Voice your concerns with your local officials!

Please take just a moment to share your concerns about 40B permits in Chelmsford. Your local elected officials need to understand how you feel.

Instructions:

• Copy our sample letter into your email
• Using the link below, find contact information for local elected officials
• Personalize the letter to express your concerns and request immediate action
• Hit Send!

Contact Info for Local Officials

• Board of Selectmen
• Town Meeting Representatives
• Zoning Board of Appeals
• Planning Board

Sample Letter

Select the text of the letter from the area below, then copy and paste it into your email. Add personal touches by inserting your own sentences or statements after you've pasted it into your email!

Dear BLANK
Board of BLANK

I support slow growth strategies for Chelmsford. With limited open space, upward pressure on town services and tax rates and burdens on our natural resources, we must stop unnecessary growth.

Research shows residential development aggravates town budget problems. The taxes collected from new developments don't even come close to offsetting the costs of the new services that such they require. An attempt to "build our way out" of our current budget woes will only exacerbate our problems.

Under current state statutes like 40B, which ignores planning and land-use policies, everyone is forced to grow, irrespective of local wishes. Only you can take the necessary actions to change this. I urge you to scrutinize the opaque financial reports of proposed 40B projects so that you are acting in my best intestest as a resident and taxpayer.

Our zoning and town planning efforts are being completely ignored. Residents have already made it clear that our local boards must do more to uphold the standards of our community. A recent decision at the Supreme Judicial Court upholds a town's right to deny projects that do not meet our need and which do not blend with our community.

Please take the time to question the veracity of 40B proposals, how more development will impact our community and how ongoing construction will only further degrade our town and ignore our Master Plan.

Once we allow development to happen, it cannot be removed and if we continue to allow for ongoing development we will never recover from an era of deficits and cuts in town services.