Londonderry News

Ray Adams recruited, and then brought his A Team to the town Green and the Library for seven hours of wintery mix on Saturday December 31st. 2011.

Laura Aronson, Matt and Marcela Hogan, Kieth Mac, Linda Sharpe, Ray and I all brought our A game, and we seven greeted and met with over a hundred residents who signed our Woodmont Manifesto and stayed to discuss how best to shape this development for the benefit of the town and not just the developer. (Everyone ate rum cake and brownies from a plentiful supply. Bless Ray’s quartermaster corp.)

It was pointed out that when Rockingham Mall went into Salem to our south, bringing less traffic to that town than Woodmont will bring to ours, the developer paid Salem $22 million for road improvements around the site!  We have not addressed that issue, as our developer wants his master plan and new zoning approved first! Is there something wrong with that picture?

Although town staff and town officials have had multiple meetings with the developer both at his facility and at town hall, none were present either at the Library or the Town Green on Saturday to hear what the citizens had to say. (Several of our State Legislators came, discussed and signed the Woodmont Manifesto.) Our press representatives came out in the cold and wet and reported accurately on what they saw and heard as always.

91 signed up on the Town Green
46 signed up at the Library
2 signed up at the Millennium Mile (A lot of people there from Manchester, Derry and New Jersey!  The Ron Paul people wanted to sign up, but I did not accept their help!)
6 were as  a result of a neighborhood door to door effort on Devonshire Lane.

TOTAL: 144 as of this morning 1/2/11

We expect many more over the next few days as mail in returns come in and other neighborhood door to door efforts continue.

There was not a single person coming to either the Library or to the Town Green that expressed support for changing our zoning before all the issues were on the table and satisfactorily resolved in public.

Road improvements in the range done for Salem NH are surely worth talking about before any Master Plan is accepted.

We asked the developer to divide up his project into approval phases much as he will divide it up into construction phases. He refused, and now wants all approvals at once.

I’m sure we could have shaped a phase one proposal long since, and seen it begin construction this spring or it might even have been under construction now if the developer didn’t decide to hold everything up by his all or nothing strategy.

Everyone accepts the fact that the land has been sold and a project is going to be built. We all would like to work with the developer to see that something that fits in Londonderry results and that the infrastructure required be provided by the developer and not be charged to the taxpayers. $22 million in road improvements were not paid for by the citizens of Salem.

Roads are only one issue not covered after fifteen plus months of charades, non public meetings and stonewall presentations. We deserve better. Those exercising their civic rights and duties by signing the Woodmont Manifesto believe our salaried, appointed and elected officials and our developer can do better.

“Jack Falvey Et al:” provides a hometown analysis of Woodmont Commons. Since attending the design charrette offered by the developers of the project Jack has been asking questions, you too have been asking questions, many to Jack himself. He has provided thoughtful analysis from his point of view and shared it back to the questioner and a growing list of Londonderry residents wanting of more information.

As they become available we will provide these questions to our readers and the search engines. We hope to provide a broader view of the project through the eyes of someone that came to town in the 1960′s. Jack raised a family here, volunteered in local government and founded his company “Making the Numbers” after a career at Gillette. As a motivational speaker and a prolific writer with major media outlets his views on the project may take you by surprise!

To read comments from some of Jack’s “followers” click Read More.

Yes, it is disturbing that no Town of Londonderry employee, Town Council member or Planning Board member came out to hear from Londonderry’s citizens on Saturday, 12/31/11, at the town common. They are clearly continuing to operate outside of the realm we all live in.

Everyone had things to do that day but some people made the time to stop and talk about Woodmont, the PUD and to express their distress that a dozen individuals colluded together to make a decision for Londonderry, without any citizen input or permission to do so, which has now caused many to become angrily concerned for not only their property values but also increased property taxes, increased traffic on an already problematic road system and tremendous environmental damage.

Many said that if the PUD zoning issue had been clearly and publicly introduced and discussed with the citizens of Londonderry, especially noting that there was a developer standing by who was proposing something as massive as Woodmont Commons, then it would surely not have been approved by most ,if any, of the residents here. But that isn’t the way the PUD zoning ordinance was handled by these individuals. To anyone’s recollection there was no announcement from the town, no discussion with town officials, no town led workshops or town designated resident vote platforms to change Londonderry’s zoning ordinance to allow a developer to build according to their own Master Plan. On Saturday many people asked, “How did this happen?”

