Lebanon
Burlington-based ICV Holdings of New Hampshire plans to develop the building on a 44-acre parcel next to the Mascoma Corporation’s Research and Development facility at 67 Etna Road. It would house apartments on four stories with two stories of garage parking underneath. Land not used for the complex would be left for “passive recreation,” with the developers open to laying out trails.
The site was previously approved to become home to a new office building starting in 2008, followed by two 2-year extensions that expired in 2012. The project stalled as the developers waited for completion of the city’s sewer improvement project.
Changing the plans from an office building to an apartment complex will generate less traffic, according to ICV. The latest plans for an office building estimated it would see 105 morning peak trips and 131 in the afternoon. The proposed apartments would reduce those numbers to 40 peak morning trips and 59 in the afternoon.
The developers also believe that the traffic patterns of residents would be different from office employees and would send fewer cars south on Route 120 through the Heater Road and Exit 18 intersections.
In other business, the Planning Board members, neighbors and the owner of Carter Country Club expressed frustration with the pace of the board’s preliminary review for more than 300 single-family homes at the site. Initial plans were submitted about 11 months ago.
“There is a lot of information for everyone to digest, and there has been numerous staff memos with more information to digest and there have been multitudes of letters from the abutters that we have yet to address,” board member Carl Porter said.
He said the process of reviewing plans for the development haven’t been simple and it’s a lot of work for regular people with jobs to take on. The hour to hour and a half discussions every month also aren’t enough to properly advance things, he said.
“We should be taking this in larger chunks, much larger chunks than we have,” Porter said.
Developer Doug Homan told the board that he expected the review to take a while, but “not this long.”
“I didn’t think it was going to be a short process, but I did not expect that we’d be here a year (later),” he said. “We would like to get it moving. We’d like to bring it to a conclusion and go to the next step.”
Tensions also arose when Sarah Welsch, the City Council’s new representative on the board, called the development “personally disturbing.”
Before she could say more, board member Joan Monroe stopped Welsch and told her that the board should remain impartial until making final deliberations at the end of the review.
Welsch later walked back her comments.
“I apologize first for my ignorance as well as for the comment I made earlier,” Welsch said. “I think it’s very important that you know that I’m going into this having read only a small portion of the documentation that you and your associate have brought to us.”
To speed up the review, the board asked city planning employees to compile the comments they’ve so far given to Homan on the project. They also considered holding a meeting to only discuss the development.
The Planning Board will next meet at 10 a.m. on April 30 for a site walk of the southeast corner of Homan’s proposed development. They’ll then meet again at 6:30 p.m. on May 9 at City Hall for their regular meeting.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.