Master Plan Steering Committee starts $100K update process Monday night

LACONIA — City leaders land use board members will meet Monday night to kick off the update process for a new master plan, the document intended to guide the city’s future development. 

“It is a public meeting and it also includes the council, the planning board and the zoning board of adjustment,” City Manager Kirk Beattie said at a council meeting on Sept. 22, "to all be together to talk about the master plan and what we’re looking at. The company will be there that’s doing it as well as the public, so it’s really a good way to kick this off. We’re talking about almost a year-long project.”

In August, city staff selected Resilience Planning & Design of Plymouth as the contractor tasked with assisting them in developing the long-term document. Following a request for proposals published on July 1, eight firms submitted responses. 

A scoring process conducted by Planning Director Rob Mora, Assistant Planning Director Tyler Carmichael, and Housing and Economic Development Director Joia Hughes resulted in their selection. 

Gary Dionne, Planning Board Chair and interim Mayor Charlie St. Clair, Patrick Wood, John McArdle, Jennifer Ulrich, Ward 3 City Councilor Eric Hoffman and Mora comprise the city’s Master Plan Steering Committee. 

Mora is chair of the committee and can vote only in the event of a tie. 

The process kicks off in earnest at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 6, at the Belknap Mill downtown, though it’s been discussed frequently among city officials over the last year. The council appropriated $100,000 in the 2025-26 budget to fund the development of a new plan, the first update since 2018. 

“There’ll be a public input session at the end, there is some time allotted for that, but the public is welcome to attend and watch everything,” Mora said at the Sept. 22 meeting of the council. “It should be a great workshop that Resilience Planning will put on for us.”

Members of the city’s heritage and conservation commissions will also attend the meeting. 

The master plan is meant to guide the city’s land use policy, housing, transportation, economic development and community investment over a period of 10 to 15 years, and will likely coincide with the beginning of development on the former State School property, which could bring 2,000 new units of housing to the north end of the city.  

The current update will focus attention on the vision, housing, transportation, economic development, community facilities and land use chapters of the plan. 

The process includes three major steps between fall 2025 and fall 2026: an analysis of current conditions, trends, issues, challenges and opportunities; looking forward to conditions in the future; and, ultimately, creating and publishing the plan. 

The most recent update to the master plan, finished in 2018, is 18 pages long. The 2007 master plan update was 128 pages long. A page on the city website was created to provide updates to the public regarding the master planning process. Access that website at laconianh.gov/341/Master-Plan.

In other news, members of the planning board will review a conceptual plan to construct an 85-site campground in the Weirs at their meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 7, at City Hall downtown. 

The project, proposed by owner Michael Porell, would be located at 358 Roller Coaster Road, a 40-plus-acre parcel about half-a-mile east of the intersection with Parade Road. Drawings of the site attached to the planning board agenda call the project “Roller Coaster Road Family Campground.” 

The plan also calls for the erection of 12 cabins, a maintenance building and an “owner cabin,” a bath house and pool, and a playground, according to a planning document submitted Aug. 12. 

Porell purchased the property in April 2011, for $4,000, according to property records. The most recent assessment pegs the combined value at $455,073.