Paintball park planned for tract at the Weirs

LACONIA — Paintball, the popular pastime around the world first played competitively in Henniker, New Hampshire in June, 1981, promises to become the next recreational attraction offered at The Weirs.

Edward Elfar, trustee of the El-Far Family Trust of Medfield, Mass., owners of a 22.79-acre property on Endicott Street North ( Rte. 3), has applied to open a paintball park on the property. The project is expected to be presented to the Planning Board when it meets in February.

The parcel is a flag lot; this is, a rectangle with a panhandle providing frontage on Endicott Street North. The trust acquired the property, which consists entirely of vacant woodand, in 2001 for $230,000. Since then the land has been placed in a so-called "current use" tax shelter with a nominal assessed value of $1,383. To the east and south the property is bordered by a 231-acre tract owned by Southworth Development, which was originally envisioned as the site of an 18-hole golf course and more than 400 residential units, divided between single-family homes and luxury condominiums.

With the development of the paintball park less than three acres of the property would be involved, leaving the remainder in current use. Two trailers — one eight feet by eight feet by twenty feet for storage space and the other eight feet by eight feet by twelve feet for an office — would be placed on the lot together with parking spaces for 42 vehicles. The trailers and parking would be located in the panhandle near the entrance to the property.

Three "play areas," bounded by yellow rope and florescent green ribbon would be delineated in the wooded reaches of the lot. Each field is designed to accommodate a maximum of 20 players as paintball competition generally engages teams of between three and 10 members.

In 2008 the late Gary Coyne of Meredith proposed developing a manufactured housing park — called "Harley Estates" — on the property, consisting of 58 single-wide mobile homes. The Planning Department recommended against the project, which it said was not in keeping with the Master Plan and failed to provide a 'Harmonious and aesthetically pleasing development of the municipality and its environs."