Everyone, it seems, thought the sale of the Wagner strawberry farm on Libby Avenue in Gorham was inevitable.
It’s not that neighbors like Russ Sprague aren’t disappointed. They are. It’s just that, as Sprague said this week, he knew it would happen sometime.
Even Nelson Wagner, who spent most of his life raising strawberries there, would have accepted the sale, according to his daughter, Coleen Plummer. “I think he knew it was going to happen, but I’m sure he’d be sad,” she said.
Plummer and her husband, Bill, are selling most of the land – 20 acres – to a housing developer under a new town ordinance, which will allow Risbara Bros. Construction Company to build 12 additional houses on the land, on top of the 37 already allowed under town zoning. In exchange for the additional houses, Risbara Bros. Construction will pay the town $15,000, which will be put into an account devoted to preserving land elsewhere in town.
That’s quite a bargain. Risbara Bros. stands to make that much and quite a bit more on the sale of the additional houses. That’s certainly no crime. It’s, in fact, nice to see anyone making money in the housing market these days.
However, towns, particularly ones facing housing development pressure like Gorham, need to be careful about ordinances like these and make sure what’s gained is equal to what’s lost. In this case, what’s lost is a farm that has stood as open space near Gorham Village for years as houses have been built around it. What’s gained is enough money to purchase a small fraction of that land in a part of town that’s less in demand.
Ordinances like these are designed to encourage development in certain parts of town that are already densely populated, clustering growth in areas where town services are already delivered, and discourage sprawl. However, many of them, such as the one in Gorham, could do more discouraging and less encouraging.
Developers, who are quite often reaping the biggest return on ordinances like these, could pay more money to offset the additional houses they are allowed to build. Towns and conservation groups can also work to protect land in populated areas that is valuable to the community.
If development is going to happen – and it is – it is best if it takes place in the more densely populated areas, but it is also worth hanging onto some of the open space there. Farms like the Wagners’ in small suburban areas can serve a purpose similar to parks in large urban areas. They add to the quality of life.
That’s something we can all agree is worth preserving.
Brendan Moran, editor
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