Last night I attended a meeting called by Don McNaughton, chairman of the Little Compton Agricultural Trust (LCACT) to present two development options for Little Compton (by an outside planning agency), each of which involved 325 new houses built by 2060.

An exhaustive technical presentation clearly favored the second option, involving resurrection of the “cluster housing idea” voted out on Oct. 28, 2011. The treasurer of LCACT is also on the board of another group trying to reorganize the planning and zoning of Little Compton, the Commons Foundation. The latter is also very bad for Little Compton — basically a group of investors are planning to raise funds and then lend to people wanting housing in Little Compton. In a town of only 3,000 people, most of whom know one another, having such lenders as neighbors is not wise – that practice is fine in big cities.

How did all this come about? It started around 2023 when LCACT lost half a million in funds by a scamming third party involving crypto currency. This was recovered by insurance to the tune of $400,000. The Commons Foundation moved in as a group in the process of formation around that time, to offer solutions on the development of Little Compton.

Little Compton (in the early 80s) used to be a community of farmers and people often only present in the summer but who liked the quiet rural town, respected the farming community and lived by and large in simple houses or lovely older houses. Wall Street changed all that together with very enterprising realtors and now 45 years later if you want a house near the water, you need many tens of millions to actually build and run that house. Every house price in Little Compton followed and the median price is about $950,000. The trickle-down effect is that now a young couple can’t afford to live in Little Compton. Our town recently wisely did something to help that young couple and/or their elderly parents and grandparents stay in Little Compton. This was via allowing house additions for relatives to be built to provide homes in Little Compton for these people. That approach is what should be encouraged as a solution to keeping Little Compton small and rural with no incentive for ugly, unsustainable clustered development.

We are on ledge all over Little Compton and the land and water cannot support cluster developments. Please work to keep two-acre zoning in place and a continued strong conservation effort by LCACT. Come to the Saturday, Oct. 5 Little Compton Community Center meeting at 10 a.m. to voice support to keep Little Compton rural and little.

Julie McGeoch Oldacre

Little Compton