Northfield voters were shortsighted in rejecting a junk car bylaw at a special town meeting on Dec. 10. In short, the proposed amendment to the general bylaws had four parts:
1. Applicability. This section defined junk as items including scrap, rubble, debris, garbage, rubbish, building salvage, abandoned, disassembled, inoperable, junked or wrecked motor vehicles, truck bodies, tractors or trailers, among other things.
2. Inoperative, wrecked or junk motor vehicles, parked or stored for more than 30 days.
3. Screening. Junk items shall be screened from view and access by the public with permitted walls, fences and/or plantings.
4. Violations and enforcement. Penalties were set at not more than $50 for first offense and not more than $100 for each subsequent offense, which would accrue daily. The bylaw would be enforced by the Building Inspector, his agents, and the Town of Northfield police officers.
Objections came from several quarters.
As a Right to Farm Community, Northfield is justifiably protective of its working farms. Thus one farmer’s concern about inoperable farm equipment awaiting repairs fell on sympathetic ears. It’s reasonable that such repairs may need to await suitable weather or spare time that would fall outside of the 30 days specified in the proposed bylaw.
Inevitably, the “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure” defense came up, and the cost of screening was cited as prohibitive for many property owners.
Selectman Alex Meisner defended the rights of property owners in speaking out against the proposed bylaw. He was in the minority on the board. Selectboard Chairwoman Tracy Rogers noted that creation of the bylaw was prompted by complaints the Selectboard had received about piles of junk being left on certain properties, and Selectwoman Julia Blythe reminded voters that not having a law on the subject could end up costing the town money in the event that a property used as a junkyard were to become the town’s responsibility.
One doesn’t need a long memory to recall a Caldwell Road property owned by Allen Smith. Smith admitted to accumulating cars, trailers and other trash on his properties for 35 years. “I just like to collect things,” Smith said at the time. “I know some people in this town think it’s junk, but it’s not to me.”
The long-running dispute culminated in the Town of Northfield taking Smith to Greenfield District Court in September of 2017, which ordered a cleanup of the property in question, citing the open air storage of junk, inoperable automobiles, trash, debris, scrap materials and more than 4,000 tires. The cleanup by the owner never materialized. The town ended up taking part of the property for back taxes and commenced its own cleanup, which involved the labor of Highway Department workers, the allocation of $8,520 to screen off Smith’s remaining parcel, and the hiring of outside contractors – all to the tune of more than $100,000.
“It’s $100,000 of taxpayer money,” said former Town Administrator Brian Nobel. “It affects everyone now. We’ll have to devote some of that money that could be used for the betterment of the town or the elementary school to clean up the property.”
That’s a situation the town should avoid in the future and the proposed bylaw was part of the solution.
We suggest Selectman Meisner reconsider his defense of the right of owners to junk up their property. Ultimately, towns can end up bearing the cost of responding to fire or environmental hazards that can develop on private junkyards.
We hope that the “junk car bylaw” gets retooled to accommodate the concerns of farmers and gets resubmitted to Northfield voters for their approval at Annual Town Meeting.