Well well, tonight was the hearing regarding renumbering my parents' street. The residents of 20A are citing issues with emergency response and mail and delivery. On the Eagle Tribune's website, there was an article about the meeting, and several responses have posted, including Dave Hammond, the resident of 20A.
He says that he is scared that having a letter will cause confusion. I think the real issue is that the guy is a dickhead and doesn't want a letter part of his address. Here is why:
Mr. Hammond purchased 20 Coventry dirt cheap from a woman whose husband dropped dead and left her with four kids (hello, the poor woman didn't realize he was robbing her). After buying the house, he split the property, increasing the value by $200K. Yeah, it's a money thing, but I feel like he first cheated the previous owner, then increased the value. And the way he did it was a little sleazy, too.
The town requires 200 ft of street frontage to build on a lot. Mr. Hammond used a cul de sac that previously existed to get the 200 ft, and needed a variance just to get it passed. Once the lot was split and the cul de sac taken out, that left much less than the necessary 200 ft street frontage, leaving it a flag lot. But Mr. Hammond still built a new house on the new lot and sold the existing house on the old lot.
Mr. Hammond claims the town of Atkinson is responsible for the "confusion", when it is in fact his own doing. He lived on the land before it was subdivided. He split the land. He built the new house. Of course he knew that his house would be labeled 20A, and if he had a problem with it, then he didn't need to build on that flag lot.
Now he is asking the town to renumber the rest of the street, so that he's not the only one with a letter after his number. This affects nearly 50 houses. My parents have been here for 16 years, way longer than Mr. Hammond. I think it is so selfish to ask everyone to change their addresses, when this "confusion" really only affects him. He doesn't want things delivered to the wrong house, but think about all that goes into changing addresses for the whole street. There will be wrong deliveries for a long time! Plus, no one is perfect, and there are already wrong deliveries.
The emergency issue shouldn't be relevent. Recently a girl broke her femur right in front of my mom's house. When she called 911, the dispatcher stayed on the line the whole time until the ambulance showed up. If the ambulance was lost, she could have given directions. Plus, if they're calling 911, I'd think that they'd be out the house, waiting for the ambulance, like my mom's neighbor did.
Oh man, I'm actually so fired up, I can't really talk straight. Plus, I'm a little distracted by the tv right now.
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