Letter: Stone Harbour residents have nothing to grumble about

Posted 10/24/19

The Town of Bristol allowed the condo construction project if the boardwalk was built along its waterfront. The maintenance cost would be met by its residents. That was the arrangement, which one …

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Letter: Stone Harbour residents have nothing to grumble about

Posted

The Town of Bristol allowed the condo construction project if the boardwalk was built along its waterfront. The maintenance cost would be met by its residents. That was the arrangement, which one Stone Harbour resident now wants to change (“Stone Harbour boardwalk burden is not fair to residents,” Oct. 17).

From Kathleen Bain Busch’s two references to their Albany home, it seems that they bought the condo five years ago while still owning an Albany residence. Good for them that they were able to afford two residences, while most young people today cannot afford even a modest home.

Ms. Busch said that this year the maintenance cost was $30,000. Shared amongst 81 units, the cost for this year was a grand total of $370 per unit. There is no mention of a cost for prior years.

If this amount is prohibitive, then maybe a wiser choice would have been to buy and maintain a more modest home in this “warm and friendly town,” rather than the high priced condo they decided on. There they would live closer to the townsfolk they admire so much.

The majority of these townsfolk have never walked that board walk, nor spent time there. These neighbors are too busy working for a living and should not be asked to foot the bill for a walkway used by families visiting their college kids, tourists, residents of the Stone Harbour complex and retired transplants.

What I love about living in Bristol, as a retired person from New York, is the escape it provides from the real world, the scenic bike path, Mount Hope Farm, Blithewold, Colt State Park and the proximity to Newport and Providence. Still, in the back of my mind, there are the real concerns, the decline of the bees in my garden, climate change, rising sea levels, plastic polluting our oceans.

Stone Harbour residents should be happy that they have the privilege of living here and do not allow trivial concerns to be the “fly in the ointment.” Remember, there was a binding agreement between our town and the condo complex, and remember Matthew 20: 1-16, “The Parable of the Workers in the Field,” and do not grumble over the agreed terms.

Philip Sharac
Bristol

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