FROM: Gerald and Barbara Harting - 46 Carter Drive Dear friends, neighbors, Town Officials and others that may read this, including the developer of Doeskin II Chris Kotsiopolis and his legal counsel:
THANK YOU Steve Orr for your e-mail detailing the background and upcoming events this week that will surely test the mettle and integrity of many of us with the knowledge and authority to finally make things right and avoid the necessity of other remedies available to us. FIRST AND FOREMOST, we are NOT against development. This has been stated many times at Planning Board Meetings, and is a matter of record. What we are against is irresponsible, unsupervised, unplanned, unmanaged and incompetent development that has a permanent and destructive affect on the abutters and the environment. Barbara and I believe it is time to put a PERSONAL FACE on what we have experienced over the past 3 1/2 years as the development of Doeskin II has proceeded: WE HAVE BEEN UNDER SIEGE IN OUR OWN HOME DURING THIS ENTIRE TIME AND OUR LEVEL OF STRESS AND ANXIETY CONTINUES TO RUN AT A HIGH LEVEL. Our home is no longer our refuge, place of peace, rest and security. The sales value of our home is in jeopardy in spite of a dramatic increase in assessment. For 3 1/2 years we have had DAMOCLES' SWORD hanging over our head--repeatedly predicting severe, uncontrolled runoff across our land, onto the land of Don and Sue Beers at 48 Carter Drive, and subsequently into the Conservation Land. All we ever asked for is a plan prepared by an independent professional that would protect us from more runoff that we had experienced in the past before the land was developed. These predictions and requests fell on deaf ears, but have now come PAINFULLY TRUE...now that the filling and topography change is SO BLOATED AND OVERDONE that any remedy will be extremely difficult and costly. As the development began early in 2000, we witnessed the tragic clear-cutting of the entire property, in spite of claims by the developer that this would NOT happen. Starting in March/April of 2000, we listened to regular blasting of Carter Road Extension and the transport and dumping of huge truckloads of cracked rock and rubble onto what are now Lots 7A and 8A directly behind our home. The "beep-beep-beep" of the large, off-road dump trucks as they backed ever closer to our lot line, followed by the rush and crash of tons of stone day after day was completely unnerving. Incidents of very large boulders rolling down the hill and through the silt fence that marked the lot lines were predicted, and indeed, happened. Many times we thought the filling was finished, only to have it start anew. Many illegal materials we buried along with the rocks, including a lovely old stone fieldstone wall, cement debris from storm sewers, tree stumps, metal, etc. In spite of repeated requests to town officials for grading and drainage plans, and site visits by a number of town officials and board members, nothing was forthcoming until the July 2002, when a copy of a grading plan for Doeskin II submitted by the developer and approved by the town was made available to us. This plan showed grading with NO PROVISION for dealing with runoff from the back of the lots except some verbiage about plantings, it was irrelevant anyway AS IT WAS NEVER FOLLOWED and no enforcement action ever followed to build to this plan THAT THE DEVELOPER HIMSELF SUBMITTED! Most of us work hard today to survive in this difficult economy. Both Barbara and I work very full days and struggle to "make ends meet," as my mother used to say. We drive cars with over 100,000 miles on them. We are trying to hold on to what we have for us and our children. Understand we are middle-class working people and DO NOT live in a Million Dollar house on Carter Drive. The houses that ultimately will be built on Carter Drive Extension above us WILL be MULTIMILLION DOLLAR. Barbara and I have worked all our lives to enjoy our home at 46 Carter Drive. We raised six children in two previous homes, sent most of them to college or higher education, and several years after we bought 46 Carter Drive in 1996, our last child--our baby--left home to seek her career in development for nonprofit organizations Boston. We documented the specific disasters that regularly occurred at Doeskin II at countless PBS meeting over the years, including aerial photos of the clear-cutting of the top of the mountain, the relentless overfilling of the land to maximize the salable lots, the recent tree cutting on non-Doeskin II land, and most importantly, the