1-27-08

Walpole Residents Appeal Zoning Board Ruling

By Chuck Bingaman, Contributing Writer

            Four Walpole citizens are challenging the Walpole Zoning Board’s decision December 5 to grant a special exception to rural agricultural zoning intended to enable Chamberlain Machine of Rockingham VT to build a new factory off Rt. 12.

            Kathy White, Clarence (Clancy) Houghton, Dr. Jennifer Palmiotto and Tucker Burr filed the appeal to the zoning board decision January 4 in Superior Court in Keene.  Through their lawyer, Geoffrey J. Ransom of Concord, they are arguing that the requirements for a special exception to zoning were not satisfied and that Walpole’s Well Source Protection Ordinance prohibits any industrial use that involves on-site handling, storage or recycling of hazardous materials in the well source protection district.

            “We are not so much opposed to Chamberlain,” said attorney Ransom last Friday, “as we think the zoning board failed to follow their own procedures and the provisions of the Well Source Protection District.”

            Petitioner Palmiotto, Lead Staff Officer and a Source Water Protection Specialist for the Granite State Rural Water Association, had voiced her opposition to the special exception during the hearings last fall and noted that she had worked closely with the town of Walpole in 2002 to develop its drinking water protection plan. She is proceeding as an appellant in her individual capacity.

            Chamberlain Machine, a family business established in the 1940s in Bellows Falls VT, employs 50 people who manufacture high quality precision-machined products, including pumps of all kinds and other metal pieces.  While it uses solvents, lubricants and coolants of several kinds, company officers have maintained all along that they are not toxic.  The company needs to expand its plant and has no room to grow at its current site.

            The Walpole Planning Board recommended to the Zoning Board of Adjustment that it grant Chamberlain a special exception to 12.15 acres of the 34 acres parcel off Rt. 12 behind Diamond Pizza to build a new 42,000 square foot manufacturing facility.  The land is currently zoned rural agricultural, and Walpole voters turned down a warrant article in March 2007 to rezone it industrial.  Almost all of the 12 acres in question are in the well source protection district that secures the town’s “river well” that serves 922 residents and businesses in Walpole.

            As rezoning and zoning variances seemed out of the question for Chamberlain’s desired move, they sought a special exception to the zoning.  To get such an exception, Chamberlain had to persuade the planning and zoning boards that other property currently zoned for industrial or manufacturing operations was either unavailable or inadequate for their use and that their intended use was appropriate and consistent with the town’s Master Plan.  Further, they had to show, according to the ordinance, that their use would 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.” 

            Even if Chamberlain persuaded the boards that they met those conditions, they faced another hurdle: the town Well Source Protection Ordinance.  That ordinance allows a Conditional Use Permit to enable a company to operate in the well source protection district only if it does not involve the handling, disposal, storage, processing or recycling of hazardous or toxic materials.  And that ordinance defines “hazardous or toxic materials” as those which pose a “present or potential hazard” to human health or the environment, an even higher barrier to approval than those in the zoning ordinance.

            The appellants are arguing that the zoning board failed to require Chamberlain to meet the requirements of the ordinances before granting the special exception and that its granting of the exception was, therefore, “unreasonable and unlawfully determined.”

            “The ZBA meeting minutes reveal,” argues the appellants’ filing, “that on balance, the Planning Board and the ZBA gave more weight to the potential for increased tax revenue and potential jobs than carefully considering the water quality concerns raised by the Town of Walpole Conservation Commission, the Granite State Rural Water Association and the individual members who spoke in favor of reducing risks to the Town’s unique and precious water supply located beneath the subject property.”

            Appellants are asking the Superior Court to rule the zoning board’s decisions unlawful and to send the matter back to the zoning board for a redetermination of the application for special exception.  The town will have an opportunity to file its written arguments supporting the zoning board’s decision and possibly ask for an opportunity to argue its views in open court.

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