Dear Gerald and Don and abutters of Doeskin 2 and Wayside, At my own expense I engaged Harry Chakaris landscape designer to examine lot 7A on two occasions. I also had Harry speak with Chris. Harry was the original engineer who worked will GLM engineering in the early 80's in the engineering of Doeskin. Harry also did all the landscape design for Ron Porter, Arthur Sellew, Paul Lucas and myself. It was Harry's opinion that any walls should be kept to a minimum on lot 7A, (Chris and Mr. Antico agreed to this) and that the far side of the walls could be backfilled with loam to minimize their impact. He said the sloped areas could be graded to keep a natural appearance as much as possible. I explained this to Mr. Antico. He thought it was a good idea. Harry was also of the opinion that it was not nessesarily bad the houses were elevated as that would make them less visiable to the downhill residents. I also agreed with Chris to contribute to the cost of a stone laborer in the contsruction of any walls. I also spent several thousand dollars for additional landscaping between my pool and lot 7A. Harry did the planting. I had to bring in two machines for this.
I have been fighting the slope of the mountain since 1982 when I built my house. My driveway is long and abuts 5 lots along the slope. I had concerns with Mr. Makkis when he built his tennis court because of filling and slope and Mr. Fitzgerald because of filling and slope when he build his pool. Although their were some moments with these two neighbors we managed to work it out and if you looked at it today it really isn't to bad. Mr. Makkis's pool resulted in some serious drainage problems which resulted in washing away of my driveway. Mr. Makkis and I split the cost of $7,000 in drainage improvements, which solved the problem. The slope of these lots is steep. Lots 4A, 5A and my own lot 6A were all filled. When I built my house I tried building it without filling, but I couldn't. I filled my lot with 300 loads of fill. I couldn't even get to my lot from the street because of the slope. I ended up constructing an 1100 foot driveway and securing an easement across 5 other lots. Don was concerned at that time with the slope facing his house. I did spend $50,000 in grading and landscaping in 1982. I planted an extensive amount of groundcover along the slope. My problem today is keeping the ground cover in check. I would invite anyone to drive up my driveway and have a look at it today. Hopefully the owners of these homes would make similar efforts or even half the effort. There were also serious drainage issues but we managed to work those out. At this point we can't replant the trees. When you build houses you have to establish a grade. This grade happens to be on the side of a mountain. The grade has to start somewhere and then maintain the grade across the foundation floor, which is going to result in elevation on the lot because you can't have a foundation floor going downhill at a 45 degree angle. My plan is to do the best I can to make the best of the situation and to work with Chris and Mr. Antico to achieve this end. Doeskin 2 has been approved. In my opinion any abutter with concerns should do the best they can and approach Chris with their concerns and see what you can work out. It may not be perfect, but at this point I don't think confrontation is going to achieve anything. I also don't think anyone will have any success in stopping the development. If anyone wants to discuss this please give me a call 508-277-7051. As far as Mr. Antico. Mr. Antico sold his company a while ago. Mr. Antico is a multimillionare. He doesn't have to work. He has only kept this one $500,000 machine. He dusts, cleans and lubricates the machine every night. He only works two or three months a year. He says some people play golf he loves his machine. Mr. Antico is the only one doing the grading on these lots. The point is Mr. Antico doesn't have to do this so why would he do a bad job. I don't know if he persoanlly did the work on Wayside or if he even owned the company then. Regards, Jim Hargrove [ To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=unsubscribe Archives available at http://www.mail-archive.com/ For help send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web interface at http://frambors.syslang.net]
