CHESTER, NH – A public hearing on a proposed 34-unit tiny home development Wednesday night drew a large, loud and hostile crowd – too much for the Planning Board to accommodate – prompting the board to postpone the meeting until May 13.
The postponement happened quickly after the crowd came in hot, and tensions ratcheted up from there in the packed Town Office conference room. The May 13 hearing will take place in the larger multi-purpose room, which wasn’t set up Wednesday to allow streaming or provide microphones.
The Planning Board has yet to take any action on the Village at Buxton Farms proposal for 611 Haverhill Road, but a groundswell of detractors has built up on the Chester Front Porch Chatter Facebook page, and the more-than-standing room audience, which spilled out into the hallway, arrived Wednesday ready for a fight.
“We’ve never had this attitude from people since I’ve been on the board,” Chair Brian Sullivan told the crowd after he was shouted down while attempting to explain why the meeting would be postponed. Sullivan said he was shocked by the audience attitude.
“We haven’t even started with this application, so I don’t know where this is coming from,” he said.
Sullivan’s remarks came after a male audience member loudly and at length berated board member Elizabeth Richter, who had directed a general question to the audience about whether the postponement was acceptable.
The public hearing was the first step toward a board vote on a conditional use permit and site plan approval for the project, which would have 17 one-bedroom and 17 two-bedroom small homes, 504 square feet and 612 square feet, respectively.
The project, proposed by David Haddad, of DJ Construction, who owns the 20-acre parcel, is the first under the town’s 2024 Fair Market Rental ordinance, designed to bring more affordable housing to the town.
Sullivan said that the board has never had an audience as large as the Wednesday night’s.
The crowd talked loudly during the first agenda item, a hearing on and approval of a home business application by Timothy Callahan to operate a non-emergency medical transport business at 15 Sweet Briar Lane.
While some audience members conversed, drowning out the board, others shouted at the board that they couldn’t hear them. Requests by board members that the audience quiet down so that the board could be heard were met with angry responses and heckling.
While the board attempted to discuss and vote on whether to approve Callahan’s application, the audience conducted a voice vote to move the meeting to the multi-purpose room next door. [It appears Callahan’s application was approved].
After Sullivan and Chuck Myette, the selectboard representative on the board, managed to silence the man berating Richter, Myette explained that the larger room wasn’t set up for streaming or mics to that would allow them to hold the meeting there that night.
“We can either be here, and you not hear us, or postpone” the meeting and have the proper setup for the large audience, he said. Myette said the fairest thing would be to postpone the meeting.
That, too, was met with heckling from the crowd.
“We are not going to be able to have a meeting and answer your questions if you keep yelling at us,” Town Planner Andrew Hadik said. He asked for some respect.
The request for respect was met also with jeers from some audience members.
Board members listened for a few minutes as some audience members aired their complaints about trying to get information on the project before taking a vote that was barely audible, even to those watching on streaming, to close the public hearing and end the meeting.
The ‘fair share’ battle
The project is the first proposed under the town’s Fair Market Rental ordinance, which was passed at the 2024 Town Meeting.
The size and amount of units, the fact that they’re rentals, and even the process – the Planning Board reviewing it and issuing a conditional use permit if it meets all requirements – are laid out in the ordinance that was passed by town voters.
Hadik told Ink Link Monday that the town, which requires two-acre lots for single-family homes and has very little multi-family or rental housing, is in danger of a lawsuit from the state for not meeting the state Workforce Housing Law “fair share” requirement for towns. Rental property, in particular, is less than 2% of the town’s residential occupation, well below that of other area towns.
When residents weighed in during the 2017 and 2018 Master Plan process, they said that a town goal must be to provide more “affordable and reasonably priced” housing.
In a 1991 lawsuit by a developer, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled against the town, the decision saying, “Growth controls must not be imposed simply to exclude outsiders,” and “Towns may not refuse to confront the future by building a moat around themselves and pulling up the drawbridge.” But despite attempts since then to find ways to include more affordable housing, a 2021 workforce housing report found that Chester still had exclusionary “snob zoning.”
The new town ordinance allows a unique model, not only for Chester, but much of the state. Multi-family development on 10 acres or more with one and two-bedroom detached rental homes that conform to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development fair market rent parameters. The property has own owner, and the homes can never be sold individually. Rent must always conform to HUD’s fair-market rent for the area.
On Monday, abutters Jessica and David Masotta, 605 Haverhill Road, presented a “cease and desist” demand, a motion to stay and a “formal motion to deny” to the select board, planning board and Hadik.
The documents have no legal authority – only a court or government agency can issue a cease and desist or stay that is enforceable, and it has to be proven that the subject of the letters is acting illegally.
Hadik told Ink Link Wednesday that the letter, and others like it, will be considered by the board as petitions in opposition of the subdivision.
The demand is that the town “cease and desist any further approval permitting, processing and advancement” of the project. It cites the board’s “failure to demonstrate compliance” with New Hampshire RSA 674, which sets out land use regulations and duties of planning boards. Specifically in regards to zoning, site plan and land use requirements.
The document lists a number of issues, including infrastructure, traffic and environmental studies, as well as “violation of abutter due process rights.”
The stay cites “irreparable harm” to groundwater and the environment, and also says the project interferes with “lawful agricultural use.” The “motion to deny” cites, among other things, that “the scale and density” of the project “raises serious questions regarding consistency with the Town of Chester zoning ordinance and the Town’s Master Plan emphasizing rural and agricultural preservation.”
Most of the issues in the letters are things that will be addressed as the board reviews the application, which hasn’t happened yet.
While the Planning Board, at an April 1 workshop meeting with developer Haddad, indicated it liked the project, it has yet to take any action, aside from a vote April 1 to reduce the subdivision fee from $10,200 to $2,500. Haddad made the case that since he’s limited on what rents he can charge tenants, the project has be cost-effective in the development phase.
A complaint Wednesday night, as well as online, is that abutters were not notified about the public hearing until April 10. But state law requires abutters must receive notice at least 10 days before a meeting, so their notification was within normal range.
Wednesday’s audience, as well as the abutter letter to the town, cites a lack of information and transparency about the project.
Haddad, along with representatives from the Dubay Group, which is partnering on the project, appeared before the town’s Technical Review Committee on Oct. 6. Those minutes are available online. The TRC helps developers review aspects of projects before they go before town boards to help iron out any issues early on.
Town Planner Hadik also gave a brief update to the board about the project’s engineering review on Jan. 7. Those minutes are online as well.
Documents related to the project, have not been as easy to access, but it’s not unusual for site plans and other documents not to be available before they are formally submitted to a board for review.
Hadik aid Monday that they were uploaded to the town website, but an issue during a changeover in website providers made them temporarily inaccessible. As of Wednesday night, the project plans still didn’t appear to be available on the town’s website, though the public hearing notice said they could be found on the Planning Board page.
VIEW –>Planning Board Meeting video.