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 Farm 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 audience after the board decided that the meeting should 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 15-minute meeting in which the crowd talked over or shouted down the board for much of the time.
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].
At one point, during the board’s discussion about postponing, a male audience member loudly berated board member Elizabeth Richter, who had said, “Do you want us to continue the meeting? We’re happy to do that,” in response to audience protests.
“Oh, so now you’re asking me to tell you what to do?” the man responded, then unleashed a tirade as Sullivan and Chuck Myette, the selectboard liaison, attempted to quiet him down. The man turned his anger on Myette, who’d asked him to stop.
“Don’t give me orders,” he yelled.
Board members, for their part, remained fairly calm, but obviously frustrated through the 16-minute meeting.
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 either have to be in here and bear with it, or we postpone it. In fairness to everyone in the town, we think postponing is the right thing to do,” he said.
As some members of the crowd attempted to discuss that date with the board, others continued to grumble. One audience member told the board that they needed to be prepared to ask questions when they meet again, while others complained information hadn’t been available.
When Town Planner Andrew Hadik explained that the website had gone down Monday, making some documents unavailable online, it set the crowd off again.
“We are not going to be able to have a meeting and answer your questions if you keep yelling at us,” Hadik said. He asked for mutual respect, which incited more audience vitriol.
Board members listened for a few minutes as some audience members aired their complaints about trying to get information on the project, then took 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 is in danger of a lawsuit from the state for not meeting the state Workforce Housing Law “fair share” requirement for towns. The town has two-acre zoning for single-family homes, as well as open-space zoning, under which most of the homes in the last 20 years have been built. 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.
They were uploaded to the town website Monday, and can be found by clicking through the notice about Wednesday’s public hearing. A changeover in website providers made them temporarily inaccessible.
VIEW –>Planning Board Meeting video.