If you read the Newburyport Daily News, April 6, 2006, you might have been as concerned as I was. On the FrontPage is the headline, “Developer’s plan slowly evolving.” I thought to myself before I read it, “Finally, a chance to see what the future might hold for the waterfront.” I wasn’t so naive as to think the great Mr. Karp would unveil his plan for a beautiful park along the western edge of the waterfront district, but I certainly was disturbed by what few details he and his group decided to share with us. 100 housing units? That can’t be, I told myself, but a second glance only confirmed it. Can you imagine that? 100 housing units! Granted, Mr. Cox went on to say that they are planning on “considerably less,” but would you take that bet? I certainly wouldn’t, not from a group and a developer that has been as murky as this one. For them “considerably less” may mean 80 new housing units, if they are telling us the truth at all. They also mention that a hotel will be part of the final plan. Again, that concerns me, because they admit they don’t even know where to put it as of yet.

Now, of course a lot of the “right” things are said in the article, such as, “We’re meeting a lot to develop a plan that works what the city wants, economically works, and is sensitive to the downtown.” Do they really care about what the city wants? Do they really care about being sensitive to downtown? I don’t know, I pray that they do but when it all boils down, we all know it’s about how much money can be made. (Not that it is necessarily a bad thing, but the fact that no one ever comes right out and says its about the money means there is something flawed with that thought)

I’ve been trying to avoid the whole Chicken Little mentality and have been looking for some positives regarding Waterfront West, but its been hard. I see a lot of things that can go very wrong, all of them more or less permanent. I see a terrible traffic situation getting much, much worse. I see the beauty of the waterfront getting blocked out by new development. Its kind of funny, there is so much passion and opinion when it comes to the waterfront parking lots, and very little once you leave the boundaries of the NRA. If Mr. Karp’s plans go through (so far there is no reason to think they won’t), and Mayor Moak gets his way, you can more or less say good by to the waterfront as we know it. Sure the boardwalk will still be there, and there will be a whole host of shops and condo’s and cafés to the west where you might be able to enjoy the views of the water, but in the end the only real place to enjoy the waterfront is going to be the small park at the center of it all, surrounded by parking. We, as Newburyporters, had something very special and now it is almost all but gone, and looking back I think a lot of us are going to say, how could that have happened? I hope Mr. Cox is right, when he says, “If people say ‘Wow, they did this right’ – ultimately that would be the achievement.” I really hope they do it right, but something tells me that wishful thinking isn’t going to stand between a billionaire and his money.

Ben Laing, Newburyport