I assume our P&Z people know the neighborhood and will discount this testimony but still ...

The ongoing application for apartments on the Post Road adjacent to McDonald’s was back before the P& Tuesday night, and met with the expected neighborhood opposition.

Neighbors have every right to object to developments near them, and always do, and often their objections have merit. But the complaint of one resident from down the street caught my eye:

“I live down the hill on Riverside Lane. Two years ago, on June 18, we had nearly  a foot-and-a-half of water on our front lawn, nearly a football field wide on Riverside Lane coming down from Spezzano,” she said, adding that she feared the situation would worsen with the proposed development.

If you’re familiar with this section of the Post Road, you’ll know that, heading west from the proposed project, you will hit the traffic light controlling the intersection of Sheep Hill and Lockwood Lane and then proceed uphill several hundred yards to the intersection of Riverside Lane. Spezzano Lane loops its way, again uphill, from Sheep Hill to Riverside Lane. Water displaced or diverted from any new construction next to McDonald’s couldn’t possibly flood property on Riverside Lane without the mechanical assistance of a very large pump, and I don’t think any such device is planned.

Anyone is free to appear before the P&Z to protest a building project, and that’s exactly the way it should be (though the complaint that anything, let alone this particular building, could ruin “the Gateway to Riverside” is laughable — that train left the station a century ago) but they aren’t entitled to have the law of gravity suspended on their say-so.