Planning Board urges city to reevaluate Master Plan

LACONIA — With the amount of new construction the development of the Laconia State School is expected to generate, several members at Tuesday’s Planning Board meeting said the city needs to do more in the way of long-range planning.

The forthcoming development will have a significant impact on the planning process and the operation of the planning department, but whether the situation calls for a moratorium on development or building permits is questionable in the eyes of the planning board.

The significant expansion to the city’s commercial sector and housing stock will affect the operations of the many city departments, such as police, fire/EMS, and public works, noted City Councilor Bruce Cheney, who is the council’s representative on the board.

Last month the state said it was prepared to sell the 220-acre site to a buyer who plans to develop a housing, entertainment, commercial, recreational, and medical services neighborhood. A real estate broker involved in marketing the property said the development would include almost 1,900 housing units, along with about 200,000 square feet of commercial office and retail space, but offered no other details.

The city should not expect to learn about any specifics of the development until the state has completed the sale to the buyer, which Cheney estimated will not occur until January, at the earliest.

“The governor has decided to sell the State School and he hasn’t consulted with the City Council,” Cheney said.

Planning Board Chair Peter Brunette said that with a massive project on the horizon the city needs to do a comprehensive update of its Master Plan. He said the recent revisions to the plan have been limited to certain sections, and not the plan as a whole.

“I don’t consider the Master Plan up-to-date,” he said.

Brunette recommended the city hire consultants to produce a comprehensive update of the document with community goals and aspirations in terms of community development.

He, along with other board members, said the city should think of hiring consultants to help the planning department deal with “the flurry of activity” which the State School project is expected to generate.

In the days before the general scope of the State School development was presented to the public last month, Brunette said he would push for the planning board to recommend that the city council impose a moratorium on new building permits and site plan approvals until the city gets its hands around the full implications of the project.

On Tuesday Brunette did not voice an opinion about a moratorium. Rather, he urged other board members to read the full text of the law that enables communities to enact moratoriums “under unusual circumstances” to give a community time to revise its growth management process, zoning ordinance, master plan, or capital improvements program. The law allows for the moratorium to apply to an entire city or town, or to be limited to certain sections, or to specific uses.

In a memo to all planning board members, City Planning Director Dean Trefethen opposed the idea of a building moratorium.

He said the city has known for more than four years that significant development would be proposed for the State School property, and just a year ago Gov. Chris Sununu took over the sale process.

“This should not be a surprise to anyone that at this point in time we have a proposal,” Trefethen said in the memo. Trefethen did not attend Tuesday’s board meeting as he was on a planned vacation.

Furthermore, knowing that the state’s goal was to sell the property to a private developer, the city approved applying performance zoning standards to the State School land to facilitate development.

Trefethen believes a moratorium would do the city more harm than good.

“We do not want the message to be [that] we are not in favor of development, as that message and impression will linger much longer than any moratorium,” he said.

As it is, Trefethen believes the city will not not receive a proposal to consider from the developer for at least another year, by which time any moratorium enacted at this time would have expired.

The idea of a moratorium and other aspects of the proposed State School development are expected to be on the agenda for the board’s December meeting.