Letter to the editor
Editor:
The principle of Equal Protection has been steadily eroded by the current Town administration.
In years past, the regulation of private property was governed by clearly defined ordinances based on land use—agricultural, residential, or commercial—so that all owners understood both their rights and the extent of the Town’s authority.
Today, that framework has been replaced by a practice of selectively targeting individual properties. Instead of applying rules uniformly by zoning district, the Town now creates “special projects” tailored to a small number of parcels when existing ordinances do not support a desired outcome. These projects are designed to undermine or sidestep current law.
An example is the Town’s ongoing effort to construct a greenway along Evans Road. Although Evans Road has functioned safely for decades and improvements were not included in the original
effort to build a greenway back in 2022, it was suddenly labeled “substandard” so that the project could be redefined as multi-modal. The Planning Commission then approved an ordinance that
effectively applies only to the six properties from which it seeks to acquire land— properties located in two separate zoning districts but unified solely by the Town’s objective.
The inequity deepens with the Town’s redefinition of greenway requirements. Nearby roads improved by the Town feature grass strips ranging from zero to three feet, and the improved east end of Evans Road already meets that standard. Yet the Town now seeks to take up to 25 feet of people's property
to create grass strips as wide as 20 feet, justified only by a staff preference for “the maximum grass strip.” In contrast, the town recently approved a different greenway extension along Everett Road that only includes a sidewalk and 2-1/2' of curb and gutter with no mention of taking a large
portion of land for a grass strip.
Equal Protection has also been undermined by the Town’s proposed Home Occupation Ordinance, which the Town Attorney ruled illegal because it improperly classified citizens into unequal groups, and the approach the Town took to approve the Mixed Use Town Center Ordinance that enabled the Biddle Farm apartments despite widespread public opposition. Finally, the Town recently approved allowing neighborhood voting on installing “traffic calming measures” (speed bumps) but will not allow residents to vote on anything else.
If none of this sounds fair, join the club.
~ Greg Wiberley
