Split Alton Selectboard will let Sunny Slope Farm sell spring water and keep property tax break

Deanna (Chamberlain) O’Shaughnessy of Old Wolfeboro Road has won what is likely the last procedural battle in her plans to build a small “mom-and-pop” spring water bottling operation on her Sunny Slope Farm property off Old Wolfeboro Road.

In a 2-1 vote Wednesday night, the Board of Selectmen voted to approve a change in the property’s tax assessment that will allow the business to operate from a garage space that’s attached to her farmhouse’s historic barn. New selectman Loring Carr and selectmen Peter Bolster supported the proposed change; Chairman Steve McMahon voted against the idea.

The question arose because the barn is one of three areas on the Sunny Slope Farm property that receives a special tax easement because it is considered historically significant. (The other two structures are a stable and a well house.)

At last night’s meeting in the Town Hall, O’Shaughnessy and her partner, attorney Tim Morgan, asked the selectmen to allow the land to keep its easement even though the bottling plant will be in a portion of the barn area.

“It’s actually in a garage that’s not even considered historically significant,” she said. “And it wont’ be visible from outside the barn.”

Selectmen Bolster presented his fellow board members with a written recommendation from Town Assessor Tom Sargent supporting the plan.

“When I was first informed by Ms. Deanna O’Shaughnessy of the bottling operation being located in the lower level of one of her preservation barns I was NOT in favor of this change of use at all,” the memo read. “Several reasons concerned me: keeping the integrity of the barn inside and out; concerns of the public knowing that they are subsidizing her taxes due to the preservation (easement) of the barn and now she would be making money on it;… and, would this kind of use be in violation of the recorded agreement?”

Sargent wrote that he met with O’Shaughnessy, Bolster and members of the NH Preservation Alliance on Feb. 11 and came out thinking the new bottling operations would not change the original intent of the historic easement.

“We should allow the use in the barn as long as the following issues are met: the integrity of the barn must be kept in tact — no cutting of the original structure allowed or enlarging windows, etc… (and) the owners (O’Shaughnessy and her sister, Fae (Chamberlain) Kontje-Gibbs of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.) must ask for written consent with information of use to the Board, staying within the recorded agreement.”

Sargent also suggested that when the bottling plant equipment is installed he evaluate the commercial value of the square footage of the area and assess that space accordingly, adding it to the overall assessment of the property.

At first, both Carr and McMahon had misgivings about the idea.

They said that since O’Shaughnessy was altering the use of the property there was some question about whether the historic easement would be valid.

But the co-owner said that nothing done in the structure would be visible from outside the building, and that its historic characteristics would still be visible from the public road and allow visitors to get as close as 8-feet — requirements imposed by state statutes on properties qualifying for historic tax easements.

On the other hand, she said, if the selectmen turned down Sargent’s suggestion she would have to pay a $6,000 tax penalty — and losing her annual $300 tax break.

Carr said he would support the idea if there were an addendum written to the original agreement with the town outlining Sargent’s ideas.

O’Shaughnessy and Morgan readily agreed, saying that’s what they understood would be needed according to the memo.

McMahon said he could not support the plan because he felt it was a major deviation from the original easement that the selectmen approved. “People give you a break on something (for preservation) and then you’re turning around and making a profit off it — I felt like we were subsidizing it in some ways,” he explained after the meeting. “When they were talking about hauling the water out of there I didn’t have a problem with that. But I know people who have lost their jobs and $300 in their pockets would be wonderful right now. They could do their laundry or put food on their tables.”

Putting in a small bottling plant was not always what O’Shaughnessy wanted to do with the property.

Her family is one of the oldest in town and her grandfather purchased the 1700s farm in the 1937 for $3,500. Her father restored much of it — including adding a cement floor to the barn area where the bottling operation will be. Before he passed on, he asked his daughters to do all they could to keep the property in the family and suggested they consider selling the tasty spring water that is abundant over much of the farmland.

O’Shaughnessy said last night she and her investors spent about $1-million and four years pursuing the idea of creating a “bulk” spring water facility where large companies could bring in trucks and take out pumped water, then return to their own plants to create their bottled water with the product.

But then the economy began to sour — and big companies discovered they could simply sell “filtered” municipal water to the public at a much cheaper price — the program lost steam.

“We finally came to the point where it was obvious that probably the only way to keep this farm and keep this wonderful company my dad told us to think about pursuing, which was harvesting the spring water — this only clean, clear way of keeping the farm — was to make it a mom-and-pop operation,” she told the selectmen.

In recent months O’Shaughnessy and Morgan won approval from the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

They’ve also gotten a tentative okay from the N.H. Department of Health and Human Services on the proposed small bottling plant.

Getting the selectmen’s support of maintaining the historic easement was the final step in the process.

O’Shaughnessy says she hopes to start bottling her water sometime this summer. It will likely carry the label “Chamberlain Springs of Alton.”