To the Editor:
As the CDC marches toward permitting 45 affordable units at 100 Bridge St, they keep pointing to Pinewoods in Stockbridge as an example of how nice their project will be. I’m really concerned, because what the CDC (Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire) is promoting sure looks like tall high-density apartment blocks over a parking lot slammed up against a waste treatment plant.
So I stopped at Pinewoods today and had a look.
Can I just say: It is highly cynical of CDC to compare their project to Pinewoods.
Pinewoods is only two-thirds the size, on 3 times the acreage. Pinewoods is 100 yards away from a waste treatment plant that is one-half the size of Barrington’s, with a forest buffer in between. The rest of the campus borders open space with wetlands and hayfields.
Pinewoods is mid-density, with a dozen small detached duplexes, covered parking for all, big community house, playground and BIG community vegetable gardens.
So, in comparison: more amenities, much more space, smaller scale, lower density. And, of course, no brownfield or polluted river.
It is the definition of a garden suburb, nothing like the CDC’s proposal for high-density housing blocks –stacked over a parking lot — on a brownfield — right next to a waste treatment plant.
Apples and oranges, people. In this case, rotten apples.
Bobby Houston
Great Barrington
