Meredith Selectboard to again weigh property line change with marina

MEREDITH — The Meredith Selectboard will weigh a property line adjustment agreement with a local marina at a public meeting Monday afternoon. 

The town has plans to improve and expand its public ramp and docks at the end of Lovejoy Sands Road near Goodhue Boat Company  — also known as Shep Brown’s Boat Basin — on Meredith Neck. Those plans as currently drawn, however, require an adjustment to a property line between the town and Goodhue, which the selectboard must endorse before it can go to the planning board. 

Goodhue is preparing to submit an application to the Meredith Planning Board anew for its own expansion plans — different versions of which have been turned down by the town before, most recently in 2021 because of a then-unresolved right-of-way easement issue with abutters. 

Whether the selectboard moves forward with the line adjustment does not change whether the marina can submit its expansion application; rather, the line change was a request from the town to accommodate its own infrastructure improvement aspirations. But language originally included in the consent agreement — and questions about whether a change is even necessary — have driven Meredith Neck and nearby island residents to selectboard meetings with concerns. 

Residents, many of whom are members of the Meredith Neck and Islands Alliance (MerNIA) — a group formed in 2003 to counter an expansion initiative by the marina — have expressed opposition to the line adjustment out of concern it is tied to a Goodhue expansion. 

The line adjustment consent agreement originally stated that the “agreement is also part of Goodhue’s overall redevelopment of its marina” and that it included the selectboard’s consent to the expansion if approved by the planning board. Though that language was removed ahead of the May 15 meeting after public pushback at a previous hearing, MerNIA members remain concerned the line adjustment will tie into approval of the marina expansion. They also have asked the town to reconsider whether a line adjustment is necessary or if its plans could be reengineered.

At the May 15 selectboard meeting, an attorney for the marina emphasized that the potential boundary line adjustment came as a request from the town and was in no way an effort by Goodhue to circumvent the planning board. According to his comments, the marina can, and would like to, move ahead with its application with or without a line adjustment.

Though no board members said they were comfortable approving the line change at the May 15 meeting, they differed on whether soliciting further public input would be worth the delays incurred. 

The selectboard agreed to hold another meeting — set for Monday, June 5, at 4:30 p.m. at the Meredith Community Center — to again consider the line adjustment where engineers could be present to discuss whether an alternative dock plan is possible. The line adjustment does appear on the meeting’s agenda, though discussion of parking regulations at Shep Brown’s and at a public dock farther along Meredith Neck have been postponed.