To the Editor:

For three months we have said Misquah needs places for people to live. Then the first serious housing proposal reaches a vote and we congratulate ourselves for making it harder and more expensive to build.

North Pine asked for eighteen lots. The board left eighteen rectangles on the paper and then added a common shoreline system, more road work, a buffer, another stormwater plan and individual well and septic review before permits.

Some of those may be sensible. Sensible things still cost money.

Every dollar added before a house is built becomes part of what somebody has to pay for the house. That somebody is the same young family we keep saying we would like to keep here.

If the ordinance allows eighteen lots, approve eighteen lots under the ordinance. If it does not, say no. Do not call it an eighteen-lot approval and then spend the next six months making eighteen lots behave like twelve expensive ones.

I wanted eighteen.

Eighteen should have meant eighteen.

— Tom Pedersen, Second Avenue