Some fifty years ago, my wife and I lived in Boston and we wanted to buy a house. Price dictated we look outside the city and we saw many beautiful residences but they were located very close to or adjacent to newly built highways. The noise and view were horrific and the houses were all very cheap. These beautiful houses, once desirable, had become almost worthless. When I-91 came up this way, the village of Lewiston was razed and, although compensated, people lost their homes. In New York, city planner Robert Moses destroyed many stable neighborhoods by inappropriate building. All these examples are from a time past and were, arguably, for the greater common good. Let us fast-forward to the time present, the values present and Hanover, home to Dartmouth College. We are currently facing a similar situation where Dartmouth proposes to build an indoor practice field abutting Tyler Road, a residential neighborhood.
The proposed building will cover 1.6 acres and be some 70 feet high in the form of a giant warehouse and sheathed in metal, as befits any warehouse. The facility will throw a shadow that will reach private land, blot out much of our southern sky, sun and light. Not only huge (more than 3.8 million cubic feet), it is grotesquely inappropriate to the scale and character of an established residential neighborhood. If we try to think in terms of Hanover-scale, the sheer size of this building is unfathomable.
The building will be on the northeast corner of Chase Fields, a part of Hanover zoned institutional. The building complies with institutional zoning requirements. Dartmouth’s position is that since it complies, it can be built. Even if it abuts a residential neighborhood, creates noise pollution, additional lighting and changes forever the character and value of the community. The building might be on institutional-zoned land, but its impact will not be confined there. The fact that the building’s effective perimeter encroaches on a residential neighborhood will cause financial loss to the owners. By its actions Dartmouth appears not to care a whit about architectural integrity, architectural scale and the fate of its neighbors.
The college has promulgated a fiction that there has been productive dialogue with the neighboring property owners (my wife and I were not contacted), resulting in substantive changes to the design. The “substantive” changes basically amount to landscape alterations and minor “cosmetic” alterations to the basic shape and adding windows. The substance of the matter remains: A large metal warehouse will be pressed against and intrude into an existing residential neighborhood. That building’s effective perimeter goes far beyond its physical walls.
I believe Dartmouth is aware of the harmful financial impact and denies it. It brought a real estate appraiser to address the Planning Board. He concluded that there would be no or minimal effect on home values or salability. Yet the appraiser indicated at the meeting that he had not spoken with a single Hanover real estate agent. The project will, despite Dartmouth’s claims, lower property values and diminish the neighborhood. Although willing to speak privately with the neighbors, Hanover real estate agents would not go on record regarding the impact on house values. Dartmouth is rich and powerful and owns lots of land all over Hanover.
Why does Dartmouth need to present specious arguments? Why are we told that there is no other viable location for this building when that isn’t true? The Planning Board was lectured at length about the history of Chase Fields and Dartmouth’s need for such a building (other Ivies and athletic powerhouses have them), as though any other school’s practice fields justify harming residents of Hanover. Harvard, for example, despite Dartmouth’s implications, does not have such a building. Fiction has been mixed with fact.
Does Dartmouth’s perceived and expressed “need” for a giant warehouse really make it acceptable that an abutting neighborhood is harmed? Does Dartmouth really believe that the effective social and aesthetic perimeter of the building does not flow onto residential land? Why the persistent myth that this is the only possible location for the building? Is it morally acceptable for Dartmouth, to, in effect, destroy a portion of community wealth by devaluing properties?
I do not believe that any individual would propose such a thing if acting alone. I do not believe that any actors in this scenario, taken individually, are evil or destructive people. Yet their collective actions are aggressive, damaging and arrogant. Dartmouth’s trustees, the president, and the people who present this package to the Planning Board collectively act against the common good. A perceived institutional need trumps the social and financial needs of an entire community. To use an old-fashioned term, Dartmouth’s demeanor is wanting.
Imperial Dartmouth has flexed its muscle and has told us it will build this building. Perhaps it will. Who then, will be harmed? Firstly and immediately, we who own property in the area. We who will lose substantial wealth. We who believed that our town government would protect us from this. Then, of course, the entire town. The monstrosity thrust against the leafy Tyler/Chase neighborhood will affect the entire town’s aesthetic.
The individuals involved in planning this will all avoid community reproach — some will move to other institutions, others retire. The trustees won’t even notice. There will be no individual responsibility but there will be collective denial.
What will become of Tyler/Chase? It will suffer a financial and social harm that will not subside with time. What of Dartmouth’s honor? This might be a stain on Dartmouth, but it will subside with time and the few dozen families harmed really do not matter.
Some 70 years ago, when I was a very young lad, I delighted in visiting my much-loved Granny. But as any lad of that age, I often behaved in a less than socialized manner. My dear Granny would gently take me aside and say, “Francis, that is not what one does.”
Dartmouth needs my Granny.
Francis J. Manasek lives in Norwich and owns a property on Chase Road in Hanover.