Letter to the Item editor: Three distribution projects threaten Lancaster's 'natural land'

Fellow Lancaster residents:

Do you know there are three concurrent warehouse distribution projects in front of Lancaster’s boards and committees right now? I am envisioning Lancaster "losing itself" overnight with these back-to-back warehouse distribution projects that are assaultive to the natural landscape and the scale of peoples' lives. I have never seen this pace of concurrent large development projects in my 18 years as a resident. It's like, in an instant, we could become another place entirely.

The projects are: A proposed 2.7 million square-foot warehouse distribution center and mixed use development on Lunenburg Road; a doubling of the Unified2 Global Packaging warehouse and distribution center on Fort Pond Road; and, finally, GFI Partner’s proposed 894,000 square-foot warehouse distribution complex on Fort Pond Road. 

Added to this is a newly permitted 372,000 square-foot warehouse distribution complex on Leominster-Shirley Road on the Lunenburg/Shirley town line.

If these projects are coming to Lancaster, at least let's try to scale them down to something that retains some small balance of natural land, wetland connectivity and beauty. Our nature and natural land and our wetlands and the myriad creatures that live there have a worth; they are not a commodity to be sold.

Cara Sanford

Lancaster