OutTakes
by Edd Merritt,
June 3, 2010, page 11.....

It Takes a Village...

Things are happening all over town
It’s the east village up
And the west village down

I like diversity in my life; whether it comes in pints or quarts is immaterial. That’s one reason, I guess, why I’m interested in watching the changes occurring in Charlotte – not only in properties themselves but in people’s reactions. Some savor it. Others damn it.
I’ve seen it happen over my 23 years here. We have a whole new West Village center, different from what it was in the mid 80s by the addition of at least four major buildings.
We have more horses and fewer cows.
My son, a graduate of CCS in 1988, was chasing his own kids through the slides and bars of the jungle gyms behind the school not long ago when he looked at the building itself and said, “I don’t think this part was here when I was. The current gym certainly wasn’t. Lacrosse goals on the backfields weren’t. Emile Cote donated them after they were built by students in his class at the Burlington Technical Center.”
Three principals came and went during our years in Charlotte – and now a fourth is leaving.
Oh, and did I mention that both my sons are now balding? Change happens.
Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) may have been a gleam in someone’s eye, but it certainly wasn’t a part of the Charlotte landscape until quite recently.
And, for those of us in East Charlotte, Spear’s Store has housed three owners since I started walking down Hinesburg Road.
Speaking of roads, the traffic has increased by my non-scientific assessment (thanks, Bill Doyle), and Sheehan Green is a new venture filling what was an open field behind the house across the street from us – which also has new owners since then.
I miss my friend Murphy, John Sheehan’s golden retriever who greeted me at the end of his driveway and for whom the road into the green is named.
However, with the exception of jobs, I’m no quicker than Forrest Gump to leap at change.
So, what’s the point of all this other than to note my “keen sense of the obvious?”
Well, there are a couple of groups in town with whom I’ve become involved recently that have re-kindled my thoughts about change and how one person or a community plans for it.
A significant one is composed of my neighbors in East Charlotte who have been meeting to discuss how we might plan for the future of our village. The voices have been strong in both directions – those who want the village to stay just as it is and those who want to plan for the likelihood of future differences.
A second, equally significant group, is a collection of people from several sources, primarily the two major churches in town, who are steering a process that will generate a new neighborhood of affordable houses off Greenbush Road made possible through Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity. It is this group that I’m interested in pitching here.
The project is the first Habitat development in Charlotte, and it comes at a time when “green” not only signifies the mountains but also the efficiency now available within an affordable price range. It will include the first Habitat house in New England to meet passive solar standards set by the Passive House Institute.
Habitat is also unique among builders providing housing for needy families in that it requires a contribution of labor in some form from the owners-to-be – sweat equity, they call it, and it represents a significant contribution to all Habitat projects.
On Friday evening, June 18, at the Old Lantern, Green Mountain Habitat will host a get-together for everyone interested in learning about the houses to be built across the street. Starting at 5:30 p.m., people are invited to bring meals – desserts and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided free – and gather at the Lantern to visit the home sites and see renderings of the houses going on each one. Dr. Jazz will blow Dixieland music during dinner, and Tom Cleary will provide his keyboard stylings afterwards. The event is being billed as a BYOS (Bring Your Own Shovel) event. Everyone will have an opportunity to turn over some earth in the process and hopefully meet members of the families who will move in. Tickets are being sold for $10 per individual or $25 for a family with all proceeds to go toward the cost of constructing the houses’ foundations. People will also have an opportunity to sign up to volunteer their labor on the project, which will officially break ground near the end of June.
I like this type of community building – literally as well as figuratively in this case. It provides an opportunity for diversity that could easily drift away in Charlotte if we are not conscious of its need and desirability. Similar things are happening in my end of town with the Champlain Housing Trust and the East Charlotte planning groups.
Town planner Jean Vissering says that vibrancy and diversity are key features of villages. They should mirror the countryside. “Rural areas,” she says are “dominated by fields and forests with the occasional house or farmstead.” “Villages,” on the other hand, “are dominated by houses. . .”
We are fortunate to be able to look into and plan for both right now. I feel we, the Charlotte community, should seize the opportunity.