To the Editor:

I look forward every week to opening the Bee and scanning the Letter Hive. I have discovered so many strange and bizarre things asserted by people who write to you. The July 1 edition was no exception, and the subject of one letter was too personal to ignore.

The writer asserts that property owners do not have the right to develop their property. Then proceeds to cite as authority the very document that defines and gives meaning to the right to develop property.

That is all that the Planning and Zoning Regulations are about. The right of property owners to develop property. That’s all, nothing else. The right includes the right to have the Planning and Zoning Commission consider carefully and thoughtfully the merits and demerits of each application and render a decision, yeah or nay, that the particular property development will proceed or not.

That the commission renders decisions by split votes is evidence of the members’ hard work, determination, and most of all honesty. The last quality being scarce these days. The duty of all land use officials is to scrutinize each application, the regulations, and render decisions that will have to disappoint someone. I don’t believe any of the Planning and Zoning Commissioners rendered this decision based on popular feeling.

I speak from seven, including two as chairman, hard arduous years on this town’s Conservation Commission (yes I am so old that I served when it was Newtown’s Inland Wetlands Agency, and the typical semi-monthly agenda carried at least thirty applications).

What I know from my years of service is that the N in Newtown stands for Nimby.

Kevin L. Burns

Newtown