As you suggest in your recent editorial, “Portland Co. project great opportunity for city” (Nov. 21, 2014), the waterfront is not the best place for tall buildings. Yet you go on to support this project, the outlines of which have barely been described. My concerns at this point are two:

First, as a major factor encouraging development of the site as a “second Old Port,” you note it’s “… unparalleled views of the city’s busy harbor” while treating Munjoy Hill property owners’ concern they may lose that same view as a “relatively small disagreement.”

It is no small thing to lose a harbor view, a view for which property owners likely paid a premium. The burden is on the developer, and the city, to avoid such a loss if the neighbors co-operation is expected in the project’s development.

Second, a “sense of place” is what one absorbs approaching Portland Harbor from the islands of Casco Bay, or arriving on a cruise ship from away. Such a sense is largely due to the scale of our buildings. Portland offers a sense of welcome, luring visitor and resident alike to exploration.

We must be careful through the review process of the project that we don’t put at risk Portland’s sense of place, an invaluable aesthetic, as well as economic, asset.