Town Growth....too much too fast

FAOL Community Sound Off
1

Remember my post about my little town handing out building permits too much? The one I stated I wish they would limit permits to 3%? Someone got really angry over it. Well it is very sad. Less than a year ago leaving town on the left was high plains juniper, next to that is an airport that is set back and hardly noticable, then the National Guard building which also seemd not to be too large or invasive. From there 3 more miles out to my turn off is high plains juniper land. I quite often see a herd of antelope just after I turn left on my road. Also near the armory at two watering holes. Been this way a long long time. Now the town has approved a permit for a 70 acre Auto Mall and the first section is now plain dirt, no trees and construction going on. The airport, a man complained when he flew in there was never a hangar available. He asked for permit to build one, got it, and then thought about a money making opportunity and asked to build 12 and got the permit. So next to the Auto Mall we don’t need at all and is going to seriously hurt all the car dealers we already have, are a whole bunch of steel buildings going up and they stretch over to behind the armory. We even used to see an occasional elk cross the road here. What’s peeves me the most is the natural habitat from the armory to my rod turn off. Skip me, it’s not about me…just a description of the area. There was two watering holes that the antelope depended on. They have been filled in with dirt! A sign on the fence says future industrial airport site! Well, in my opinion the watering holes did not have to be destroyed until some future time when something was going to go in there. Yesterday I went to town and there were about 50 antelope standing around the dirt filled watering hole! Obviously looking puzzled and lost! Not like they normally look, comfortably standing around, drinking, hanging out…they were lost and confused. I really don’t know where they are going to find water now. I wish I had a camera to take pics of the whole area showing the before with habitat, and the after and then the poor pitiful lost antelope at their watering hole wondering what happend. Greed…that is what happened. It would have been a very poignant picture as you can plainly see the bare dirt fill in to level ground and the antelope standing around wondering what to do. Sorry for length of post but this carless use of our land is what annoys me. It could have been done differently and the auto mall was not needed, trust me. It will probably light up the sky at night so that I will no longer be able to gaze at the stars as in the dark of night before. If nothing else the water ponds could have been left alone. Nothing is planned or going there…but they were filled in. It sucks big time in my book.

Again apologize for length of post. I just hate to see mother nature so pushed around.

Gem

2

Write to your State Represenative for your district. They like good PR and you have a very valid peeve. Makes me sick, but then todays news doesn’t help in that department either. Good luck, Jonezee

3

I suppose your local newspaper would not be on ‘your side’ about the animals dying now? Would they even print a letter to the editor? Take pictures if possible. Start up a group and meet in town to raise hell about this. Get others interested. Perhaps someonewill take up the fight. NRA or SCI.

4

This same thing is happening all over the country, Its the natural result of overpopulation. The only way to fix this problem is for everyone to practise birth control and keep their famlies to a small size - and that means in all countries, and I don’t think that’s about to happen. I’m glad I grew up in a simpler less populated era. I feel sorry for my grandchildren as I think things will be rough for their generation. I suspect that the earth will find a way to curb the overpopulation through disease and natural disasters if we don’t do it ourselves first with war or polution.

5

Gem this is going on all over the west anymore and it is a damn shame. To many people seeing dollar signs in their eyes and they could care less about the damage to the wild places.

Rocky

6

West. Midwest. South. East. Europe. Domican Republic. It’s everywhere. Someone suggested in a different post that the fishhook was something like the 31st. most important invention of mankind. A bulldozer has just got to be on the bottom of any such list. JGW

7

The song, “Big Yellow Taxi”, said it all.

Don’t always seem to go, you don’t know what you got til its gone. They paved “Paradise”, and put up a “Parking Lot”!

We are now having the same dilemma with Ethanol production in Minnesota. Farmers are seeing dollar signs, with increased price for corn to make Ethanol. The Farmer Coop’s are building Ethanol Plants all over the state. More water will be used to irrigate crops, more water will be used to make the Ethanol. All the water will be pumped out of the ground.

Then there is the question of the waste products and what this will do to the streams and rivers that will lose vital water. Not to mention the wildlife.

Federal Government is trying to say Ethanol is the key to reducing Petroleum demands. But something tells me that there is not enough farm land to quench the thirst for switching from petroleum, plus supply food to the rest of us.

I am 58 years old, and in my lifetime, I have seen 8 counties lose all their farm land to commercial and housing, that surrounded the St.Paul/Minneapolis {Twin Cities) area. What were small farming communities, are now suburbs. Only their names reminds us what they use to be…
Bloomington, Farmington, Golden Valley, Apple Valley, Eden Praire. These were the farm communities that supplied the fresh produce to St. Paul/Minneapolis. Now there are considered suburbs of the bigger “Twin Cities” that now covers 5024 square miles of land.

