Enfield
Last week, the Planning Board granted final approval for the construction of 18 new, single-family homes at the end of Evenchance Road. And another developer recently submitted plans to construct a mobile home park on Maple Street.
The Evenchance Road subdivision has long been in the works, according to Town Planner Scott Osgood. It initially was approved in 2006, he said, but fell dormant during the Great Recession.
The project was granted approval again in 2013 but didn’t gain traction until it was sold to Ryan Morse in April, Osgood said. Morse owns the Orford-based L & M Service Contractors and purchased the 178-acre site from Lebanon Property Management for $372,000, according to town assessing records.
Messages left for Morse on Thursday were not returned.
The project will create a cul-de-sac extension and side road at the end of Evenchance Road, a hilly road that overlooks Mascoma Lake near the Lebanon border. The actual home lots will only take up about 25 acres, according to plans submitted to the town.
On Maple Street, a developer is proposing to build 15-unit mobile home park on 7.8 acres north of the former Enfield Hardware store.
Art Conkey of the Canaan-based Conkey Enterprises hopes to put the homes on a new cul-de-sac with a common area and walking path. There are currently three mobile homes on the site, and they will remain, according to plans submitted to the town.
“It’s an attempt to make affordable housing,” Conkey said on Thursday. “I don’t really see much affordable housing in the Upper Valley.”
He said the mobile home park will allow people to find an inexpensive home at a time when taxes are increasing in much of the Mascoma Valley. Seniors in particular could use the development as a way to age in place, Conkey said.
If the project is approved, work will likely begin next summer with the replacement of failing septic systems and infrastructure improvements making way for the new houses sites, he said.
Although Conkey has applied for a variance to proceed, it’s not certain he needs one, according to Osgood. The town approved a mobile home park on the property in the 1960s and it could be considered a grandfathered use, he said.
“The safe bet is to meet with the Zoning Board and talk it out,” Osgood said, adding the project will have to go before the Planning Board for a site plan review.
Much of the proposed project, which neighbors Canaan to the north, is partially surrounded by mobile homes and wetlands. But that property has a history of septic issues, according to Keith Ford, who lives across the street.
Ford said that during particularly wet times of the year, he can walk to drainage ditches on his property and see sewage running out of them. He also said it could be difficult to develop on the nearby land because so much of it is considered wetlands.
Other than those two concerns, though, Ford said he wouldn’t have an issue with the park, saying he’s “not a not-in-my-backyard kind of person.”
Enfield resident Keith Foshey also shared the same concerns on Thursday. He owns a 1.2-acre camp just north of the property and hasn’t been able to develop the site because of wetlands. “I do know its wet. You’re on the down slope of the mountain,” he said.
Neighbors of the Evenchance subdivision also say they’re concerned about water, with some worrying that clear-cutting will lead to more floods.
“I am quite surprised to the extent in which they clear-cut up there. I was not expecting that at all,” Jonathan Weiss, who lives on the street, said on Thursday.
Trees were cut farther up the hill a few years ago, he said, resulting in water flowing through the neighborhood and down toward the lake. While his home hasn’t been impacted yet, Weiss said, his neighbors and those living on Route 4A are worried.
“There’s a lot of water that comes off the mountain,” he said.
That was evident when the developer attempted to selectively cut portions of the development this summer.
Residents reported seeing sediment in runoff from the logging, and some saw mud in the nearby streams that run into the lake, according to minutes from the Sept. 27 Planning Board meeting.
“It should have been done better from the logger, but it got taken care of,” Osgood said of the logging on Thursday.
The town and developer heard resident complains, he said, and steps have since been taken to slow water and trap sediment. Pathways Consulting, the town’s engineering firm, has also been hired to oversee future development of the site as a third-party overseer.
Still, some residents questioned the need for such a project when there already are houses for sale in Enfield and the lake.
“I see all those properties for sale all around the lake and wonder how much there is a need for houses,” Armin Helisch, another resident of Evenchance Road, said on Thursday. “Hopefully something good will come out of it.”
The Zoning Board is scheduled to discuss the Maple Street mobile home park proposal at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in the public works facility at 74 Lockehaven Road.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.