10-16-07

Walpole Zoning Board Tackles Key Decision Tonight

Hears Developer’s “Special Exception” Argument

By Chuck Bingaman, Contributing Writer

            Keene developer Toby Tousley, Rockingham’s Chamberlain Machine and Walpole’s citizenry face off before the Zoning Board at Town Hall at 7:30 tonight in Tousley’s effort to get a special exception to agricultural zoning to enable Chamberlain to move to Walpole.

          Chamberlain, a successful Rockingham based firm that has outgrown its space there, wants to move to Walpole, and developer Tousley, owner of 34 acres known as Huntington Farms, partly commercial but mostly agricultural to the west of Route 12 behind Diamond Pizza, wants to bring them to his property. 

          The Walpole Planning Board in September recommended that the Zoning Board grant a “special exception” allowing the industrial use in the agriculturally zoned land but first the Zoning Board must approve. 

          But there are some issues to be resolved…

          Last March, with the proposed Chamberlain move in the headlines, Walpole voters by 591 to 501, decided not to change the zoning of Huntington Farms from agricultural to industrial, apparently confirming language in the town Master Plan that says that agricultural land should be preserved.  Some will argue that granting Tousley’s special exception for part of the land less than a year after the town vote runs counter to the expressed will of the voters.

            Community organizer and development opponent John Hansel has circulated a petition opposing the proposed “special exception” that he plans to submit to the Zoning Board tomorrow.  In his cover email, he opened by saying, “as you all remember, we defeated this same proposal at the polls last March.  This time it's 8 acres not 38 but the issue is the same:  do we want to lose any of our precious Agricultural acreage?  USDA says our floodplain farmland is some of the best in the US.  When will our Planning and Zoning Boards realize we meant to preserve it when we said so in the Master Plan and again when we voted last March?”

          In addition to overcoming the town vote argument, the language of the town zoning ordinance imposes clear conditions for the granting of a “special exception” including the following:

a.      property currently zoned for industrial, manufacturing and commercial operations is either unavailable or inadequate for the proposed use and, b., the proposed use is appropriate and consistent with the town’s Master Plan.

Hansel and others are expected to argue that the special exception cannot be granted because there is other commercial land available and adequate for Chamberlain’s use and that language in the town’s Master Plan specifically expresses the intent of the town to maintain its agriculturally zoned land.

    Even more ordinance conditions for granting a special exception include that the proposed use “must show that it will not infringe on the primary established use of the district” and that it could not “cause any undue hazard to health, safety or property values or which could be offensive to the public because of noise, vibration, excessive traffic, unsanitary conditions, noxious odor, smoke or other similar reason.”  Chamberlain’s factory on the site would certainly infringe on agricultural use of it, and its 45-50 employees and daily ingoing and outgoing delivery trucks would certainly increase traffic on Route 12, a point that many are expected to argue. Chamberlain does not emit smoke, sound, odors or unsanitary products.

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