According to Meridian one of the reasons for their Newsletter publication is “that being a good neighbor means doing our (Meridian) part to keep you informed …”. Now this is an admirable sentiment BUT, in fairness, it really depends on the information being relayed and how it will affect the community. Surely it is up to the community to decide who are Good Neighbors and who are not Good Neighbors but since Meridian has stated their position let’s do a quick reality check!
For example, if a neighbor were to “inform“ the community that they were about to chop down ~9,000 adjacent trees, create dust and noise, potentially resulting in a health hazard, negatively affect property values, and eliminate a large part of the vegetation that is the habitat for the many animals that abound in the region, it is very doubtful that they would be considered ‘Good Neighbors’ but rather they may be considered the kind of neighbors that you do NOT want ‘living’ next to you!
We do not stand alone in this conclusion – let us quote from some other observations:
“Operators of pits and quarries remove virtually all vegetation, topsoil and subsoil to access the resource. In so doing, they remove any natural habitat that may have been on site, and disrupt existing stream flows . . .”
“The creation of a Pit or Quarry creates apprehension in the public, which makes the property less desirable and thus diminishes the prices of neighboring property”.
“The value of property decreases most within the immediate vicinity but will be felt several miles away …”
In this regard, we have been in direct communications with MPAC (Municipal Property Assessment Corporation). MPAC is responsible for assessing the value of your property, a value that will be used in determining the property taxes that you pay. MPAC estimates an 9% decrease in the house values for those residents living on Westhaven Drive that back onto the quarry (the West side) and is calculated as follows:
- A 3% DECREASE since they will no longer ‘border’ a forest (to be removed by Meridian).
- An additional 6% DECREASE due to a reclassification of the forestry as Industrial Land
MPAC also estimates that there will be a 6% decrease in property value for those residents that do not back onto the quarry and we would expect a similar ‘rippling’ effect of decreasing property values onto the other streets in the Tyandaga neighborhood.
Finally, in other studies, the property devaluation due to ‘adjacent’ quarries have far exceeded the 9% drop indicated by MPAC and in some cases they have even been in the 25% range; of course, what actually happens to property values will be driven by the market which, we believe, will be driven by the quarry!