What’s Happening on Greensboro Rd?

Dirty water flowing into Mink Brook on June 30. This has been a regular occurrence after every hard rain since the work began at 34 Greensboro in April.

Careful observers of the Hanover Zoning Board Agenda might have noticed that the Acker’s are back on the agenda with a scheduled Zoom hearing Thursday, Sept 24. Details and Zoom log in info are at the link below if anyone is interested in following along.

https://www.hanovernh.org/zoning-board-adjustment/agenda/092420-zba-agenda

So what’s it all about? Well, here’s the story in a nutshell: Christ Redeemer Church owns the house at 34 Greensboro Rd, and many of you have noticed and commented on the renovation project that they have started. When they dug the hole to pour a foundation for an addition out back of the house, they struck water, and the hole began to fill up as fast as they were digging. No surprise there, the entire North Side of Greensboro Rd in this area sits on an aquifer that is identified in the Hanover Master Plan, among other places. This information was also well developed during the ZBA hearings regarding the larger church proposal. If they were surprised by the underground water, it’s nobody’s fault but their own.

So, when the water started to fill the cellar hole, the site contractor started to pump it out, and this is where the story gets complicated

Water pumping out of cellar hole into front lawn of 34 Greensboro. From here it flows thru a wetland, thru the Acker’s backyard, and into Mink Brook.

The Acker’s brought this to the attention to the Town Staff, and were repeatedly assured through out the summer that the town and CRC’s engineers were working on an engineered solution to handle this water, treat it, and basically do whatever the town wetlands ordinance requires so that the wetlands on both sides of the road and Mink Brook wouldn’t be impacted by this runoff. If you really want the nitty-gritty, you can read the entire email correspondence between Ackers and Houseman here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z8dPmtbdi8QtlHk31Ol5jHcOqzDeBWnCFZ9qcqFVwBE/edit?usp=sharing

But, somewhere along the way, something happened, and Houseman decided that, actually, the wetlands on the CRC property actually aren’t wetlands that anyone cares about, and aren’t wetlands that the town needs to regulate, so basically, CRC can do whatever they want with the water. His entire memo can be found in the above email thread, starting at page 19.

So, in response to that finding, the Ackers were left with no choice but to appeal this totally illogical determination to the full Zoning Board, and that is the hearing that will take place on Thursday.

If you want more detail, here is the memo that we submitted to the ZBA that lays out our arguments about why this decision is twisted pretzel logic:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EPDgi88pqfkymEPK_Af5Ko488F3Cy2AXQ3_NG1Am-3I/edit?usp=sharing

And here are some more pictures and supporting evidence we’ve submitted:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GglpsfwSGX0UNPBNEgtdSDvyjL_Qzad1DIq00Nq_LBM/edit?usp=sharing