Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> What happened to my post? </font color>
Welcome to CBN, David!

I clicked on your userid and it shows that you've only made one post, the post asking what happened to your post. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Mike,

How could he be a 'Silver Member' with only one post? Or did you mean only one post on this thread??

[GaryM]

dsgr is listed as a new member, not Silver.

[dsgsr]

Thank you for the Welcome. It was probably something I did to mess up the posting. Anyway I was just ranting about Outa-Staters moving to Maine and changing our way of life, driving up the price of land, etc. something I do too much of. Yes I'm a (New Member) I've been lurking around this and the Tractor By Net and other Forums since their conception about 5-years now. I don't post much, guess thats cause I'm NEW, inexperienced that sort of thing [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

David

[Argee]

Welcome dsgsr!!

Regretfully people moving into the countryside and driving up the price of land isn't happening in just Maine. It's happening everywhere. Many people have more disposable income now than they ever had and can afford two places. One in town and the other in the country as a future retirement home. That's the price we pay for progress [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] What gripes me is when they move in and a few months or years down the road, they want to improve it by having similar services and government like they have in their city home. [img]/forums/images/icons/mad.gif[/img] It proves that they didn't research the rural lifestyle well enough before they purchased that tranquil country setting. They didn't know that Farmer Jones next door raises pigs and cattle and uses the manure on his fields or that he has a yard light so he can find his way to the barn at night. They didn't realize that many rural folk take care of their garbage disposal by digging a hole in the back forty and create their own landfill complete with all the smells and pests that come with it. They don't realize that the tax base won't support trash pick-up or timely road plowing in the winter and dust control in the summer. All of a sudden their little Eden is not to their liking so they go about changing all that is wrong with it. They forgot what attracted them their in the first place was the simplicity of the lifestyle.

So don't feel alone. Your not the only one who gets worked up over it. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[wingnut]

<font color="blue"> They forgot what attracted them their in the first place was the simplicity of the lifestyle.
</font color>
Actually ... I think that, in most of these cases, they were attracted by what they imagined the lifestyle to be. Too many of them think country life is "Green Acres" or "Pettycoat Junction".

[dsgsr]

Well said from both of ya. The wife and I have 37 acres at this spot and have come to the realization it's not enough, we have people from away on all sides of us and some of them we can see. We need to move up north buy a couple hundred acres and build in the middle of it. Its too bad cause the wife likes being by the Ocean.

David

I've seen this over and over. People from Hartford CT and it's surrounding area, move up to Union CT/Holland MA area. THey buy a home, register to vote, (both within a few days of each other). A month or so goes by and they call the highway dep't. When does the garbage truck come by? What do you mean by pump a spetic system? Did the town shut off the water supply for any particular reason? The questions are endless. The answer is simple. REALTORS. Realtors in this neighborhood tend to "forget or gloss over" reality. They forget to mention septic systems, each property has it's own water supply, private roads, hire your own trash removal, etc, etc , etc.. Realtors have laws to stop this, and still, they find a way to give out minimal information to make another sale. In the meantime these new registered voters always show up at town meetings, now wanting street lights, side walks, you name it. As a past selectman, I always asked in front of the crowd, who besides deer, squirles and other animals will use these lights, sidewalks, etc? It has created major increases in taxes, and yet we cannot increase the tangible needs such as highway, library etc. Well, I rambled on long enough.

[hazmat]

I don't know how rural y'all would consider my town (pop 4,200 in 15 sq miles) but one selling point was that it had a master plan in place. It's prime directive is to "preserve the rural character" of the town. It's an interesting mix of suburbia (cult-de-sac developments) and farming (apple orchards and x-mas tree farms are big).

You need to beat the suburbanites at their own game. Become active in local politics. Force your town / county to have a master plan &amp; appropriate zoning laws in place before it gets too crowded.

This is one case where an ounce of prevention is worth well more than a pound of cure.

here's our town plan West Newbury Town Plan

Official West Newbury Home Page

well let's see,
past selectman, deputy fire chief, deputy highway surveyor, constable 13 years, economic developement, finance board, cemetery, so many ad-hoc committee's I lost track, usually building related, present chairman of fire bldg cmtte, clerk of the works for said bldg, cable commission and a few others to boot. 20 years active in town politics. We up and sold and moved 100 feet out of Holland and into Union CT. Got so sick and burned up. I see a big problem as the older generation, most now snow birds, haven't enough numbers to activate a vote. We have all these new (mostly East Hartford and a sprinkling of Worcester city people) who have the majority numbers. Sad thing is Holland is an intransient town as these people come and go about every 14 months on avg. Don't want business, etc. They will complain about taxes but won't help to alleviate problem. Was 600 people in town when I moved there in 74. Has 2200 now, the 1600 difference being city people. Union CT has 649 population. Holland is also high in ultra liberals. I can say this as I once was republican party chrman of 26 people, remainder of 1100 voters are Dems. Now, about half the dems re-registered as independents. Repubs are now showing 79 or so out of 1100 voters.. Makes for a pretty much one sided argument. We, wife and I, got totally wore out fighting it and decided to move.