Jane Potter: Phillips Place development shows ‘blatant disregard’ for residents

Regarding the Phillips Place proposed development, please check your facts before resorting to the all too familiar name calling.

Phillips Place already has two infill projects of 28 units each, and many apartment options and single-room rental options. O’Connell already has an unfinished project, having built 12 $750,000 condos with approval to build 12 more, and has received $500,00 of your own tax dollars in CPA funds to save the church, which they have now decided not to use for housing.

The road is a one-lane farm road built in the 1820s and already being eroded by downtown parking overflow and the truck detour route. This project would add 70 bedrooms to a tiny street, thereby more than doubling the number of people living on the street. Its size and morbidly hideous design would make it one of the tallest buildings in the city. The apartments planned are not affordable, with some projected to cost $3,800 per month.

In the name of providing housing, the planning department is destroying a number of neighborhoods in the city with blatant disregard for those of us who live here. Good city planning requires adding more industry to the nearly empty industrial park, supporting and attracting and helping to incubate new small businesses, and creating vibrancy. Instead of cutting down all the trees (already done) and building a monstrosity on a historic street, why not build a children’s museum? That would be a better legacy and something we could all be proud of.

Jane Potter

Northampton