Editor’s note: following is an opinion submitted by Saugatuck resident Carolanne Curry
The Hamlet is dead.
The voices of Saugatuck, Old Saugatuck and Saugatuck Shores have spoken.
Roan, the developer, along with supporters, continues sinking in the mire of denial about the Planning & Zoning Commission’s disapproval of the Hamlet project. They are deluded into believing that the corpse still draws breath.
A group, larger than the number of five signatures listed on the recent letter in Westport Journal, is compulsively attempting to breathe new life into a project rife with disastrous consequences, as though this is the only salvation for my community of Old Saugatuck. As though the community of Old Saugatuck deserves no better.
The developer and his group appear tone-deaf to the Hamlet’s swan song resounding along the Saugatuck River. In the meantime this developer frantically reaches out to the wealthy and powerful in our midst, pressing them to submit to further rounds of negotiations on his behalf even after the P and Z Commission wisely refused to do so.
Irretrievably wedded to the erroneous belief that might makes right, they push proposals, which would undermine the authority of our P&Z zoners, our RTM members, and our Selectmen even before they take their oaths of office in mere weeks from now.
They stubbornly insist on committees and compromises for a project that offers no community benefit, except for the obvious: a broadened tax base.
They have the hubris to think that the historically ignored residents of Saugatuck, Old Saugatuck and Saugatuck Shores will go quietly in accepting the destruction and disappearance of their history and quality of life.
They’ve forgotten that Save Old Saugatuck was the mouse that roared for more than two decades, working tirelessly to save a unique working-class community from the intrusion of a bloated mega-development. Only then to fail due to secret Town negotiations and an eventual settlement approved by a judge who’d never even visited the site. One more hard-fought matter where justice did not prevail.
Although the construction of Interstate 95 physically divided the land of Old Saugatuck in the 1950s, we are now joined as one community to fight other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and will do so again and again.
Our community of Old Saugatuck has been overlooked, under appreciated and overwhelmed. But we are still alive and making all of our lives worthwhile … while the corpse of Hamlet lies moldering and un-mourned.
Carolanne Curry
Hiawatha Lane Extension
203-227-3573
The passionate voices in Old Saugatuck may have meant well, but their fiery opposition led to a mega-project on Hiawatha that ballooned during litigation and saddled the town with hefty legal costs.
Let’s learn from that experience and protect The Slice with care and collaboration. Times have changed — 8-30g applications move quickly now. Just look at Weed St in New Canaan, where a judge nudged aside a P+Z denial to make room for 102 units where just one once stood.
I believe it was a failure of the developer to read the town. A sort of mis match where a few townies got excited but then realized they were in over their heads and the planning had to deny the application. As for the developer taking the town of Westport to court because of the plan being dismissed by the commission, any judge will see how ridiculous the proposal was — easy to prove how scope ramped once they got a little toe in the door. Can’t blame them for trying, that’s what the courts are for. As for threatening the town with monstrous hulking Soviet style barracks towering over our souls— it goes nowhere— doa
Curry is great, I used to run into her all the time, no one cares more… and that is the old school Westport quality we love most, ya know, the kind of community spirit that underpins the values we hold close to our hearts—-cheers
As Carolanne will tell you, I was among the most enthusiastic supporters of her effort to defeat the Hiawatha Lane project. So I am not insensitive to the pressures being brought to bear on the neighborhood. Yes, the Hamlet in its original form is dead. But the fact that Saugatuck is in need of a sensible redevelopment plan remains, and those of us who are working to promote a dialogue among all stakeholders are hoping to shape that development in a way that will benefit all parties and the town as a whole.
It’s unfortunate that Carolanne sees what has happened as a victory when, in fact, it is a failure of imagination and cooperation. Her comment reeks of disappointment and surrender.
Sensible development of Saugatuck is still a real possibility. All that is required is the will to set aside emotion and engage in meaningful dialogue.
In the end, we all want the same thing, a vibrant neighborhood of proper scale which will serve the residents and the town.