CRC – Greensboro Road Neighborhood Info

Planning Board meeting – Dec 5

Those of us of a certain age have the immortal Alfred E Neuman burned into our brains. Look at the picture above. Why would the residents of Greensboro Rd possibly be worried about a 21000 SF development with 1.25 acres of impervious surfaces right where the road floods/washes out over and over again?

And yet, Don Wileman and the leaders of Christ Redeemer Church think that they should be exempt from any form of town scrutiny of their plans. They tell us not to worry, they are going to be good for the neighborhood. If you ask them to tell you specifically how they are going to benefit the neighborhood, they say it’s an unfair question and you shouldn’t put them on the spot. After 7 years, they should be able to tell us at least one thing, shouldn’t they?

Call me a pie-in-the-sky crazy optimist if you’d like, but I’ve always thought religious institutions should hold themselves to a higher moral standard, and be more accountable to the community than the typical real estate developer, or mafia hitman. CRC obviously disagrees. In their mind, they should evade all accountability, because, after all, they are a church.

Any way, the Planning Board will continue their review of CRC’s application on Tuesday, December 5 at 7:30. We don’t expect that they will take public comment on Tues night – this will probably be a deliberative session only. But, neighborhood attendance is still encouraged. The Greensboro neighborhood had turned out over and over again at public meetings, making sure that our feelings are known and our voices are heard.

If you’d like to learn a little more about the issues at hand, you can read the letter that I submitted to the Planning Board prior to the November meeting. It’s a pretty good summary of the current issues and how we really feel

Letter to Planning Board – 11.7.23

If you just want the TLDR version, it goes like this: CRC claims that a new state law exempts them from town review of their plans. We believe this law is patently unconstitutional, and members of the Planning Board should vote their conscience on Dec 5.

When is a settlement not a settlement?

Two important events to add to your calendar if the ongoing CRC/Greensboro Rd issue interests you:

Tuesday, 11/12, 7:00 PM – a meeting at the Black Center to answer questions about the so-called “settlement”, provide updates on the process, and brainstorm about next steps. If you want to learn more about where things stand the the on-going efforts to stop this development, please plan to attend.

Thursday, 11/14, 7:00 PM at Town Hall – the Zoning Board will meet to consider the proposed “Settlement Agreement” between the town and CRC. We don’t know exactly what format this meeting will take but it is billed as a public hearing, so there will be opportunities for the community to be heard.

So, what exactly is going on here? It’s confusing, to say the least.

As you may recall, there was a mediation session in September. We were led to believe that CRC was willing to consider modifying their plans to mitigate the detrimental neighborhood impacts. In the words of their attorney, “Everything is on the table”. In preparation, we held a couple of meetings, brainstormed, gathered ideas, and were prepared to compromise in an effort to allow CRC to proceed with their development in a way that lessened, but didn’t eliminate, all the negative impacts.

Well, when push came to shove at the mediation, it turned out that actually nothing meaningful was on the table. We presented our ideas to the mediator, and the answer came back from CRC that they were unwilling to consider reducing the size of the building or parking lot, and unwilling to consider putting any limits on the hours and types of operation. In other words, they were unwilling to consider anything.

But, they did cook up a “settlement” with the town that completely ignored the abutters and neighbors. Essentially, the settlement agreement says that the town will remove all but the most toothless conditions that they placed on CRC’s approval. In exchange, CRC will agree not to sue the town for religious discrimination, but if and only if the settlement agreement isn’t appealed by the abutters. So, in other words, the Town gives up everything, and CRC gives up nothing. You can read the whole agreement here: Settlement Agreement

So, what happens next? Apparently many people have been left with the impression that this Settlement Agreement ends the issue, and that the abutters and neighbors are left out in the cold. This is 100% incorrect! Even if this agreement is approved, it has no impact on the ongoing appeals filed by the abutters, challenging both the Zoning decision that allows the use, and decision that allows the wetlands impacts. Both of those legal cases will continue, regardless of what the ZBA decides on Thurs night.

The process going forward is unclear, but what we do know is that the Settlement Agreement has to be approved by the ZBA before it can be submitted to the Grafton County Court for review. That is the topic that the ZBA is going to take up on Thursday night.

This proposed settlement agreement should be offensive to every citizen of the Town of Hanover. Town staff (Rob Houseman and Julia Griffin) , the town’s attorney, and the town’s insurance carrier crafted this so called settlement, without any regard for the overwhelming testimony from neighbors that this mega-development is inappropriate for the proposed site. The town apparently never even tried to wrestle any concessions from the church that might favor the neighbors – we sat thru the entire mediation and were never once presented with any type of even rudimentary proposal to consider.

Please come to the Black Center tonight if you would like to learn more, and most importantly, please come to the ZBA meeting on Thursday to deliver the message that back room deals that benefit insurance companies and developers are not the way we expect business to be conducted in our town.