Some of the people who stopped by were seniors who moved here in the 1960′s who said that they have never seen this type of super-aggressive and aggregious behavior from town officals before and nodded in approval when asked if they would like to sign a document requesting a halt to any further development action until the citizens can make a thorough review of all that has happened and decide what further action we need to take first. Some people came with children in tow telling us they were so happy to find a place with so much natural beauty like Londonderry to settle in and asking why would anyone want to change this charming farm environment that drew them here. And some people said that they have been so busy that they haven’t kept up to date on all this but now realize the consequences, like we all do, when we allow others to make decisions on our behalf which empower them to act on their own personal agenda or misguided ideals which are not shared by many of this towns citizens.

Everyone, and I mean everyone agreed that they settled here so they could enjoy the country atmosphere, the relative peace & quiet of a small town and their own personal space. No one has any interest in or desire to devolve back into a European type of community where none of these qualities exist. We are all here because we can and have worked hard so we could own a home and raise our children in a safe environment and relax in our down time in the comfort and privacy of our own homes. We pay our taxes and expect our town employees and council members to do what we hired them to do, nothing more. If all of this doesnt sound good enough to you then please fell free to move on.

Here are some other comments made by residents on Saturday:
“We don’t need this type of development here because there are already plenty of houses to live in and places to shop.”
“My house is sitting right next to the ledge they are going to blow up- what if they crack my foundation?”
“If they put an Inn at the corner of Pillsbury and Gilcreast am I going to be woken up by garbage trucks at 3 AM?”
“The school system cant handle 1300 residences worth of new kids!”
“There is already so much traffic on the town roads- this will make it all much worse.”
“I don’t live in that part of town but I don’t want that type of congested development in Londonderry either.”
“What if he runs out of money and doesn’t finish it-what will it look like?”
“We just bought our house to have the orchard view and we were so happy about that and now it will be gone.”
“It will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to add more police and fire for that development area!”
“Why is all the development heaped up in one place-why not put it down 102 towards Hudson?”
“The town is afraid of this developer because they are being sued over development problems at exit 5.”
“Why cant they just build some nice homes over there?”
“We don’t need another hospital in this area.”

I’d love to see an invitation reading “Town to Host Public Forum Regarding Woodmont Development,” and then have the appropriate people there to discuss the magnitude of the proposed project, and enthusiastically, openly, and honestly answer questions. About the project, about how the PUD came about. Do you think that the Town Council and Town Manager would hold one on a Saturday? Snow in NH doesn’t scare me as much as this development does.

I think we have talked long enough so we can now finish each other’s sentences.

Let’s take some action:

Let’s get some signatures on our manifesto: We the People…

December 31st is a Saturday and New Years Eve. Let’s make that We the People’s Day in Londonderry.

That will be the day we the people will be on the town green in front of the cannon to collect signatures on our document to be presented to the head of the town council: Sean O’Keefe.

We can all make copies ahead of time and get as many signed in advance as possible.

I would recommend copying it two sided and getting one signature per copy. (If someone wants to send a message there are a few lines below the signature line.) All those signing should also receive a copy for themselves.

Let’s get going. Let’s get organized. Let’s get the Town Green thing organized. Let’s get the brownies baked. Do you have a clip board?

Does someone have a folding table.

Is Andy Mack in town to paint us a sign or two?  Honk if you like Londonderry! STOP and SIGN if YOU LOVE LONDONDERRY

9:00 to 5:00 on the green Saturday December 31st. Can we do a coverage list? I’ll be there all day!

Let’s get this done.

Jack,

Some questions for the responders below:

Ray- why the Dave Caron filter and not a direct Q&A with the town attorney? Just wondering.

Mr Germany- that was a great article to read. Nice to know their thinking on neighbors to their projects. Do you have any articles on how NIMBYs blocked his developments?

All the picture of Duany needs is a cup of Starbucks in his hand- I can just see him growling the words “urban sprawl”. Where’s my darts!

Jack,

After reading your rough draft I would be happy to place my signature this document. I would also be willing to share my experiences in Germany with anyone that has questions beyond the outlines I have written for this group.

