Nature? Not in My Backyard!

Look at this.

Isn't that nice? I took this today at the crack of dawn while I was walking my dog. We went to the nature preserve across the street from my house, which we didn't even know existed when we moved to Cumberland. But it's there, and it's a great place to walk, especially now that the leaves are turned and the path is (relatively) clear. There's a little pond in this preserve, and the remains of old stone walls, and the whole thing abuts the Monastery, a town-owned piece of land where monks used to make jam until most of their buildings burned down in 1950. (The monks fled to Massachusetts, where they remain today, still making delicious jam.) Today the remaining buildings on the property house our town library and a few social services, and the land is covered with beautiful walking trails that go on forever.

Not many people use this preserve. There's nowhere to park if you drive to it, so it's pretty much used only by those of us who live in walking distance. Once in a while I'll come across another human being on the trail, but not often. And yet nothing will ever be built on this land, or on the hundreds of acres in similar conservation areas around town. I had to do some research just to find out where the other areas were, because they're not widely advertised. The one I use is marked only by a small sign that you can't even really see if you're driving by. It's all very New England. If you need to know it's there, you will, and if you don't, it's none of your business.

So I was kind of surprised to read in my little local paper that a handful of people in Lincoln, the town next door, are up in arms about someone who wants to build on a piece of land there. This developer owns a handful of acres and wants to build 20 houses, and then he wants to turn the rest of the land into a conservation area. I understand why people might be concerned about new house building, especially in the current economy, but it turns out that they're none too happy with the idea of a conservation area, too.

Wait, what?

What I gather is that certain residents don't want people like me, with my obvious riffraff ways, walking their dogs and such so close to their homes. One guy's deed bars him from building a fence, so he'd be forced to see me, and another lady thinks only dangerous criminals enjoy undeveloped nature:

"Look at your police records. Do you want those people in your back yard?" She [also] said she does not want to have to change how she lives in her own house, and putting a public space or a development of houses in her back yard would do so.

Seriously. I am dying to know who she's talking about in these police records. Also, what I wouldn't give to have my house back up to a conservation area. It's a selling point in real estate, for crying out loud. If there was nothing but wilderness behind my house, I might never draw the curtains at the back of my house, ever, even if I wasn't wearing pants, which would be always. The thing is, there's already vacant land behind these houses. What they don't want is for other people to know about it, and be free to enjoy it; i.e., walk through it silently, perhaps with an adorable dog, first thing in the morning.

The neighborhood might never recover.