SteveJudd

I know this isn't specifically travel related but does anyone know the nationwide developer called K. Hovnanian. My rural county on the Chesapeake Bay is up in arms against a development K.Hovnanian wants to plop down on Kent Island. The Chesapeake Bay is in ecological trouble, aquatic catch is down, watermen are having a hard time making ends meat, the whole Chesapeake vicinity is overbuilt. Are the county's residents right in fearing another 1500-2000 houses being placed on the north end of Kent Island?

rwilliams

Mr. Hovnanian himself was interviewed live this AM on CNBC, hawking his company's stock, talking about ways to "grow his business" by plopping down his developments hither and yon.
Looks like you're this month's hither.

jersey

He has developments all over New Jersey. I can't think of anything special to say about them except there quite a few of them. IMO there are enough of these kind of developments. There are so many better ways of building homes/creating communities. 1500-2000 homes is a huge number. Personally, I wouldn't want that in my backyard.

zootsi

Its been proven that large developments cause taxes to go up, quality of life to go down. Once a piece of land is developed, it's forever changed. Fight it!

screen_name

The bad news is....unless a parcel of land is purchased for preservation (and therby taken off the market forever) it is a fact of life in most of the USA that the property owner has a right to sell or develop his/her land at anytime.

The good news is that it is NOT the property owner who decides what can be built upon the land but the ZONING for that part of town. And that decision is made by the planning board in your town or in your county.

This is a bit oversimplified but if you are going to fight you have to be clear who the enemy is. It is very likely your (stupid) planning board decided that residential development would be just dandy on this peice of land....and if you scratch the surface a little deeper you just might discover that the property owner (who made a fortune selling his property to Mr. Hovnanian)is someone ON the planning board or your very own governing body!!!

SteveJudd

screen name, that sort of thing happens all the time in the tight little world of Queen Anne's County politics (Kent Island is our western portion). For instance, my dog was ripped to death at a local kennel and I tried to have the two pit bulls put down who killed him. The lawyer overseeing the county animal board was also the private lawyer for the kennel owner- a slight conflict of interest.

As for K. Hovnanian, they have been a big issue in local politics. Our board of commissioners had been 2 Democrats (heavily funded by Republican local realtors) and 1 independently wealthy dimwitted Republican (he inherited liquor stores). All lost re-election in their party primaries and the new commission, now five seats, are all anti-growth, irrespective of party. However, it is an uphill fight as the zoning rules were made over a decade ago at zoning meetings attended by the very few, all of whom evidently were tools of the local governing elite, an elite who live in isolated estates on some piece of water, property carved out when the county was metamorphizing from bucolic backwater to outer suburban and bay retreat for wealthy Washingtonians.