A Chance for More Than Beers and Kitchen Tables
By Nikki Mantell
Hey, Chelsea.
A developer is asking for your feedback on a proposed 100-some acre housing project in the heart of the village before the plans are all drawn up.
How come nobody cares enough to answer him?
The man who brought the monster house development called Chelsea Park, is making plans for an interesting riding stables / cluster housing development right next door to the feverishly-debated Chelsea Creek Project.
While the land transaction with Vince Hendrick for the last operating farm in Chelsea is pretty much a done deal, the architectural plans are not. And McAdam is asking for input.
But as of this week, no one except Joseph Potvin of the Greenspace Alliance (who argues for opening the space to small organic farms) has taken up his offer to give comment on his blog, http://www.chelseamatters.blogspot.com/.
It’s been up for over a month, and it’s not like Chelsaeites aren’t shouting at each other over beers and kitchen tables about the way Chelsea is about to go to hell in a high-density handcart.
So what gives?
Do Chelseaites not care? Do they just not use the internet much? Maybe they don’t know about it.
Or maybe they only like to NIMBY when the future smacks them in the face.
Marc Shank told us that the first round of consultations with the neighbours for Chelsea Creek held last summer went swimmingly; he was genuinely taken aback with the backlash this fall when it got press.
The cynic in all of us raises his shaking head, believing that such requests for feedback are an insincere foil for PR purposes, and will have little to no impact on the final plans. (Does anyone remember what the developer of the mall at the entrance to Wakefield promised after consultations? A farmers market? An artists’ mural? Earthy, wooden signage?)
The thing with this developer, he lives in Chelsea and if he chooses to stay after building the McAdam Dude Ranch and Townhouse Estates, he still has to face his friends and neighbours over beers and kitchen tables.
Chelseaites should give him a piece of their mind, sooner, rather than later http://www.chelseamatters.blogspot.com/.
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