CLAREMONT — The Conservation Commission is hoping its staunch opposition will prevent removal of a “wet meadow” along Charlestown Road where the owner of a Ford dealership plans to construct a 20,390-square-foot building for a second dealership.
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services has scheduled a public hearing for July 13 in Concord on the wetland application from the Ford dealer. The application seeks approval to remove nearly 26,000 square feet of the wet meadow between Lane Ridge Road and the south side of the driveway that links the existing Ford dealership, built in 2017, to Charlestown Road.
The location of the proposed dealership is at the corner of Lane Ridge Road and Charlestown Road. To the north, it would abut the driveway of the existing dealership, according to plans on file in the Planning and Development office. A small section of the wet area between Charlestown Road and the paved parking lot of the dealership would remain.
The Planning Board approved the site plan for the project about a year ago but did not address objection by the Conservation Commission, saying the issue was not within its purview. The wetlands permit application was submitted in early August 2021.
The Conservation Commission heard a presentation in mid-August from Ken Robinson, a certified wetlands scientist with Fieldstone Land Consultants of Milford, N.H.
A month after the meeting with Robinson, the commission sent a strongly worded three-page letter to New Hampshire DES explaining its rationale for opposing the wetlands permit.
“The Commission finds great value in these wet meadows and has struggled continuously and consistently to convince the owner of that value,” states the letter, signed by Commission Chairman Gary Dickerman.
The letter further states that its requests to have not persuaded the owner, Chris Gomes, to halt mowing of the meadow — “though he has the right to do so under certain circumstances.”
“Not mowing the vegetation will preserve the natural home of the insects, amphibians and birds that utilize it,” Dickerman wrote.
At its meeting last August, the commission suggested moving the location of the new dealership farther west, to protect the wet meadow. Reached this week, Gomes declined to comment on the application but did say moving the proposed dealership away from the wet meadow near Charlestown Road is not under consideration.
According to the letter from the commission to DES, moving the site plan is not acceptable to Gomes for a few reasons. Among those was avoiding another wet spot to the west and making sure vehicles are clearly visible to traffic on Charlestown Road. Robinson told the commission, the letter states, that a wet area next to a busy roadway has much lower ecological value and most of the road has been commercially developed.
Across the street from the Ford dealership is a convenience store and gas station, and to the north are Toyota and Subaru dealerships with several other businesses, including Collision Pro, Dunkin’, a manufacturing business and a credit union along a roughly half-mile strip. There also is a new Mazda dealership where the McGee Toyota was located before it built its new dealership on Charlestown Road.
In its response, also contained in the letter, the commission said the project is trying to avoid an 8,000-square-foot area in favor of “destroying” a much larger one.
“The fact that this wet meadow is the last of its kind in the neighborhood is not justification for its destruction,” the commission’s letter states. “The lifeforms that rely on this wet meadow for their homes, food, etc., will have nowhere to go once it is buried beneath asphalt.”
The commission also told the DES the loss of a wetland conflicts with the stated goals in the city’s master plan, which calls for the protection of these natural resources.
“The Commission respectfully takes the stand that every wet meadow is of value and every effort must be made to preserve them before they are all paved over or built on,” the Commission argued, concluding its letter with the recommendation that DES deny the permit.
The July 13 public hearing is at 2 p.m. in the auditorium at DES on Hazen Drive in Concord.
Commission member James Contois asked DES, through state Sen. Sue Prentiss, D-Lebanon, to move the hearing to Claremont, but that request was denied.
A message left on Friday for Tyler Davidson, a wetlands scientist at DES, was not immediately returned.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
