Common Driveways

Whatever else you think of town meetings, they certainly can be entertaining, sort of like the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges can be entertaining.

After much debate, Egremont passed a common driveway bylaw last night. During the debate, a voter tried to amend the bylaw by raising the maximum grade requirement from 10% to 12%, pointing out that Egremont is a hilly town. Oh no, cried some of the advocates (including the planning board), that would present a safety problem. How would a fire engine, for example, handle a steep grade?

So let's see how this will work in practice. Each of two adjacent land owners is building a house. They decide it would be nice to have a common driveway. The new bylaw would require that the driveway meet certain standards that presumably make it better: a little wider, better drainage, etc. But, alas, they discover they can't meet the maximum grade requirement. So each of them builds a separate driveway that is less wide, more easily washed out and generally more dangerous, as well as less attractive, than the common driveway would have been. And this benefits the town exactly how?