People with money can buy 10 or 20 acre lots, that are 70 miles from where they work, and commute in their SUV’s. They can afford the price of fuel. They just want a house with a view, and see no other houses.

Math still says that if you divide, 1 square mile (640 acres)into 10 acre lots, you only get 64 houses. Divide by 20 acres, you only have 32 houses per square mile. That takes a lot of good farm land out of production really quick.

My lot is 100 feet x 80 feet (8,000 square feet (0.183 acres). I rather we all live in the cities on smaller plots, and leave the countryside alone, while there is still countryside left. Because in the end, we all will end up on a 3 foot by 6 foot plot, with no view.

~Parnelli

[This message has been edited by Steven H. McGarthwaite (edited 13 July 2006).]

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The National Rivers Org. Put the Upper Yellowstone “Paradise Valley” in the top 10 of most indangered rivers in the country and it is all because of building.
Just read an article about a developer that bought 14,000 acres and is going to subdivide that for homes in that vally. Guess what? The govener was right there in the picture with the guy and all smiles. $&#^$%* Hole. Ron

Realtor a Lawyer and a Skunk were lying dead in the road. One had breaking marks in front of it. You guess which one. Local Joke here.

9

Ron, I gotta remember that one! That poor skunk.
We have the same thing here in my part of the world too. What makes it even more aggravating here, is that the population in my county has been greatly declining, yet they still keep building more subdivisions. Where are the people coming from? Our town supervisor needs a supervisor. He’s so entrenched with the local builders, it’s sick.
Gemrod, definitely try to get some folks together and fight this if you can.

10

Thats it I give up , I moving to Montana

11

Come on up Steve,we need electricans for all the new subdivisions.One contractor here is 28 houses behind and still taking orders for more.My wife and I have already decided we’ll ride it out here for a few more years then we’re moving.In the last year my property values have almost doubled.
If I hadn’t bought when I did there is no way I could afford it now.

12

Ron, remember, we used to live in the valley. Saw things going then.

13

Dear Board,

A lot of good points in this thread. Trust me, this isn’t a Western problem only. The State of PA has lost more farmland on a percentage basis over the last 20 years than just about any State in the Union, while the overall population has grown only slightly.

People keep moving away from their original hometown in search of the good life. Once they get there, they discover life isn’t so good without a mall, and a couple of car dealers, and a Starbucks, so the madness continues.

There is good news on the horizon though. As interest rates keep creeping up it won’t be long until those folks with 2 children and 4500 sq. ft. houses and 40 and 50 year mortgages get their foreclosure notices.

Only then we will enjoy a brief period of “normalcy” until the cycle repeats itself anew.

I am being a bit sarcastic. I really don’t want to see people lose their homes, but the economic reality of it is that there really are a lot of people out there who are seriously over extended on their homes and credit.

A crash will happen sooner rather than later and it will make the S&L scandal of the 1980’s look like small in comparison.

Best Wishes,
Avalon

14

Avalon, your right on about the over-extended home owners. A family over here bought one of those pricey homes and it was over a year before they could afford curtains.

15

> in the end, we all will end up on a 3 foot by 6 foot plot, with no view.

I’m going to contribute by becoming fertilizer in the end.

16

JC you will not believe Bozeman anymore. I had to go over there to the doc’s the other day and I can’t believe how much building they are doing. In two weeks three new buildings went up on the east side of town. I took my wife to the airport two weeks ago and Belgrade is just unreal. Glad I live over here at least it is a little slower. But not by to much. Frind of mine bought a home over there about 9 years ago for 150 thousand and is selling it now for over 500 grand. Just unreal.

My wife works for the county as the Health Nurse and I was talking to the guy that does the driving licenses here and he told me that 58 percent of the people turning in licenses for Montana licenses are from California. I also talked to a fellow that moved here from Oregan and he told me he sold out and moved here because of all the people from California moving were he use to live. Said he was a mile and a half out of town and in two years all the land around his 5 acres was housing. Said he couldn’t stand it. I guess it is the same all over. But were the sam hell are they all coming from? And what the Sam Hell are they all doing for a job here? I guess all the building is what is making all the job’s LOL. Ron

17

Ron you ask what they are all doing for a job ? Most of the ones that have moved in around where I live are retired . They want to get out of the big cities and go somewhere quite. Then when to many of them move in they complain about all the people moving in. They seem to forget that they too moved in.

Rocky