My wife and I have been blessed to live on a quiet lot backing up to woods for 36 years. It has been our sanctuary and no doubt has improved our quality of life. We have 11 windows including a sunroom facing the woods, The varieties of wildlife coming into our yard are numerous including, deer, fox, groundhog, possum, rabbits, ducks, snakes, turtles, owls, red-shouldered hawks, cardinals, blue jays, and squirrels (grey and black). I have lived 65 years in Frederick and have only seen black squirrels coming from the woods behind our house. Black squirrels are a mutated version of the grey squirrel and only 1 out of 10,000 squirrels are black!
This development as planned will destroy this natural habitat. In my 65 years, I have come to expect change and development. I have even learned to accept it and with that said, I accept that the woods will be gone.
When I reviewed the latest plans, I see that the orientation of the housing will limit the road noise and car lights from neighboring properties with the exception of one, ours (301 Rockdale Ct.). We will have to deal with the overflow parking for all the units with the turnaround area reaching to the building restriction line, 10 feet from our property. Lights from these cars will stream into our yard with little planned to stop it. From my view of the plans, all vegetation with the exception of a few “specimen” trees with be cleared to the property lines. What is proposed is a buffer of white pine and red maple, hardly enough to buffer sound and light.
We propose the following:
1) Identify and preserve more “Specimen” trees, especially in the areas between the property lines and the building restriction lines.
2) Move the overflow parking closer to the front of the property instead of the rear of the property. This would allow the turnaround lanes to be farther away from the building restriction line and more in line with the rear of the townhomes.
3) Make improvements to the screen buffer, both width and depth, with a mixture of tall shrubs and dense trees. Definitely something more robust than what is proposed.
4) Remove and grind the roots of a 3-foot-tall stump of a large tree which was cut down years ago by the owner of the “Woods” property, which has about 25% of the diameter inside our property line. Removing this stump will allow us to put a privacy fence along the back property line.
Thomas and Nancy Jones
301 Rockdale Court
My wife and I have been blessed to live on a quiet lot backing up to woods for 36 years. It has been our sanctuary and no doubt has improved our quality of life. We have 11 windows including a sunroom facing the woods, The varieties of wildlife coming into our yard are numerous including, deer, fox, groundhog, possum, rabbits, ducks, snakes, turtles, owls, red-shouldered hawks, cardinals, blue jays, and squirrels (grey and black). I have lived 65 years in Frederick and have only seen black squirrels coming from the woods behind our house. Black squirrels are a mutated version of the grey squirrel and only 1 out of 10,000 squirrels are black!
This development as planned will destroy this natural habitat. In my 65 years, I have come to expect change and development. I have even learned to accept it and with that said, I accept that the woods will be gone.
When I reviewed the latest plans, I see that the orientation of the housing will limit the road noise and car lights from neighboring properties with the exception of one, ours (301 Rockdale Ct.). We will have to deal with the overflow parking for all the units with the turnaround area reaching to the building restriction line, 10 feet from our property. Lights from these cars will stream into our yard with little planned to stop it. From my view of the plans, all vegetation with the exception of a few “specimen” trees with be cleared to the property lines. What is proposed is a buffer of white pine and red maple, hardly enough to buffer sound and light.
We propose the following:
1) Identify and preserve more “Specimen” trees, especially in the areas between the property lines and the building restriction lines.
2) Move the overflow parking closer to the front of the property instead of the rear of the property. This would allow the turnaround lanes to be farther away from the building restriction line and more in line with the rear of the townhomes.
3) Make improvements to the screen buffer, both width and depth, with a mixture of tall shrubs and dense trees. Definitely something more robust than what is proposed.
4) Remove and grind the roots of a 3-foot-tall stump of a large tree which was cut down years ago by the owner of the “Woods” property, which has about 25% of the diameter inside our property line. Removing this stump will allow us to put a privacy fence along the back property line.