[Slickcraft]

In Today's Baysider:

Vote against Amendment 8
To the Editor:
Amendment 8 will set a dangerous precedent for the entire town of Alton. This citizen’s petition based amendment proposes to change zoning of nearly 400 acres of land along Robert’s Cove Road from Rural to Lakeshore Residential. The town did not start this proposal. This is a situation where one summer-use family’s personal vendetta against year-round neighbors has turned into something that impacts many more people than it should. Instead of talking things over with the neighbors, they started a petition among their friends to rezone the entire area.
Other than the one bullying neighbor, not one family within the affected area signed the petition. Several property owners in the area are committed to keeping the land relatively undeveloped, forested, and comfortable for rural living. Restricting this land to Lakeshore Residential land use would make this difficult and impractical to maintain, not to mention the fact that for all practical purposes the affected land is nowhere near the lake. I live in the affected area of Robert’s Cove Road, and no one I have spoken to about this rezoning thinks it’s a good idea. When we organized the protest petition, more than 393 acres of property, more than 80 percent of the affected land and owners, was against this change. The planning board also unanimously does not support this rezoning. If the town had done a study, or if someone had genuine reasons why this change should happen, it might be another story. But, this petition to rezone was pushed upon us by people, most of whom don’t even own property within two miles of us. These neighborhood bullies had enough friends willing to sign a petition that tries to change Alton into the city it is not, but imagine the precedent this sets for our town.
Rural areas are relatively undeveloped compared to Lakeshore Residential zones, but once rezoned they would have not only the same land use restrictions, but developers would be allowed to potentially triple the population density. A three-acre lot in Rural could be broken into three single-acre lots in Lakeshore Residential. More houses on fewer acres of land would devastate the rural character of our town, and be a crushing burden on our year round residents who have chosen not to live in the city. The town was required by law to accept the citizen petition since 35 people signed, several of whom were husband and wife doubling the numbers. Now it is presented for the town to vote upon and it is up to the common sense of the people of Alton to set this straight. Please keep in mind that several owners of 393+ acres of affected property are actively working against this proposal, and consider the precedent this sets for other Rural areas of the town.

Amanda Eason Alton