Wilcomb Island owner reaches settlement with DES

This is a view of the home on Wilcomb Island from 2007, with the additions that caused a dispute with the state. (Courtesy Bill Hemmel/Arialphotonh)

Owner to pay $25,000 fine, can leave property as it is

By THOMAS P. CALDWELL, LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — A years-long dispute over a dwelling on Wilcomb Island (also known as “Welcome Island”) in Meredith has ended with a revised consent decree in Belknap County Superior Court.

The owner, Robert Brown, has agreed to pay a $25,000 fine to settle the case brought against him by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, while the DES has agreed that the structure “as currently built is not causing and has not caused harm to the environment.”

The case revolves around work Brown did on his property in 2005, construction he said the DES had verbally agreed to allow. Four years after the building was done, the state began enforcement action for work undertaken without state permits.

The state said Brown violated the Fill and Dredge in Wetlands Act when he built his 2,944-square-foot home and attached a two-slip boathouse on the 0.18-acre island. He said the boathouse already existed when he bought the property in 1986, and part of what he was doing was to stabilize it to prevent erosion.

Brown extended the one-story camp into a three-bedroom contemporary home with 2.5 baths and luxury amenities. He said he intended to make it his retirement home.

The new consent decree, which supersedes one reached on June 14, 2016, acknowledges the factual disputes about what Brown was told about permit requirements and whether the building extended over the water at the time of construction, and notes that he did have a building permit from the town of Meredith.

Brown and the DES reached an agreement in January 2014 that called for Brown to pay a $60,000 civil penalty, half of which would be suspended if he removed all of the structures over the water, other than the boathouse, which includes a rooftop garden. Brown later maintained that he did not have sound judgment at the time because of ongoing health problems, including a later diagnosis of Lyme disease.

When the buildings remained in place, the state complained of bad faith on Brown’s part and sought additional compensation for attorneys’ fees associated with attempts to see that he fulfilled the terms of the agreement.

The consent decree in June 2016 continued to require that Brown remove portions of the house. It came after Brown attempted to claim that health problems had prompted him to sign the earlier agreement. Brown, 70 years old at the time, had recently undergone heart catheterization and had two stents to alleviate a 99 percent blockage of his blood vessels, according to a letter from his physician.

“I never had my day in court to explain why, when I was deathly ill, I had been coerced into signing a very bad agreement,” Brown said. “They said they couldn’t give me a pass because I’d signed this document.”

On July 26, 2017, Belknap County Superior Court Judge James O’Neill III ordered Brown to follow through on the property changes he had agreed to make or he would face penalties of $100 per day, increasing to $500 per day after Nov. 1 and $1,000 per day after Jan. 1.

That prompted some legislators to intervene on Brown’s behalf. Sen. Bob Giuda (R-Warren), Rep. Herbert Vadney (R-Meredith) and District 1 Executive Councilor Joe Kenney (R-Wakefield) met with the newly appointed DES commissioner, Robert Scott, on Sept. 1 to press for an immediate settlement.

Giuda has called the way DES handled the matter “a gross misapplication of the department’s mandate.”

To date, Brown has paid $30,000 in penalties and $6,000 in state attorney’s fees, and he said that, with his own legal costs and the $25,000 settlement, he will have spent close to a half-million dollars without ever having been found guilty of anything.

The consent decree states that Brown will not be required to make any alterations to the existing structures on the island, but “no land-based activities may take place on the boathouse roof.”

Additionally, the Wetlands Bureau administrator will approve and permit a shoreline stabilization plan worked out in November, with Brown bearing the full cost. There will be a deed restriction to allow no additional modifications, except to allow for maintenance and repair within the existing footprint, “in the same size, location, and configuration.”

The $25,000 penalty will be paid out in $5,000 increments over five years, with each payment made by the 15th of January.

Any failure to abide by the terms of the consent decree would render it void.

This is the property in 2005, a simpler one-story building. (Courtesy Bill Hemmel/Arialphotonh)