One of these structures is bad and the other is good

Which building fits best in a traditional New England village?
Photos and words by Will Collette

Pat's Power Equipment
Old Post Road (US Route 1A)










Or....


Cross Mills Fire District
Old Post Road (US Route 1A)
less than a mile SW of Pat's
Power





If you picked Pat's Power Equipment, you could be qualified to serve on the Charlestown Planning Commission. Also the Deadwood, South Dakota Planning Commission.

Brick = BAD!

Both buildings are roughly the same size and height. But one has a brick exterior, which is very bad, according to the Planning Commission (even though the town zoning ordinance called brick a "preferred" material). The other has what looks to me like cement boards on the exterior, which I guess is close enough to mud and wattle to pass muster with our stalwart Planning Commissioners.

Pat's Power Equipment looks to me like it would fit in nicely into a traditional village setting - maybe in Quartzsite, Arizona.

Oh, the horror! Brick!

The Fire District's choice of a brick exterior - fireproof, rather than the Planning Commission's preferred material, cedar shakes) - cost the District almost a year in delays as the Planning Commission under Ruth Platner's leadership, tried to kill the project.

The Planning Commission also objected to the size of the fire house. They wanted the Fire District to use a bunch of small buildings instead. Maybe they got confused, thinking that the Fire District used some of the little backhoes and yard tractors you can see in the foreground of the photo of Pat's Power Equipment.

And nobody - no other town regulator, no state regulator, no federal regulator - dictated the Planning Commission's totally arbitrary, if not totally ridiculous handling of the permits for these two contemporaneous projects. Just them. Just Platner.