No, No, Not the Nau-Ti-Gal!

 

First, here is a photo one of my bandmates took of Bongo, Mandy, and me:

Tonight there was a zoning board meeting in our town hall, and Travalon even skipped the Bucks game to go with me. (He did record it.) The sky looked beautiful over the parking lot.

We were concerned because there is a proposal to tear down the Nau-Ti-Gal restaurant and replace it with a six-story apartment building. We weren't happy about this on many levels: the aesthetic, the traffic volume, the impact on wildlife, and the fact that the area would be rezoned from commercial to private. We would lose access to the riverfront and a restaurant that we could walk to. To our pleasant surprise, the board had all the same issues we did, and they told the developer to come back with something more acceptable. I think our condo association is going to submit a statement, and I proposed a draft one:

The Lighthouse Bay Condo Association (Board?) would like to raise some issues with the proposal for the current Nau-Ti-Gal site. The number of units proposed (140) would greatly increase the population density in this neighborhood, with an attendant increase in traffic. This would have a negative impact on the quality of life in our neighborhood, since many people walk or bike along the road. It would also have a negative impact on the wildlife, the very thing that drew a lot of us to this area. Another issue is that this proposal would take an area that has been public since the 19th century and make it private, cutting off access to the riverfront for the neighborhood and depriving us of a place to go for fun. The riverfront restaurant that we could walk to has been very popular in our neighborhood, and we feel that any proposal should allow for a commercial venture, for example, another bar or restaurant. One association member suggested a coffeehouse. Finally, the aesthetic impact of a six-story building in this area of natural beauty cannot be overstated. We strongly oppose the proposal as it stands and hope that it is either substantially rewritten with these concerns in mind or taken off the table altogether.

I will keep my regular readers (some of whom have eaten at the Nau-Ti-Gal) apprised of all developments in this matter.

Famous Hat