town Code's Article IX, a proposed subsection I to 180-48, with
several revisions that improved the document in many ways. What the City
Council passed is, in many respects, an excellent start. Unfortunately, the
document also retains a great many flaws.



Although the new subsection I to 180-48 heavily regulates new shopping
centers, and is a vast improvement over the NRDC proposal that Agawam voters
repelled at the polls, it is a markedly flawed ordinance in three major
ways. The new subsection allows for restaurants or banks in such
developments regulated to have "drive-through" windows- directly
contravening any sense of environmental wisdom or common sense in any
community with seasonal ozone pollution problems where vehicle emissions
spew below the thermal inversion layer; the new subsection allows for 100
foot buffer zones to be calculated into the 25% greenspace requirement,
defeating the purpose of such a significant greenspace in my own humble
opinion; and the new subsection sets maximum square footage at 100,000
square feet, something I believe big box developers should find quite
encouraging given how most Home Depots and WalMarts have less than that. The
new subsection also does not in any way require fiscal impact or community
impact studies for larger developments, a situation I hope the City Council
may soon rectify with a fiscal and community impact study ordinance along
lines of that passed in Greenfield.



It seems to me that Agawam voters, by nearly two to one, expressed concern
at the polls over not only the size of a complex, but also for sane and
sustainable development. Such voters might wish to communicate to the City
Council a wish for several amendments to the new ordinance requiring a) the
mandated exclusion of buffer zones from greenspace percentage calculations,
b) moratoriums on new drive-through windows, and c) lowering the maximum
square footage cap to something that actually might exclude big boxes.



Sincerely yours,

Owen R. Broadhurst