One more thing for the group to consider…
I have done a lot of reading on the New Urbanization movement (sometimes referred to as smart growth) and on Andres Duany. Many of my opinions in opposing Woodmont as a high density development are because of this reading. Even though Mr. Duany has been a part of about 200 of these mini-cities around the country, he has not always been successful in his efforts. His group has had their effort pushed back by some communities that see through the facade. His response to these communities is fairly hostile and arrogant (which we saw in the charettes). I think the following article will be of interest of some in the Londonderry community (it certainly answers some of the questions about the attitude we have been seeing). Please take note of the comments following the article.

http://www.architectmagazine.com/planning/control-the-masses-andres-duany.aspx

For more comments from Jack’s followers and opinions on the Woodmont project, be sure to click Read More! To view or print a copy of “We the People”, click here.

“Jack Falvey Et al:” provides a hometown analysis of Woodmont Commons. Since attending the design charrette offered by the developers of the project Jack has been asking questions, you too have been asking questions, many to Jack himself. He has provided thoughtful analysis from his point of view and shared it back to the questioner and a growing list of Londonderry residents wanting of more information.

As they become available we will provide these questions to our readers and the search engines. We hope to provide a broader view of the project through the eyes of someone that came to town in the 1960′s. Jack raised a family here, volunteered in local government and founded his company “Making the Numbers” after a career at Gillette. As a motivational speaker and a prolific writer with major media outlets his views on the project may take you by surprise!

Hi Jack,
I spoke with our Town Manager, Dave Caron, today about the possibility of having a handful of Londonderry citizens being able to meet with Attorney Bart Mayer regarding Woodmont. I know our email group could retain our own Attorney, but wanted to discuss all our options. Dave said that if we brought a number of questions we might like answered to him, he would bring them to Bart for answers. I had expressed to Dave my opinion that at last week’s meeting, myself and a number of people I spoke with didn’t feel the Planning Board was representing them in the true sense of the word, and that their Chairperson, Art Rugg, seemed almost annoyed when a citizen stepped up to the mike. I know Mr. Rugg and other members had their hands full keeping the Applicant’s Attorney at bay…at least that was my perception. I also think that for legal reasons the Town of Londonderry, including Staff and the Planning Board members, have to look at this project with an open mind, which it should. I also indicated to Dave that our group is still waiting for answers to the 100-150 legitimate questions that seem to get put off regularly, that we have waited months to get answered. The Applicant seems to want to ram this huge plan through before any questions get answered, that the Planning Board and Staff will be looking at for the next 10-20 years. Slow down…what’s the rush! I would like the email groups comments about presenting questions to our Town’s Woodmont Attorney via Dave Caron, and if it sounds okay, we can have the questions sent to you.
Regards,
Ray Adams

I like it! I don’t like the developers’ seeming arrogance that we have to be saved from ourselves. The only way we country fools can hope to be part of civilization is to allow this development to go through exactly as they desire, with loose ends galore? Am I misreading this? Am I missing something? I’ve lived here 32 years and have successfully raised a family in my Londonderry home. My son and his wife, residents of Manhattan for years, bought a house and moved here (Windham) when they realized they were having a child. High density and its issues are not what they want for their young family, sprawl or not. Funny; exactly what I thought years ago when we moved here from an urban environment. We aren’t alone. It’s true that the developers bought the land, but we must have our town officials listen to their citizens about the direction of the community we have been committed to. We’re looking at a big change. We need answers and transparency, not a rush to get this through. (It is the best time of the year to pull this. When the celebrating, shopping, and cookie-baking are over, we learn what’s hit us when we weren’t paying attention.) Don’t the officials work for us as well as for the new guys who bought up the land, will develop it, and then move on?

I am still waiting for a response from Dean Coons to my question about deleting the Charrette material but so far nothing. I still don’t understand, days later, what would motivate them to make a decision like that. Only the developer benefits from speeding up the process, I think. If those board members lived only 15 feet away from the project like I and many others do then I am sure they would be thinking alot harder about the consequences of their actions: possible catastrophic financial loss to our biggest investment- our homes, permanent environmental damage to our neighborhood and the massive drain on the the towns resources (which are paid for via our property tax which will not go down just because new business moves in as history will show) to manage this monstrosity once the developer is all done and waves goodbye. But we all know that if it’s not on our doorstep then it wont have the same cold, hard slap in the face effect as it does to those of us who have to face this head on.
Yes, I agree the time for waiting and watching and hoping for the best is over. It looks imminent now and according to Andre Garrons schedule we only have 44 days until the reviewer gets it. In my opinion we are going to need a Real Estate Attorney, an Environmental Engineer and as many citizens as possible to negotiate with this developer. I’ll bet if we corral enough people together we will gain access to the two above mentioned individuals who will probably be better positioned to help as they will hopefully not be associated with the developer. Kettenbach has done this type of work for decades and he has several attorneys to make sure he is protected so I think we need one to. If the town attorney could act as such he may be the right choice, however, since he didn’t make the meeting and wasn’t qualified to review it himself or find a colleague to review it then I wonder if he is even going to be much help at all. Even the planning board members admitted that they have no idea how to handle this. We need serious help with this right now so I suggest we all make some calls starting this Monday and see what we can come up with by the end of the week. We need the support of all or many of the abutters (and to learn who all the abutters are), an attorney and an environmental engineer or person in some similar capacity. I think the Planning Board needs help with this and it has to come from us.

