Frank Lloyd Wright and the Planning Board

In a lecture published in 1931, Frank Lloyd Wright made this observation, "The physician can bury his mistakes,--but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines." On Tuesday afternoon, the Planning Board offered a variation of this advice to the applicant whose building, at 78 Green Street, had been constructed in the wrong place: "Plant trees."

The special meeting of the Planning Board, convened to vote on approving a "site plan revision" for 78 Green Street, began with the Planning Board's newest member, Tom DePietro, reporting that, as a consequence of a visit made to the site, all of Jack Connor's questions and concerns, raised at the public hearing, have been answered satisfactorily. Connor, it was announced, is now "fine with everything." 

After some chat about the value of a "field trip" to a site, in which Planning Board member Claudia DeStefano, who lives a block away from the site, declared, "What is there is far different from what I was imagining," and newly appointed chair of the Planning Board, Carmine Pierro, who lives in Taghkanic, asserted, "It was an eye-opener," Andy Howard, counsel to the Planning Board, walked them through Part 2 of the Short Environmental Assessment Form, recommending the answer "No, or small impact may occur" to each question, including this one: "Will the proposed action impair the character or quality of the existing community?"; and this one: "Will the proposed action impair the character or quality of important historic, archaeological, architectural or aesthetic resources?"

The Planning Board then issued a negative declaration and unanimously approved the amended site plan, contingent on the planting of trees--evergreen trees, at least four feet tall at the time of planting. Four such trees are to be planted, evenly spaced, between the new building and the little building that now houses Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and eight are to be planted, also evenly spaced, along the back of the new building, adjacent to Connor's property.
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