And some more about the signs . . .

As you may remember, when Lara and I originally appeared before the Selectboard to discuss the sign issue, we asked for permission to keep them up until Sept 30. There was no real significance to this date, but we were told that we needed to have an “end date” to our request. For background info, you can read the original post about the Selectboard meeting here

At the time, Sept 30 seemed like a long,long way away, but, now , all of a sudden, here we are. We’ve decided not to remove our signs, and just sent the below note to the Selectboard:

Dear Selectboard Members –
After much deliberation, we have decided not to remove the “Protect our Residential Neighborhood” signs from in front of our house. Recent changes in the circumstances of the underlying Zoning dispute have led us to believe that the public needs to be informed about the developments in the case now more than ever. Of most particular importance, we believe the Town is considering a settlement that will significantly affect our neighborhood, without any regard for and input from the people who actually live here. Additionally, we believe that the Town’s proposed action will set a precedent that should be rightly upsetting to citizens from all areas of town, and we intend to use the signs to continue to promote awareness of the situation.

As we have traveled thru town these last several weeks, it has become obvious that the town does not actually enforce any “regulations” regarding signs in the manner that Julia described in her email below. Signs are up for all sorts of events, much earlier than a week in advance, and rarely taken down the day after any event. Signs for political and social “causes” (Black Lives Matter, Solarize Hanover, etc) are all over town and appear to draw no scrutiny or enforcement action. It is obvious that the DPW staff does not make any effort to remove any signs from the town ROW’s in any organized manner, and the Zoning Administrator does not make any effort at enforcement either.

As we said when this topic first came up, we do not believe that we need permission from the town to display our signs, as they are protected free speech. For your information, I have included below the email that Julia sent to the state DOT after our last meeting.

We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue further if the Board desires and would be more than willing to attend an upcoming meeting if you would like to place this on the agenda.

Very truly yours,
Jeff and Lara Acker

———- Forwarded message ———
From: Julia Griffin <julia.griffin@hanovernh.org>
Date: Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 3:09 PM
Subject: Private Lawn Signs Within ROW on Greensboro Road, Hanover
To: district2@dot.nh.gov <district2@dot.nh.gov>
Cc: Jeff Acker <jeff.acker@hproofingllc.com>, Robert Houseman <robert.houseman@hanovernh.org>, Peter Kulbacki <peter.kulbacki@hanovernh.org>, Michael Chase <michael.chase@hanovernh.org>, John Sherman <John.Sherman@hanovernh.org>, Asa Metcalf <Asa.Metcalf@hanovernh.org>

Doug:

My apologies if this information is not appropriately forwarded to you. Given that you head up the District 2 office, I wanted to be sure to advise you of a decision regarding the installation of lawn signs within the State-owned ROW on Greensboro Road in the event your maintenance staff encounters the signs in their routine maintenance work within the next month.

In Hanover, our Zoning Ordinance forbids the installation of lawn signs on private property. If we encounter lawn signs within Town-owned ROW, our DPW staff removes them unless the signs have been installed with Town permission to promote an upcoming event of general public interest. In that case, we only allow the signs to be installed for one week prior to the event and they must be removed the day after the event ends.

Multiple residents on Greensboro Road have installed yard signs within the State-owned ROW communicating their opposition to a proposed church project which has received ZBA approval on a Greensboro Road parcel. They came before the Town to seek permission to allow the signs in the ROW which we granted through the end of September, but we did alert them that, technically, since this is State-owned ROW, not Town-owned, it would be the State’s call should your staff choose to remove the signs.

I have copied one of the residents representing the group, Jeff Acker, for his information.

Thanks,

Julia N. Griffin

Town Manager

Valley News chimes in on sign questions

In case you missed it, the Valley News had a long article on Sunday about the sign issue, and the CRC proposal in general. I’m not sure how their paywall works, but here’s a link to the article: https://www.vnews.com/Greensboro-Road-Signs-Cause-Stir-27627567.aspx

It pains me to say this, but I think it is clear that some members of the town staff see us as “the enemy” in this situation. This is not at all what we want; we have said time and time again that we don’t want to be in an adversarial position relative to the town. Sadly, I’m not sure that’s the feeling in Town Hall.

Quoting from the Valley News article:

“Meanwhile, town officials contend Acker and his neighbors dragged their feet obtaining permission for the signs. All they had to do was send in a letter and get the OK of Hanover’s five-member Selectboard, Town Manager Julia Griffin said last week.”

