Incoming: Development
I bought my home two years ago in May. No one told me that there was a subdivision planned for the hilltop right behind me, but, then again, real estate is all about caveat emptor and I forgot to ask that question....especially since my realtor told me that the existence of a city easement on the rear of my lot meant that no one could develop the area behind me. I didn't think to ask about the hill top 100 feet beyond the easement.
Today, I awoke and found men walking through the woods, laying out that familiar orange sedimentation fencing that is used to corral debris and prevent excessive erosion from creeping into our waterways. This means that the groundbreaking of that new subdivision will be happening right outside my backdoor very soon.
The good news for me is that the area within the fence excludes the major trees between my home and the location of those new lots, including some lovely dogwoods and eastern redbuds and a couple of huge oaks. The bad news is that the top of the hill will likely be wiped clear of vegetation. I can already tell that the noise is going to be unreal. I could understand every word of conversation between the men working there today and they were more than 100 yards from me.
I hope that this will happen quickly once it is begun and that I can find rest during the days while they clear-cut those woods and hammer those nails. I am sad for the deer. They have already been driven onto that hillside from all the development around us and today they were walking along, sniffing at the orange fence. I have a strong feeling they will be more frequent visitors to my yard and my landscaping plants will suffer for it.
Should we not look at our home, our beautiful state, and question whether or not we should be clear cutting the land, and adding more housing. Maybe we need to reconsider the benefits and pitfalls of urban growth. Soon, we will be like many areas in Europe where there are only trees lining the roadways and boulevards.
It was a bit of a sad day yesterday. I hope to get a photo of the hilltop before the trees start to fall.
Categories: North+Carolina clear-cutting environmental+causes
posted by Ron Hudson at 12:17:00 AM
4 Comments:
Ron,
nice post. I found Europe to be amazingly protective of its countryside. I'm not sure how they do it, but how did they manage to preserve countryside in France, a country the size of Texas, with 50 million people in it? If you go there, or at least this is the way it was in the late 90s, you leave the town behind and the country starts. There is no trailing off of suburbia like we have here. Paris and its surroundings are intensely urbanized, of course, but the towns, cities and villages in the rest of the country are separated by a vbery defined and impressive amount of greenspace.
Cool, you know France! I lived there for a year in 1980. In the highly agricultural areas of Europe, it is very common to have a line of plane trees planted on either side of a roadway as a windbreak and then open fields that are cultivated, and very few trees elsewhere. Luckily, around Paris, they have also built in huge parks and greenways such as the Bois de Boulogne.
oh yes, take a photo, i just wanted to ask you for one.
those things make me sad too. hm :(
gosh, and i hope it's not going to be too loud. ugh.
i love the area here. it's so beautiful with the hills and trees around the old city. *sigh* :)
I'm sad about what is happening on your backyard : (
never thought in suborn???? (with poundcake of course)
Post a Comment
<< Home