UPDATE II: Danger! Danger! Planning Commission meets again!

DANGER! The Planning Commission meets
on Thursday!

Affordable housing, shrubbery and parking on Special Meeting agenda tonight
By Will Collette

UPDATE: It's now past 4 PM. Town Hall business hours end in 20 minutes. And still none of the documents that will be discussed at tonight's Planning Commission meeting have been posted on Clerkbase. The meeting starts at 7 PM.


The three agenda items are the plan to destroy affordable housing law and two unspecified ordinances (I'm pretty sure these are the proposed shrubbery and parking ordinances I've already made fun of here.).


So much for that transparency and openness so dearly loved by Ruth and the CCA.


UPDATE: as of 1 PM, there were NO documents appended to the Clerkbase agenda notice for this meeting. This means Planning Commissar Ruth Platner has not allowed the public to see in advance the draft of the "Advisory Opinion" she will have her plucky Planners endorse to promote the Platner-Gentz Affordable Housing Deconstruction Act. 


I looks to me like Ruth has decided "to hell with transparency" and intends to give the public a look at her schemes only minutes before her minions vote to approve them.


She pulled a similar stunt at the November Town Council meeting, swapping out the version of the residential wind ordinance that was published in the Sun and posted on Clerkbase with a new version that the public saw for the first time at the meeting.


Remember these actions the next time you hear the CCA or Ruth talk about their devotion to transparency and openness. That only applies to others - not to themselves.



Ruth Platner and her plucky Planners meet on Thursday to decide on what sort of Advisory Opinion they will give the Town Council on the Platner-Gentz Affordable Housing Deconstruction Act.

Gee, that one is so hard to predict. For those of you who have not been paying attention, Ruth Platner has decided this is the time to try to end the dire threat affordable housing poses to her concept of the rustic life here in Charlestown. That's so we do not need to have to keep worrying that affordable housing will attract senior citizens with cats or families with school-age children.

Just her, Cliffy, lots of open space and all her rich CCA friends down by the beach.

Tom Gentz working on his classic Porsche

So she has recruited as her willing accomplice our Town Council President Tom Gentz to front for a legislative proposal that would allow cities and towns to count every potential residential property with an assessment that falls below a certain mark as affordable. If the number is 10% or more of the town's housing stock, then you have achieved affordability without doing anything except label some properties affordable.

Since this hare-brained scheme is Ruth's idea, I think we can safely say her minions on the Planning Commission will be just fine with advising the Town Council to go ahead and adopt the Platner-Gentz Plan, by the usual 3-2 margin.


Councilor Gregg Avedisian will fight the good fight for sanity and Marge Frank will support him. Council  member Lisa DiBello will supply the two CCA Council members, Gentz and Deputy Dan Slattery with the winning vote, "because she cares." Does anybody want to bet against this prediction?

Interested parties in the proposed
shrubbery policy

The Planning Commission will also continue its consideration of changes to town ordinances to severely curb parking and dictate in minute detail the types of shrubbery and vegetation that will be planted in town developments, businesses and subdivisions.

Both of these proposed changes are great examples of the way this Planning Commission seeks to extend its control over Charlestown property owners - how they compulsively pursue the power to dictate exactly what property owners can and cannot do with their property.

Their arrogance is breath-taking. Fortunately, the Planning Commission is also incredibly inefficient and bumbling - ironically, they tend to turn their Power to Obstruct on themselves.

Lucky for us.