prediction that if this site filling continued, there would be DIRE CONSEQUENCES for the downstream abutters with uncontrolled runoff. Deanie and Carl Goodman of 50 Carter Drive have documented their recent significant basement flooding issues that have resulted in destruction of their basement, the dangerous occurrence of SEVERE MOLD, and costs of tens of thousands of dollars with no end in sight. (By the way, mold spores can kill a person.) Sue and Don Beers of 48 Carter Drive will testify to the severe flooding and silting of their backyard on the 22nd of June which ran into their home through their garage and out the front onto their driveway. Our early experience at 46 Carter Drive has been many more incidents of general flooding of our backyard over the past two years even in minor rainstorms. In May 2003, the developer covered the broken rock with soil and topsoil, effectively eliminating any drainage through the rocks and resultant lowering of the volume of water that left the Doe II land and migrated across 46 Carter Drive. This is the ROOT CAUSE of the much more severe incidents of general flooding and silting on June 1st of our backyard, and then the localized high velocity, high volume flooding, erosion and silting of the corner of our yard at the low point of Lot 7A on June 22 AFTER the developer told me he had "fixed the problem"! THERE IS NO WHERE ELSE FOR THE WATER TO GO BUT OFF DOESKIN II PROPERTY. (Tomorrow, on Steve Orr's website: http://frambors.syslang.net/album/Harting-1June03_Runoff/ will be some additional picture of interest including the beautiful land at the beginning of the filling contrasted with the current topography, plus some other photos of interest showing the "THIRD fix of the problem" by the developer.) On Saturday, the 28th of June, the developer, C. Kotsiopolis, visited my home to meet with me and convince me that he had "fixed the problem (HIS THIRD FIX)" and was going to hydroseed the hillside with a "beautiful mix of wild flowers". (Incidentally, Barbara was quite insulted at his talking down to her.) He advised he had installed a rock-lined ditch from the top of the hill to a drainage pit at the bottom of the hill located parallel to the back lot lines of Doeskin II. "This will permanently solve the problem," he announced triumphantly. Are we so stupid as to believe that a wildflower mix will stop or even slow the thousands of gallons of runoff THAT SHOULD STAY ON DOESKIN II PROPERTY? As a Mechanical Engineer, I have done a conservative, informal analysis: About 1 1/2 acres of land in Doeskin II collects rainwater and directs it down the hill to the lower corner of Lot 7A. With 2 1/2 inches of rain -- NOT AN ABNORMAL SUMMER STORM IN NEW ENGLAND--this amounts to over 100,000 gallons of water, or a cube 47' x 47' x 47.' The drainage ditch I observed serves not to keep the water on Doeskin II property, but to sluice it down as quickly as possible (without silt) to a rudimentary, amateurish, non-permanent, dangerous dirt lined drainage pit that is, at best, capable of holding 500 to 1000 gallons. Once it is filled, it overflows onto my property at a high rate, only restricted by a few additional haybales and silt fences staked into the ground. It is impossible to conceive how these haybales and silt fences will hold back the rush of 100,000 gallons, or can in any way be called "permanent." In addition, this temporaty pit is holding water and can easily be considered a drowning hazard for my grandchildren or your children. It is an attractive nuisance that could lure a child to "climb on the rocks" and tumble into the pool with tragic result. SO THE STRESS CONTINUES... WE NEED YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT IN THIS CASE. IMAGINE IF THIS HAPPENED TO YOU! CONSIDER HAVING YOUR HOME AT RISK, YOUR PEACE OF MIND, REFUGE AND SECURITY DESTROYED OVER YEARS. CONSIDER HAVING TO ATTEND REPEATED PLANNING BOARD MEETINGS AND FINDING EVERY MEETING A DEEP DISAPPOINTMENT. IMAGINE BEING MANIPULATED AND LIED TO BY A DEVELOPER. IMAGINE FEELING HELPLESS IN THE FACE OF POWERFUL LAWYERS AGAINST VOLUNTEER BOARDS IN FEAR OF BEING SUED. IMAGINE HAVING YOUR REPEATED, LOGICAL REQUESTS IGNORED AND PLACATED. PLEASE SUPPORT US IN OUR QUEST FOR AN 81W ON DOESKIN II AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF PROPERLY ENGINEERED, CORRECTLY CONSTRUCTED, SAFE AND WELL MAINTAINED DRAINAGE PROVISIONS FOR DOESKIN II. Sincerely, Barbara and Gerald Harting To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body "unsubscribe frambors" (the subject is ignored).
