Another lawsuit looms for town
Freeman Klopott
Sentinel Staff
JAFFREY - Another lawsuit is now looming even as Robert Van Dyke’s plan to build 36 houses in the protected zone around Mount Monadnock takes small steps forward. A group of 20 Jaffrey residents and the Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests have filed a petition for a rehearing with Jaffrey’s zoning board. If the zoning board does not grant the motion for rehearing, they will likely file suit against the zoning board, said their attorney James F. Laboe. “We hold out hope that the zoning board will take a hard look at our motion and consider it,” Laboe said. But, “the petitioners are ready and willing to” go forward with a lawsuit. And the filing of the petition comes just days after the planning board pushed back a public hearing on the plan to January, citing a technical error. This is roughly the same group that sued in summer 2005, saying the planning and zoning boards failed to consider the regional impact of the plan to build in the Mountain Zone. The Mountain Zone was set up in the early 1990s by Jaffrey, Dublin, Troy and Marlborough to protect and preserve the rural character of Mount Monadnock. In August, Cheshire County Superior Court Judge John P. Arnold decided in favor of the group of 22 Jaffrey residents, the forest society and the towns of Dublin and Marlborough when he sent Van Dyke back to the starting gate. Arnold said the boards must consider the regional impact of the plan as required by the Mountain Zone ordinance. Since then, Van Dyke has made his way through the zoning board, receiving three waivers that, combined, allow him to build an open space development, with 36 units on 58 acres of property off Mountain Road. An open space development means Van Dyke can build more units than would otherwise be allowed on the property because he is leaving 41 acres for conservation. And, for the most part, the group’s petition contends those waivers were granted on shaky ground. A key piece of the petition, Laboe said, is that it alleges Van Dyke never properly set the minimum number of homes that could be built if this were not an open space development in a plan he submitted. In this plan, the petition contends, Van Dyke had homes built on wetlands and too close together. Far fewer homes should be allowed under those circumstances, the petition said. Petitioners also allege the zoning board violated right-to-know laws by deliberating in private. During its deliberation over the Van Dyke proposal, the petition said, the zoning board met privately with its attorney and then went to the public with the results of its deliberation when it met on Nov. 16. The right-to-know law, Laboe said, allows for boards to meet privately with attorneys when they’re discussing pending litigation, but it does not extend to deliberating over a public matter. Under state law, the zoning board has 30 days to respond to the petition. If it denies the rehearing, the petitioners have another 30 days to file a lawsuit in Cheshire County Superior Court.