If that was “all we had to do”, then I wonder why town officers felt the need to send an email threatening $275 per day fines, telling us our signs were a zoning violation, needed permission from the NH DOT and so on. You can read the whole email exchange between me and town officials here and decide for yourself: Greensboro Road sign emails

I also still have questions about why specifically our signs were targeted for enforcement. If there were really safety issues, it seems like those could have easily been addressed by just moving a few offending signs? Or were the complaints really based on the content of the signs, which raises a whole host of other concerns. There are several other signs in obvious plain view on well traveled main roads in town (both in the town right of way and on private property) that don’t seem to draw any attention from the enforcers.

Thankfully, I think we got a very fair hearing with the Selectboard, (read more about that here). Reasonable people came to a reasonable resolution of the issue, and the signs can stay. So for now, maybe that’s all that really matters?

Strength in Numbers

The Zoning Board will meet on Monday, May 20 at 7:00 PM (Town Hall, 2nd floor) to deliberate the motions to reconsider their approval of the church’s application. The Ackers (on behalf of the abutters and neighbors) have filed to overturn the decision completely. The church has filed to overturn the toothless conditions imposed by the ZBA in their approval. The church calls the conditions “oppressive” and they are asking for unrestricted use of the property – as many people as they can fit, any time of day, any day of the week.

The Board meeting is open to the public but it is a deliberative session only, and we don’t expect that there will be any opportunity for public comment . Despite that, we still think it is important to show up, and show support. During one of the previous meetings, one of the ZBA members said that “the neighbors seem to think the area is what you can see from the end of the Acker’s driveway”. We need to make sure the board understands that the negative impacts of this extend way past the immediate abutters. The Board may say “NO” anyway, but it will be a lot harder for them to say no to a room full of their friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

The overwhelming support for this cause is coming from all over town:

18 residents from all around town wrote letters to the Zoning Board in support of the Acker’s motion
50 yard signs are out and about- I’ve seen them all the way from Hanover HS to Etna Village
55 separate individuals have made donations – either to the GoFundMe, or the PayPal account, or by mailing checks directly to our attorney (you can add to that total by using the “Donate Now” feature at the top of this page)
609 unique visitors have read 1258 pages of this blog since May 1

Whatever decision the Board makes on Monday, there will still be many more chapters to write. Please attend the meeting if you can, and please help spread the word to others around town. Our strength is in our numbers.

Neighbors speak out!

An excellent letter to the editor in today’s Valley News from Julia Viazmenski. Perfectly sums up what’s so wrong about this proposal. The key point:

” Approval of such a project would set a dangerous precedent for future development on roads like this one throughout the town. “

https://www.vnews.com/Forum-May-18-25570963

And here are some prior letters that are so good that I just have to share them again here. These provide a nice snapshot of what this is all about.

https://www.vnews.com/Forum-April-5-24603254

https://www.vnews.com/Forum-May-1-25203698

https://www.vnews.com/Forum-March-27-24385054

CRC Files appeal with Zoning Board

As we might have expected, CRC has filed their own motion with the Zoning Board, asking for a rehearing of the recent decision. Despite the reversal of their initial denial, CRC is claiming that the “oppressive conditions (attached by the ZBA) make this approval tantamount to a denial”

Yes, they really do call them “oppressive” – they actually use the word 5 different times in their filing. Their primary claim seems to be that they are somehow the victims of religious discrimination, and the only redress for that is that they should be allowed to do whatever they darn well please. If you are interested, the full text of the church’s motion is here:

CRC Second motion for rehearing Download

I’m not sure how the rest of you feel, but I am personally offended by the suggestion that this has anything do with religious bigotry. And, to claim that the whole town zoning process is somehow bigoted is just ludicrous. I also find it ironic to say the least that we are being threatened with a religious discrimination lawsuit by a group that has been allowed to meet in our PUBLIC high school auditorium for the last 17 years!

We will be filing our appeal shortly, and then it will be up to the Zoning Board (and probably eventually the courts) to sort it all out. Stay tuned. In the meantime, feel free to contemplate the monstrosity below . . .

Hanover neighborhoods are threatened!

A massive church development is proposed for 28-32 Greensboro Rd. If allowed, this will undoubtedly change the character of the neighborhood, and the entire town of Hanover forever! The Zoning Board originally ruled against this proposal, but recently caved to a threatened lawsuit and reversed their decision.

The immediate effect of this development will be to change the character of Greensboro Rd, greatly increase the risk of flood damage in our area, and threaten the environmentally sensitive Mink Brook watershed. The long term ripple effect will be that our Zoning Ordinance will be rendered toothless and useless, and no area in town will be exempt from massive developments of this type. Eventually, the entire Greensboro Rd corridor from Rt 120 to the Great Hollow Rd will be swallowed up by commercial developments.

A group of neighbors and interested folks from around town have banded together to fight this disastrous proposal. We’ve launched this site as an easy way to collect and disseminate information about the plans.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

The Red area represents the current size of buildings and driveways on the site. The Blue area represents what is proposed – 21,000 + SF building and 113 space lighted parking lot – almost one acre of pavement!