Letter 1: Stop the Development of the Twin Brooks golf course.

I want to make it known that I am against eliminating the green space at Twin Brooks and replacing it with a 312 multi-unit market rate apartment complex.  This project goes against everything that I have come to know and love about Cape Cod.

While I believe we do need housing, this is not the right location. A dense development of this size will negatively impact the wild life that live there. It also brings with it traffic congestion in an already congested area affecting pedestrian and driver safety, as well as water quality concerns.

Please look carefully at this project.  I am counting on you to do the right thing.

Thank you in advance for your consideration,

Letter 2: Save our Waterways

I’m opposed to the development of the Twin Brooks golf course and can’t imagine why the Town of Barnstable would allow permitting for such a dense development so close to estuaries and waterways. 

The homeowners around Stewart’s Creek were forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to preserve Stewart’s Creek when the sewers were run through the neighborhood.  Now is the time for the Town Council to do their part in saving our waterways.

By taking away a natural buffer provided by the current greenspace exposes the rest of Hyannis to damage from rising sea levels. Let’s keep this property green and be a buffer against sea-level rise and climate change. Filling in acres of green space with multiple high-rise buildings and pavement doesn’t save our waterways.

We have so little open space in Hyannis. Surely, we can do better.  Before you change that, think about something better than a dense development and parking lot.

Thank you for your consideration,

Letter 2A: Environment

In terms of existential priorities for Cape Cod, protecting the environment is Number One. Affordable workforce housing is critical, but if we continue to sacrifice green space in favor of “development”, our Cape Cod will be so degraded that there will be no need for housing because no one will be able to live here anymore – no blue economy, no clean water, no vistas and open space, no quaint cultural attributes, no tourism. PLEASE. Let’s have some long term thinking here.

Sincerely,

Letter 3: We need more Open Space in Hyannis

Do you know that West Hyannis does not have a single large public park? Not one. 

Veterans park is overused and overcrowded most summers. Other than the beach areas, there is no place to enjoy a family picnic and no place to enjoy a day in the air without the sun beating down on you. 

Now we have a chance to build a beautiful public park with opportunities for recreation and environmental education on this site.

All great cities have great parks! Take a stand for the residents.

Thanking you in advance for your consideration,

Letter 3A: Open Space

Hyannis is the only village in the Town of Barnstable lacking an accessible  conservation area with walking trails.  The Town should acquire the 40 acre Twin Brooks parcel and turn it into a public park for all. A land trust can maintain it. It makes no sense to destroy 40 acres of irreplaceable green space to erect housing that can instead be built on actual redevelopment sites like the Mall and the Kmart plaza, with sewer and shopping right there.

Why even consider severely compromising existing neighborhoods by going against our zoning laws, our LCP, our OSRP, and our climate resiliency plans to accommodate this developer?

Sincerely,

Letter 4: Over-development/traffic at West End Rotary

Many options were discussed regarding housing from moving the location of this development to vacant lots and buildings, which are in abundance around town. Twin Brooks is not the right location for a development this dense.

Have you ever driven down West Main Street at 2:30 in the afternoon? Do you really think that this area needs MORE traffic? It is already a dangerous place to drive and walk. You take your life in your hands driving down Scudder as someone makes a run for the liquor store or the bank.

The traffic will be magnified if the Twin Brooks site is developed, and, the open green space that the golf course offers will be lost forever. Please do not allow the development of Twin Brooks.

Thanking you in advance for your consideration,

Letter 4A: Traffic

Quarterra’s proposal for “improving” traffic flow at the West End Rotary is absurd.

Not only will it substantially increase congestion and decrease safety, it will cost the Town several hundred thousand dollars, by Quarterra’s own estimate.  The businesses at the Rotary have already described how this proposal will have severe negative impacts on their livelihoods.  Residents have described major safety and nuisance issues. The proposed bike lanes to nowhere, the pedestrian crossings, the additional islands are all impractical and expensive impediments to the flow of traffic. Quarterra offers only a minor contribution to the cost of this fiasco. The remainder becomes yet another unnecessary burden on the taxpayers. Why should we pay to accommodate the increased expenses incurred by approving this unsuitable development?

Vote NO to this development.

Sincerely,

Re: 35 Scudder Avenue Quarterra development/Sewer

It’s interesting that the DPW and Quarterra seem to think it’s admirable that Quarterra has offered to “give” the town $175,000 toward a pump station. This is a ridiculously inadequate amount.

Given that the average betterment cost per household unit for sewer connections along Stewart’s Creek was around $20,000, an equivalent amount from the 312 household units at 35 Scudder should be around $6,240,000 – – not a measly $175,000. Quatrerra’s proposed contribution to  the Town  is thus $561 per housing unit, as opposed to the $20,000 the rest of us have to pay.

