Letter: Town Council Seeks To Force Garage Into Residential Neighborhood Without Public Support

The following letter was sent to members of the Amherst Town Council on December 9, 2021

My first memory of politics in the 1950’s was President Truman and the Joseph McCarthy era. There sure were heated debates back then. Fast forward 60-70 years and here we are. It seems that one very small group of powerful people wants to rezone a historic residential district and build a garage, So much so, that they conjured up misleading and erroneous information to achieve it. Can you imagine something as tedious as a garage, to risk one’s reputation? They constantly talk of the need for this structure without offering any proof or analysis –  only conjecture and anecdotes. They insist that the garage should be placed in one of the few remaining residential historic districts left in the Town of Amherst, rather than in a commercial area.

What started out as a three level 120 space garage has turned into a possibly 58 foot tall structure with possibly two sublevels, and hundreds of parking spaces that will feed into North Prospect Street which is a very narrow residential street. One might say, this is a potential accident looking for a place to happen. The overwhelming response to this proposal from residents has been against rezoning, however, this didn’t stop members of the Town Council from trying to ram through this heinous action. Of course, when the people had a chance to speak through their votes, the two sponsors of the bill lost their re-election bid. However, do you think the standard bearers of this deplorable rezoning bill being considered by the Town Council learned from this?  Naturally the correct course of events now should be to wait for the next Town Council in January. But apparently that’s not what the Council plans.

Jay Silverstein

Jay Silverstein is a resident of Amherst