I know it’s Christmas and everyone is busy and it’s cold and everyone just wants to take it easy and everyone is entitled to do that. I’m not trying to incite some kind of demonstration here. But if the Town of Londonderry Planning Board approves this in a few weeks and we don’t turn this Woodmont Commons Master Plan inside and out to make sure we will not only not be harmed in any way by it but benefit from it as we are entitled to then I think we will all live to regret it.
I will communicate to you what I find out this week via email or meeting. I have already read everything I could find about this but I will look for more. And I will look for individuals who might be able to help. I haven’t seen the Master Plan but want to see that too. I will research other PUD developments and see what their effect has been on their towns. I will get educated and take this more seriously myself. Whomever is willing to get serious about this I would ask that you do the same and anything else you can think of to learn more and also report back by the end of the week. We are so fortunate to have had a person like Jack Falvey get on the ball with this so early on and be tenacious enough to get educated and speak up and he is to be commended for his- Thanks Jack!! But he should have had all of us right behind him all along…

Jack,

Will they ever get the message !!! My answer to that is “NO”. At some point the citizens and tax payers of Londonderry need to have someone stand up and protect the best interest of the common good. That I feel, is not what our elected and appointed official have demonstrated to date. Why is a good question! I can only guess what the motive would be. Could it be the “Pit Bull”? When the PUD was enacted by the Town of Londonderry that was just what the fox needed, the pit bull will lead the way, but the fox is going to eat your lunch big time! I may not be a rocket scientist but when I see a lot of dead chickens “tax payers” on the road side, I bet the fox is not far behind. The pit bull prefers red meat laced with tax payer money “law suit’s” .

GNS (Gary Stapleford)

I hope my comments don’t seem too over the top but I’m actually mortified about what this will do to the value of our home. And I have some big concerns about the environmental impact too. I’ve been researching on the EPA website and have already found several issues that will conflict with their master plan of which the most serious is the hospital and it’s toxic waste incineration. Basically they can’t put a new hospital so close to residences because the incineration of toxic materials such as blood and body parts will make people sick as it has been proven that this process can transmit diseases. And also there are 3 hospitals and a medical center within 15 minutes of here and I think they would be successful in blocking another hospital from competing with them as Parkland did when they took issue with the new Eliott medical center. In that case Parkand just built it’s own medical center across the street but that wont happen in this case. So in my opinion there are several good reasons not to allow a hospital there.

Also, I’m so happy that they will leave some apple trees in front of us but they will not block our view of the residents back yards in the winter because they are deciduous trees. I’d like to see them add some evergreens too on their side. And I’m sure the residents would agree as I’m sure they don’t want to see Gilcreast Rd from their back windows, or ever for that matter.
I would also not like them to disturb the wetlands across the street. There is no need to put a lake there as I think that might disturb the water table around here which is also something that mortifies me.
I thought you could add these comments to your list of citizen concerns.

Jack
I found the New Hampshire Sunday News’ front page article regarding Londonderry prospering from the widening of I-93 to be interesting. In the story, they state that for Londonderry, “…half of the town’s workers commute to other New Hampshire communities for their jobs. Nearly 30 percent of the town’s workers commute out of state, while 22 percent work within Londonderry.” If that’s true, one heck of a lot of commuter vehicles will be added from 1300 dwellings located in just one small part of town.

Our paid professionals must already have the plan worked out. Otherwise, why would the planning board be rushing to get a master plan approved without having done its homework?

If others in town, who appear ambivalent to the Woodmont issue, don’t get the impact that this development will have on them personally, they will if the plan goes through unaltered.