Favors New Bylaw
In Pittsfield

The residents of Pittsfield have an opportunity to prevent uncontrolled building and development of their town by voting on March 19 in favor of the Pittsfield development bylaw.

As a Pittsfield property owner for 30+ years, I attended some of the meetings which the Planning Commission conducted during the past months as they considered the implementation of the goals of the Pittsfield municipal plan in developing the development bylaw.

The resulting bylaw does place limitations on what a property owner may do with his own property, but it also limits what the buyer of the property adjacent to you, or the buyer of property on the other side of town may do with his property. The unlimited use of the adjacent property or the property on the other side of town might indeed be detrimental to the quiet enjoyment of your own property and might also lessen the value of your property.

I see the development bylaw as a two-edged sword—it helps you and it limits you; but it also helps and limits the use of the property adjacent to you and on the other side of town.

Neighboring towns have adopted development bylaws over the years. Without some limitations or control of development, the land in Pittsfield could well become the focus of development in ways so different from what exits now and in ways never before envisioned.

A vote in favor of the Pittsfield development bylaw would seem to me to protect each property owner’s quiet enjoyment of his land as well as protect his property value.

James G. Cullen

Pittsfiled

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