Friday, June 13, 2008

More on the clam shack

I'll blog more on this later, but for your reading pleasure.

Some folks ain't happy.

I know. Stop the presses.

This does answer our question about the ownership issue.


His proposal has been marked with controversy from the start, including when it was questioned whether Roland even owned the riverfront land or if the city owned it — something that remains unanswered but outside the purview of the ZBA.



Now the question is, who would challenge that and where? Would it be the city's challenge? Or could abutters raise an argument.

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't stand all of these people who object to anything an owner wants to do on his/her own property. Let the guy build his house and leave him alone. A person should be able to do what he wants on his property within reason.

By the way, I can't stand all of these people who stop progress in solving our energy needs (i.e. nuclear power, new oil refineries, getting oil from alaska, and etc.) Our country has all of the resources to be "self-sufficient" but we have a small amount of people who want to stop this. It is ridiculous!

Sorry, I am just venting. This is a sore subject with me!

Anonymous said...

Tom,

It's my understanding the the city would need to challenge the ownership.

The grandfather clause doesn't apply since he's attempting to change from one use to another. It's the existing use that's grandfathered.

Personally, I don't really care, but it does open the door for every out-building in the city to become a single-family.

Anonymous said...

I agree with anonymous.

Tom Salemi said...

That's a great point Bubba. No one would be denying him use of his building. He just couldn't live in it.

I agree with your last point.

Bean said...

Anon, what if I owned a piece of property in your backyard and I wanted to build an oil refinery there? We have to have guidelines. In the end, I'm ok with the decision in this case, but I don't discourage people from voicing their concerns. As for drilling in Alaska and building more oil refineries...those are not solutions for the energy crisis. Investment in renewable energy is what we need. Lets leave Alaska alone and work on reducing our massive, Shaq-sized carbon footprint.

Anonymous said...

Actually, he can live it as an outbuilding.....he just can't have a shower.....

This entire issue revolves around his having a shower and legal designation as a single-family - which of course, makes it more valuable.

Anonymous said...

People like "bean" are the reason we have an energy crisis now. How is ethanol working? The farmers plant corn instead of wheat and now our food prices are going up drastically? Makes sense doesn't it!!!! We are not getting enough "bang-for-the-buck" with ethanol and we are hurting our economy. We should be pursueing Nuclear Power but I am sure the environmentalist wackos will protest this also. Our country needs to get real about drilling for more oil and building more nuclear power plants. We don't need ethanol!

By the way, I said that "A person should be able to do what he wants on his property within reason". Obviously, that does not mean building an oil refinery or skyscraper on my property.

Also by the way, give me a name of a vacation resort in Anwar (Alaska). I would like to know how many people vacation there.

People like you are the reason that I paying $4.00 /gallaon for gas.

Also, I heard the other day that the lack of sun spots in the sun may lead to "global cooling". All temperature changes in the world even out over time. It may take a 100 years or whatever. We as a species are NOT greater than planet earth. Global Warming is a "business" that has been developed by people like Al Gore. There is a lot of money in Global Warming. I heard on the news that Congress wanted to pass a 45 TRILLION dollars. Thank God that there are a few adults in Congress who stopped this!

Enough venting... you can see that this riles me up!!!

Bean said...

People like me? I guess I've been lumped in to a group of people that you dislike. Great, I'm feeling less lonely!

First of all, I never mentioned ethanol. There are a myriad other renewable energy sources. For instance, did you know that we can harnass the wind's power with a high-tech device called a windmill? Capture the sun's energy in photovoltaic arrays called solar panels? Power emission-free vehicles with hydrogen?

Personally I'm in favor of building more nuclear power plants. We have the technology, and it would drastically reduce the amount of coal we burn to produce electricity. Am I no longer a member of these "people"?

Sounds like you want to continue to tap the Earth for oil, and prolong the inevitable. We will, eventually, run out of oil. It's not America's problem, it's a global problem. What we need to do is become less dependent on it. Where there is progress, there is pain, and yes we will have to pay $5 or $6 a gallon at the pump before we all wake up and realize that we cannot be slaves to petroleum any longer.

You've bought into the belief that our food prices have spiked strictly due to ethanol. You need to have a better understanding of supply chains, as well as supply and demand. You may also want to read up on the weak U.S. dollar, and how that is impacting our food prices. It's easy to use ethanol as a scapegoat, but it's a fallacy.

This one is easy to research: Tell me which country, by far, still has the cheapest food on the planet?

As for your global cooling argument...umm...yes, the earth will cool at some point, and millions of years ago New England was hundreds of miles under a glacier. It was called the Ice Age, and no I'm not talking about the Pixar film.

So great, lets all just sit around and wait a few hundred years for the earth to cool again. We can drive our Hummers, spill more oil into the oceans, and bake while the ice caps melt and wash over Newburyport.

So I guess I am indeed one of "those people". The thinking kind, that is. I promise never to make an argument by beginning with "I heard the other day", for then I surely would lose my membership and be cast into a different group altogether.

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with Bean. High oil prices have nothing to do with enviromentallist, unless you're calling Bush an enviromentalist.
Had we all(including me)started conserving energy before the current crisis, maybe we wouldn't be paying $4 a gallon for gas.
If you think there is an infinite amount of oil on earth, you're just plain dumb.
If you think Global Warming is a myth, just ask that crazy liberal Gov out in Cal. the South East is running out of water. on the east coast we don't feel the change, but talk to anyone out west.
as far as a business making money off politcal favors, what were Exxon and Moble's profits last year.
Remember when the leftist nut jobs with their insane policies were in the White House. gas was $1.15 a gal.

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