This is wrong. Why give such an enormous gift to the developer (who will be pumping 57,000 gallons of sewage into the system every day) when the Town is struggling to raise funding for the sewer expansion? It doesn’t make sense.

Re: 35 Scudder Avenue Quarterra development

In light of all the concern recently about the release of toxic vinyl chloride and dioxin into the air, water, and soil of East Palestine, Ohio, following a train derailment, I wonder if the Town Council is taking into account the hundreds of thousands of square feet of vinyl siding Quarterra intends to use on its 14 massive buildings. This siding is made from vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen, which degrades under certain circumstances, like fire, into dioxin, another known carcinogen, and lethal hydrochloric acid, along with other toxins. Accidents happen. Fires happen. Vinyl siding is cheap, but potentially disastrous and completely unnecessary.

Require Quarterra to clad its buildings in wood shingle or siding, in keeping with the historic and cultural character of Cape Cod, and as recommended in  the Cape Cod Commission’s Regional Policy Plan and the Town’s Local Comprehensive Plan.

Why court disaster just to save the developer a few bucks?

Re: Soil

According to Quarterra’s own studies, the soil at Twin Brooks is unstable. It is, after all, mostly fill.

Do not allow this project to go forward without a thorough independent study of the soil conditions and the viability of constructing 14 massive buildings on unstable soil.

Re: 35 Scudder Avenue development

The Cape Cod Commission clearly failed in its due diligence when it approved the disastrous

Quaterra project. I hope the Town Council will be more conscientious in its consideration of the costs and benefits of the most massive and invasive housing project ever proposed for Cape Cod.

Along with the documents you will be seeing from Quarterra, PLEASE read ALL of the public comments submitted to the CCC. There is a great deal of expert testimony which reveals the many flaws and inconsistencies in Quarterra’s presentation. There is also, of course, a great deal of public sentiment on the project.

You will be enlightened by all the facts and opinions.

This project must be rejected.

Re: 35 Scudder Quarterra development

Those of us who live here seriously want to protect our diminished natural resources. That must be the absolute priority for the Town. The Town can’t keep saying OK to developers at the expense of our environment.

Twin Brooks is 40 acres of ecologically critical land that MUST be preserved for our future. It does not make any sense to kill hundreds of mature trees, innumerable beneficial mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish and insects that inhabit the site and enhance our lives – – only to introduce heat, light, noise, water and traffic pollution into our surrounding environmental justice neighborhoods, and inflict unprecedented visual torture on all passersby.

So much destruction for 41 affordable housing units?

It doesn’t make sense.

Re: 35 Scudder Avenue development

I am totally against the massively inappropriate, ugly, and unnecessary development at 35 Scudder Avenue, Hyannis.

I call upon the Town Council to reject it.

The purely profit driven out-of-state developer with no stake in Cape Cod and no interest in our future wants to build an ugly urban barracks complex on the last green space in our village, with no regard to aesthetics, or state of the art environmental building.

Don’t let it happen.

Certainly REQUIRE the installation of solar panels on all buildings, LEED building standards and certification, smaller buildings in keeping with our zoning, wood siding, sustainable outdoor lighting (per the National Park Service), permeable driveways and parking spaces, and native and mature landscape planting. (not saplings).

Please do not postpone any longer the implementation of essential environmental standards in developments. 

If this monstrous anomaly must be built, build it right, not just cheap.

Below are some additional bullet points that may help you write your letter.

The proposed project:

• is clearly misaligned with the Cape Cod Commission’s missions and goals and inadequately assesses negative project impacts on natural resources.  The CCC clearly states: “Our economy is connected to our environment”. 
• does not align with The Town of Barnstable’s commitments to green principles for climate, environmental justice, and sustainable, equitable development.
• harms the surrounding neighborhoods with climate protection measures with respect to heat island impacts and their disparate harm to residents in environmental justice communities.
• will remove 600 mature trees — some of which are 80+ years old — and does not take into consideration the trees’ protection from current and future flood threats, climate resilience, excessively high summer heat and air quality.
• is incompatible with the expressed needs and desires of abutters and local businesses.
• does not provide for surrounding neighborhoods that are without walkable parks or urban wilds.
• consists of only 10% affordable apartments and 3% just below market rate, which does very little to help the critical housing situation on Cape Cod.  It does not provide for workforce housing so desperately needed in our community.  Locals’ needs have been put aside to approve a developer’s request to change zoning and put the land to more profitable, luxury home use.
• should be reviewed as to other alternative locations that are better options for both the surrounding environment and communities  One alternative is to redevelop shopping centers into affordable housing for a substantial segment of the population.  This is a solution being proposed in West Yarmouth, Eastham, and Orleans.
• will create additional traffic congestion and safety concerns with over 600 resident vehicles in addition to the 400+ vehicles that park at the hotel and conference center for events.