What I woke up to...

[deguspice]

What I woke up to...



Before I bought my house, someone bought a piece of land diagonally across from my house, it came with a restriction that he could only build one house on the 17 acres. It only has a narrow strip of land facing the street. After he bought the land, he approached the neighbors with a sob story that he wanted to get the restriction removed so he could build two houses, one for him, and one for his son (who we later found out was 5 years old). The neighbors and the town agreed to his request. But soon afterwards he was asking the town for permission to build an 11 house subdivision.

I joined a couple of neighbors who were challenging the project. Eventually we ended up in court and he lost. A few years later, he tried again. This time for a 6 house subdivision (while we were waiting for the judge to make a decision, a couple of beavers dammed a stream running through the property and created a large pond and reduced the amount of land available for building (not that it really was buildable before the beavers got involved).

After 13 years and many appeals, he finally got permission to build, and yesterday they began cutting down the trees. This morning someone dropped off a large load of hay bales, partially blocking the road. It's in a really bad location, because in a curve in the road, so cars can't easily see past the pile. A few minutes ago, I peeked out the door and saw that there were two police cars out there, presumably to tell the guys to get their hay bales off the road.

I'm not looking forward to the ~500 dump truck loads of dirt they said they'll need bring in so they can put in septic systems (we're on a huge ridge of clay that makes drainage difficult).

At this point, Ann thinks the developer is crazy because the housing market has crashed and there probably won't be anyone who can afford to buy his houses.

Comments

[c1.livejournal.com]

Interestingly at work, I get to hear about what's going on with forests in the rest of the world, and how China and India are trying to plant millions of hectares of trees and the like. (These days, somehow, people seem to be paying more attention to what denuding the land actually does.)
But what I ironically don't get to hear about is how America is being deforested by housing developers. I was back in Dallas about a year and a half, and over about three miles, where there were only grazing pastures, now there are starter castles.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

I should point out that pastureland and housing tracts probably have the same CO2 consumption, as most people tend to plants trees & bushes in addition to the grass, and people produce less methane than cows/sheep.

I believe this particular tract was at least partially open--remember, 100 years ago this area was all farmland, barring the swamps. It's the blind corner that's most of the problem.

[c1.livejournal.com]

People plant trees and bushes, but people also drive cars and SUVs, run their tivos and their air conditioners. The carbon footprints are not the same at all.
Plus there's the fact that your lawnmower and snowblowers have almost no environmental controls.** According to the California Air Resources Board, a 2006 lawnmower engine produced 93 times more smog-forming emissions than a 2006 automobile. The EPA has stated that "one old gas powered lawn mower running for an hour emits as much pollution as driving 650 miles in a 1992 model automobile."

**Catalytic converters are now being required by California on new lawnmower engines under 50 horsepower.
http://www.mindfully.org/Air/Lawn-Mower-Pollution.htm

[quietann.livejournal.com]

This particular piece of land was completely wooded, except for where the beaver pond is.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

well, I am not happy when the trees go. The developers will "scrape" a lot for their own convenience rather than leave trees on it. The newest McMansion in our area is being built on a lot that formerly contained a nice ranch-style house and 15 or 20 large, fully grown trees. The developers took down all but one of them. Grrrr.

China/India do not assume that there is a limitless supply of oil, so they have more undeveloped land and dense housing for almost everyone. I would be very unhappy in a high-rise apartment block with all the smells and noises of the neighbors close at hand. Spoiled? OK, yes. (But bear in mind that I did not choose our house; Ben chose it when he was working at a company that was nearby, and had no reason to expect he would be laid off only a couple of years later.)

[c1.livejournal.com]

You're fairly right about China's population living in cities: this is where their explosive economic growth is coming from: farmers sending their kids to work lucrative jobs in factories, where they receive OTJ training.
In India, about 3/5 of the population lives on farmland. Unfortunately, the roads are so poorly maintained that 40% of the harvest rots en route to market.
And for some reason, India's not as forested as it could be. Part of that is the massive bureaucracy that they call a government (you think the Republican'ts and the Demoncrats can't agree on anything? India's gummint is comprised of 19 different, eternally bickering parties) inhibits actual action on things like that. China, by comparison, has a very nimble government: they want to plant massive numbers of trees, and it's getting done.

The irony about builders in the States clearing the land before building on it is that a. it's not hard to cut only the trees that get in the way of the actual house and leave the rest, b. it costs way more to go back and plant trees to replace the ones that got axed, and c. houses are more valuable when they have "old-growth" trees on the property. The Journal of Light Construction did an article on tree preservation in construction zones, and that was their very conclusion. I guess this guy doesn't read JLC.