December 11, 2006

"Man to file U.S. Supreme Court appeal."

Stop the presses!
Posted by Ann Althouse at 11:40 AM
Tags: ,

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

NOW Demands Equal Right for Woman.

EEOC Investigates Affirmative Action Grievance.

Sun Rises in East but Sets in West

Film at 11!!!!!

12/11/06, 12:37 PM
Anonymous said...

Yeow, do I know about this kind of thing!

We almost bought property in North Reading that sounds similar but larger—about an acre and a half. I was walking the land with our inspector, enthusing about all the potential it had for a second house, shop, etc., when he brought me up short saying, “But you know there’re wetlands over there. You can’t do a thing with most of this property.”

“What?” I said. My wife immediately trundled over to the Town Hall and found out that the situation was almost exactly what’s described here about Ashland. The listing agent pulled up just then, and I asked her, “What about the wetlands? Nobody told me about wetlands.” Her response was, “Uh….oh, yeah…uh…there are…those…uh…wetlands….”

We asked the Town what we should do. Why pay taxes on this rather large parcel, when we could do nothing with it? They were generous, and said we could cede the unusable part of the property to the town for conservation land if we wanted to avoid taxes. Of course that left us with about 9,000 expensive square feet out of 50,000 cheap ones we thought we were getting.

The weird thing is that area has had several houses on it and been a farm yard since about 1640, so why are we now getting so environmentally responsible that I couldn’t put up a greenhouse where there was a barn for 200 years? It’s just one of the great mysteries of life. Needless to say, we dodged this particular bullet, and eventually moved to another town far from the madness.

There are three terms you never want to hear in the same breath: “Wetlands,” “Real Estate,” and “Massachusetts.”

12/11/06, 1:08 PM
Anonymous said...

There are three terms you never want to hear in the same breath: “Wetlands,” “Real Estate,” and “Massachusetts.”

Greetings from your friend in the swamp.

12/11/06, 1:14 PM
tjl said...

From my childhood recollections of Marshfield, MA, there were little bogs and ponds everywhere (the town's name was well-chosen). This is pretty much the prevailing landscape of eastern MA. If wetland protection has become this draconian, how is any construction possible?

12/11/06, 1:39 PM
Al Maviva said...

"Man Threatens: I'll Take Your @ss to the Supreme Court! Providing the Clerks for Three Out of Five on the Cert Panel Agree the Case is Interesting Enough to Take!"

12/11/06, 1:56 PM
Tilam said...

I am not sure if Ann means to be truly flip, but wetlands "takings" were the baby step that led to constitutional atrocities such as Kelo. His experience is all to common.

I say, "Go Giovanella!"

12/11/06, 2:00 PM
Joe said...

I hope this guy wins; if this isn't taking, I don't know what is.

12/11/06, 2:19 PM
reader_iam said...

Paul: Probably not, assuming this hed was originally written to fit a hard-copy newspaper column.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's not both a bad and hiliarious hed.

(Resisted temptation to tell tales of writing heds on deadline.)

12/11/06, 5:18 PM
reader_iam said...

If I'm remembering my letter-width values correctly, this one likelywould have fit the same place:

Fed-up landowner to appeal to SCOTUS

12/11/06, 5:25 PM
reader_iam said...

Of course, that would have required editing the lede to add "(SCOTUS) after its spell-out.

12/11/06, 5:28 PM
reader_iam said...

Worst headline I ever wrote on deadline--that made into the actual paper--was (referring to the late Gov. Bob Casey):

"Casey squeezed in power hole"

Lord, that was awful--truly, you can have no idea what filthy minds and long memories journalists can have about certain things unless you work among them.

12/11/06, 5:32 PM
Anonymous said...

Greetings from your friend in the swamp.

Sippican, how'd the cranberry crop do this year? Best use for all that water you've got down there.

tjl said...

If wetland protection has become this draconian, how is any construction possible?

tjl: Bingo!

Construction is impossible here for the likes of me, but somehow developers manage to butter the landscape with $890,000 mini-mansions. Funny how that works out.

For those of you who want to read the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court opinion in this case here is the link. I'm sure interested lawyers have already been there, but if you're fascinated by wetlands horrors (and who isn't?), it makes for good reading.

12/11/06, 11:44 PM
Anonymous said...

Theo- I don't know about the berries this year. Wisconsin grows more berries than Massachusetts now.

There was a fabulous crop of mosquitoes. Really first rate.

12/12/06, 12:39 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)