[MassHistPres] basket ball hoops or other sports equipment in historic districts

[Ralph Slate]

I appreciate the sentiment about a basketball hoop attached to a garage, 
but in all seriousness, would people feel differently if it was instead 
a DirectTV satellite dish? In Springfield, we have seen these sprouting 
out of front porch roofs and the sides of houses for the past few years. 
Sometimes they are even planted on a pole in the front yard.

Ralph Slate
Springfield, MA



Dennis De Witt wrote:
> 10 years ago we had one very divided neighborhood -- split between 
> Libertarians and communitarians, in which the former twice defeated 
> attempts by the latter, who controlled 
> the neighborhood association and were a perhaps 60% majority (not 
> enough by our standards), to create an LHD.  One of the 
> opponents' rallying cries was that the LHD would regulate the 
> placement of the iconic backboard and hoop over the iconic garage 
> door.  Never mind that we have no guidelines regulating hoops 
> and there probably weren't any in the neighborhood.  It was 
> a successful ploy -- like saying we were pinko un-American -- and 
> against apple pie.
>