To the editor:

Not so thorough readers may have missed a disclaimer in the intro to the "Biggest Movers" table of the 50 properties with the greatest increase in assessed value that accompanied last week’s “Barrington’s Reval Reveal – Most Assessments Went Up”: Some of the increases in this top-50 list are the result of improvements to the property, not necessarily increases in the housing market.  

That’s an important bit of info.  

My quick check via the assessor's database of about 50 percent of those addresses revealed major construction — often the teardown of an existing structure and rebuilding of a much larger, grander house in its place.  Often, these types of projects exceed the prescribed set-back from the street or water body or lot coverage and must be granted zoning relief from the Zoning Board of Review. The vast majority of applicants are granted relief/approval to build homes or additions that exceed the standards set forth in the Zoning Code. 

Over the course of the past year-and-a-half, I have watched a very large home — incongruent with surrounding homes — built just a few hundred feet away from my home at the end of Teed Avenue. This home has changed the very character of our neighborhood.  

While I don’t begrudge property owners the opportunity to improve their property, I do question the sheer number of approvals and the largess at which these projects are being allowed to exceed standards set forth in the Zoning Code. (For those interested, it’s Chapter 185 of the Town Code.) There are properties like this all over town: The large home on the tiny lot. The formerly 1,500 square foot home now ballooned to double or triple its original size, its mass seemingly about to burst off an R-10 lot.

Which brings us back to the revaluation. When larger homes, via zoning relief, are built in neighborhoods typically comprised of much smaller homes, the values of the surrounding homes are skewed. Neighborhoods that were once affordable are becoming less so. 

The Zoning Code is supposed to prevent this.  

The Zoning Code is supposed to give a measure of comfort to property owners that the neighborhood they live in will retain its character. Either we decide to follow the Zoning Code or we dispense with it and begin anew because what I see in the top-50 list is troubling.

Sincerely,

Ann Strong

Barrington