The little people win one!!

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Gary Scharoff
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The little people win one!!

Post by Gary Scharoff »

This is late but still pertinent to the history of Alton...

[b]THE LACONIA DAILY SUN, Saturday May 20,2006[/b]

[i]By Ray Carbone[/i]


ALTON- For more than 30 of his neighbors, it was good news last week when Bob Bahre, the owner of the New Hampshire International Speedway (NHIS), announced he dropped his plans to build a 52,000-square-foot automobile museum/entertainment center next to his waterfront Lake Winnipesaukee mansion.

Bahre's proposal became the center of a Town Hall squabble that led to the Board of Selectmen suing the Zoning board of Adjustment(ZBA) and Bahre. Last month some residents of Barndoor Island, which lies across fom Bahre's Clay Point estate, and Lakeside, a nearby residential development, filed a petition with the Belknap County Superior Court asking to be heard at the Superior Court hearing where the Selectboard would ask a justice to overturn the ZBA's decision to grant Bahre a building permit for the controversial structure. But just before things got to a courtroom, Bahre said, "Why fight with them all?", and abandoned his building permit request, effectively killing all legal proceedings.
Ron Bettencourt, the 30-year-Barndoor Island resident who led the neighbors charge against Bahre, said most of the people in the neighborhood felt the new structure simply would not fit in the area's zoning. "Our major complaint is that this is a single family residential zone. To put in such a monstrosity as that building and to call it a single family residence, it was a joke."

But calling it a single family residence was exactly what Bahre's lawyer did, and the ZBA bought the idea. Bahre's original building proposal was rejected by Code Enforcement Officer Brian Boyers who felt it was inappropriate for the shorefront residential district. Last year the ZBA overruled Boyer's decision, saying the 20,000-square foot caretaker's apartment on the top floor was enough to qualify the structure as a residence. That's when the Board of Selectmen got involved, backing Boyer's viewpoint.

Bettencourt, who was one of the few neighborhood residents to appear at the ZBA's hearings, is not an attorney, but a blacksmith. He said he got involved because he was one of the few people living in the 40-plus homes on the island who were aware of the situation. "They didn't notify us because we aren't abutters,"he said, referring to the town's planning department. "Nobody was notified. But nobody is here during the wintertime. These are mostly seasonal homeowners and everybody had gone home."

After Bettencort heard about the situation, he called Town Hall to get the details. Then he decided to make use of his e-mail and phone number lists to inform people in the area about Bahre's building proposal.
"I got it going because no one else did," he said. "I did all the legwork. We didn't have any lawyers so it didn't cost us anything except time... I typed up the motion on my computer and sent it around to everybody and everybody signed it," Bettencourt said. Nine families in the Lakeside development and seven on Barndoor Island responded quickly enough to get their names on the appeal, he added.

At one of the first ZBA hearings, Bettencourt referred to Bahre's lakeside estate as an "attractive nuisance." He said that since Bahre started building [color=red]his 29,000-square-feet home[/color] and the slighly smaller adjacent home of his son Gary - his neighbors endured five years of construction, boat and helicopter noise.
Ken Reader of Windham, who has lived on the island for about 30 years, says the question of the noise and the size of Bahre's buildings were immediate concerns for him. "The house took five years to build. You're only a quarter-mile away but you'd hear them on Sundays, the Fourth of July, every weekend - I don't know how he got those guys to work... And it (the proposed building) was 50,000-square-feet! The house itself isn't small, it's 29,000-square-feet. It's the biggest house on the lake and it's built well."

Now the estate attracts boaters from all over, said Becky Berk of Hooksett. "Part of the reason we bought this property was it was on one of the quietest parts of the lake," said Berk, who has owned a home on the island for 13 years. "When they built those properties, people started coming just to gawk. Essentially it's become a tourist destination. They pass right in front of our house. And they just sit and gawk."
"Now it attracts every single boat in this lake." Bettencourt agreed. "They come down here in those cigarette boats and they sit off-shore out there and they'll just idle their boats for a half-hour. And if you know those engines, you know how loud they are...Then they just take off."
"We knew that if they put that museum up on the point, put it up where everybody on the lake from Meredith could see it, it would be even more," he added.

Berk said she's always been disappointed about Bahre's treatment of the area. "I just felt that he wasn't very respectfull of the norms of the general area, and he was not particularly sensitive to the natural environment. My personal reason (for opposing the proposed building) was just feeling uncomfortable with such an open display of extravagance. Frankly, that was my primary reason... But before the property was purchased (by Bahre), it was a boy's camp, it was all wooded. I was upset that he basically clear-cut that entire lot. You lose all that habitat, the woods.... Now you put fertilizer down and that goes into the water."
Reider laughed when he heard that Bahre said he had decided against building his museum several months ago, but didn't tell officials until recently because he thought the town bodies were having "too much fun" in the legal dispute. "When you have big, big money and small town politics, they don't go together too well," he said.
But Bettencourt was dismayed. "I don't know if what we did had anything to do with his decision. But if he'd already decided months ago, that makes me really upset. We went through a lot of headaches. I would have thought he'd have had the decency to let us know when he decided. It would have saved us a lot of time."

In addition, the town would have saved money on legal fees, Bettencourt said. "It was a lousy way to do things as far as he was concerned."
Reader does not believe the building issue is completely dead. "My guess is he'll come back with a smaller proposall and hope it gets by. If he scales it back, it will probably please everybody."
Bahre's priceless collection of classic cars is now housed in Oxford, Maine. At this time, he has no plans to move it.
Duvke

Re: Environmental impact of new house

Post by Duvke »

I can recall an environmental atrocity perpetrated in the waters off Commisioners Rock by a certain BU Law Alum far more devastating to the habitats of Clay Point than any big house and car museum.
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Gary Scharoff
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Re: Environmental impact of new house

Post by Gary Scharoff »

[quote="Duvke"]I can recall an environmental atrocity perpetrated in the waters off Commisioners Rock by a certain BU Law Alum far more devastating to the habitats of Clay Point than any big house and car museum.[/quote]

We need at least a hint if we can't get any details!!!
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