Perhaps the Smiler’s Wharf plan is just a traditional developer’s ploy: Demand something that is grossly excessive in hope of getting approval for a plan that is just typically excessive. I lived most of my life in Washington, D.C., a gorgeous city with strict height limitations. Its desirable location, like Mystic’s, meant that not one developer ever had a beef with the height limit. Every building prospered.

On the Groton side, we know that what’s worse than living in the ugliest house in town is having a wide view of the ugliest house in town. Owners have an inherent right to a better use of their property. But if the highly skilled designer of Smiler’s Wharf falsely showed the building profile in Groton, that cannot possibly be an accident, and every attempt to deceive in that way must be shamed and met with a severe penalty.

Lee D. Vincent

Mystic