Zoning laws are local, and democratic. They represent an expressed wish of the voters, through their elected representatives. I think that overriding democratic choices is, in general, a bad thing: unless there is a clear violation of constitutional rights and such.
40B allows direct zoning override, in exchange for insufficient or minuscule improvements of affordable housing.
Mosaic Commons was an "I want to do this", but the expressed democratic will of the town was "we don't want it". When should individual's rights trump the democratically expressed will of the residents? The fact that YOU want it, does not make it necessarily better, nor does that fact that it might be better in terms of energy usage make it better enough overall.
If you are not aware that developers of 40B projects have to return "excess profits" to towns under the law, and that the IG report points out they rarely do: you don't know 40B.
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Date: 2010-11-02 03:05 pm (UTC)Zoning laws are local, and democratic. They represent an expressed wish of the voters, through their elected representatives. I think that overriding democratic choices is, in general, a bad thing: unless there is a clear violation of constitutional rights and such.
40B allows direct zoning override, in exchange for insufficient or minuscule improvements of affordable housing.
Mosaic Commons was an "I want to do this", but the expressed democratic will of the town was "we don't want it". When should individual's rights trump the democratically expressed will of the residents? The fact that YOU want it, does not make it necessarily better, nor does that fact that it might be better in terms of energy usage make it better enough overall.
If you are not aware that developers of 40B projects have to return "excess profits" to towns under the law, and that the IG report points out they rarely do: you don't know 40B.