Coast Guard construction

As a reader who has a spouse serving with the Coast Guard in Southwest Harbor and many friends living in the Coast Guard housing area in that town, your June 26 article, “Coast Guard construction upsets neighbors,” struck me as the kind of squeaky wheel journalism we “Coasties” have come to expect from the Bar Harbor Times but not, until now, from the Bangor Daily News….

First, yes, mistakes were made by the Coast Guard in Norfolk, Va., when this project, which has been in the planning for six years, reached the building stage. While it is true that the federal government does not have to meet local ordinances, not just in Southwest Harbor but any place, we, who have had to bear the brunt of the local animosity, wish just as much as the town that they had not been so heavy-handed. Hopefully, the folks down south have heard our complaints as well as the town’s and will smarten up.

Second, because of the complaints of some of the abutters, the project was altered to meet the local ordinances. The only ordinance not met was density. If the Coast Guard property was on the other side of the road, even this ordinance would have been met. Ironically, the density on the Coast Guard property will still be less than the density on the small lots of the complaining abutters, which were built upon before the zoning ordinance was passed.

Third, as is usual when homes are built, trees were cut. In responding to the complaints of the abutters, additional trees were cut when the buildings were repositioned to meet local ordinances. Some of the abutters complaining about the cutting of the trees and the positioning of the homes have been freely using the Coast Guard property for years as extensions of their own lots. Understandably, they are now upset that they are losing the use of this land to homes for Coast Guard personnel.

Trees and shrubs will be planted to create a buffer zone along the property line when the homes are completed. Hopefully, this will forestall the “negative feelings being directed at Coast Guard personnel” threatened by the complaining abutters.

Fourth, we understand the town’s problem with the heavy federal ownership of land within its boundaries. However, the land on which these homes are being built is not newly acquired. It has been part of the original Coast Guard housing area since the first units were built years ago and has not suddenly disappeared form the tax rolls….

Fifth, this is not a frivolous project. Finding affordable year-round housing in a resort community is very difficult, particularly for young families. (These units are two bedrooms each, designed to meet the needs of those who can least afford the high seasonal rentals in the area.)…

During this controversy, most of us, both in the Coast Guard or associated with it, have been keeping a low profile, going to our jobs, shopping, volunteering our time in the schools, fire departments, scouting, youth leagues, because we live here and that’s what we think people who live in a place do….

We’re grateful to the many people who have told us to “just hang in there.” Still, we’re weary of the lip service these complaining abutters have been paying to the need for, and their basic good feelings toward, the Coast Guard mission in Southwest Harbor, while deploring the “impact on the health, services, privacy and quality of life of the residents” brought on by the presence of our families in “their” neighborhood. Andrea St. George Jones East Sullivan