M-town Seniors Angry at Possible Future Kids Who Might Tread on Their Grass
I can empathize with someone who bought a house having been told by a developer that they would be living next to “a mix of single family homes, townhomes, and apartments” only to find out that really that means apartments. But can’t our seniors come off a little less like a Simpson-esque sendup of old folks?
Residents of Spring Arbor, a luxury community for people over age 55, showed up at the August 4 Middletown mayor and council meeting to object to proposed apartment buildings near their neighborhood.
They were concerned with the types of people the apartments would attract, the devaluation of their properties, and the children that would allegedly “run through their yards.”
Via the Middletown Transcript
and the difference between them and the resident of Laurel De who came out to protest low-moderate homes built there is WHAT exactly??
they might want to be reminded of the fact that Free Speech aside – the we don’t want “those people” comments will almost always run one afoul of Fair Housing Laws.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/November/12-crt-1418.html
Middletown is low on affordable housing by design. It is about time the MOT area takes its share of NCC poverty, especially the Appo school district.
Especially Appo High School
What’s the “fair share” of poverty that communities should “take”?
The amount they would have without excusionary zoning.
Can you show me a place in Delaware that does not have “exclusionary” zoning?
Sure… look at Bear-Glasgow which ranges from nice half-acre colonials, to townhomes and trailer parks featured on COPS.
Just another everyday example of Generation Depends happily myopic, self-centered, so indignant, so self-righteous, that they forget other people actually have a right to live life in this country.
The Tea Party is chock full of the Depends crowd. Angry without understanding, heartless without cause, issue driven without thought, passionate without compassion, and self-centered like the earth’s core. Largely living off of SSI for which their meager work-life contributions pale in comparison to what they now receive. Despite that gratis, to be paid by the unwashed masses that dare run across their grassy weed beds, they are happy to scorn anyone that disagrees with them.
Give me a 1968 Mustang Shelby GT500 and I’ll gladly turf every one of those lawns if only to prove Middletown’s Generation Depends wrong about the kids.
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/154170/elderly-meeting
Most of the Middletown area gets its zoning approved by the county. It isn’t (thus far) the fault of the town that Appoquinimink School District lacks affordable housing. This development is inside of the town limits, so it falls under their jurisdiction.
The questions about where to put low-income housing should revolve around access to infrastructure. Bus routes, walking paths, businesses, etc. Whether that development should be made more dense should be decided with those factors, not kids in the flower bed.
Then again, I’m not keen on making sure Louis Capano makes more money on the backs of the Spring Arbor residents to sell or rent property to someone else.
Oh, and for extra fun, read the comments on The Transcript’s Facebook page.
“They were concerned with the types of people the apartments would attract”
oh? including the 25-30 young professionals who can’t afford to buy houses since the 55ers tanked the economny? I know a good number of those. I guess we’ll just keep working on our shanty town under the overpass.
Also, the headline writers could use an editor.
Only three typos and a misspelling.
Why won’t the kids stay off of our lawns?
We should house those 117 Central American cnildren in the new apartments next to Spring Arbor.
“…..and trailer parks featured on COPS.”
Which is why the people were voicing their concerns.
This is what Capano did to Claymont’s Darley Green mixed use utopia dream “Renaissance Village”…as Bob Weiner dreamed it up.
Capano grabbed up the fledgling Renaissance Village from Commonwealth for pennies on the dollar and then cried too poor to implement the record plan….even with the special tax district that Cartier et. al. had set up. http://www.delaforum.com/2008/Jul%20-%20Sep/ARTICLES/Increment%20Financing%20(8-28).htm
And Capano got his apartment plan approved in the waning months of the Clark administration.
I guess Middletown is the best place now to pull off this kind of bait and switch.
“The questions about where to put low-income housing should revolve around access to infrastructure. Bus routes, walking paths, businesses, etc.”
The Clark administration thought so, too, which is why it made sure to disconnect development from bus routes…oh, wait.
“Whether that development should be made more dense should be decided with those factors, not kids in the flower bed.”
Agree wholeheartedly. Delaware’s biggest gap in planning for the future is public transportation, which will increasingly be the only kind the growing number of the poor will be able to afford.
“including the 25-30 young professionals who can’t afford to buy houses since the 55ers tanked the economny? I know a good number of those.”
And those obviously aren’t the people the property owners are worried about. They’re worried about … you know, those people.