Freedom—August 15, 2024—Bryan Berlind of Horizons Engineering opened the July 18 Freedom Planning Board meeting with an apology.

Saying he had previously done a “poor job” of explaining Wabanaki Campground’s proposed expansions of  a group of  bare-boned structures called “hutnicks,” Berlind promised to do better.

“I still maintain this is a very simple proposal,” he said of the commercial site plan application for the Ossipee Lake property, which was submitted to the town in March.

If approved by the board, the rehabbed “hutnicks” will be added to other building structures and the property’s 67 trailer campsites to create an inventory of 77 “units” to be sold to individual buyers. The property would then be managed co-op style as a “membership campground.”

The N.H. Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau of the Department of Justice will be evaluating the membership campground application and plan per the requirements of N.H. RSA 356-A, but not before all local regulations are met. That includes evaluating the “hutnick” expansions.

Horizons’ Berlind said the size of each “disturbed area” caused by the expansions would be the equivalent of just two parking spaces.

“It’s not a Home Depot, it’s not even a small mom and pop store,” he said regarding the increase in impermeable surfaces from the development work.

Berlind said the disturbances were “well distributed” and not close enough to create an “accumulated impact,” a statement seemingly at odds with the campground map behind him that showed the “hutnicks” clustered together, one of them inside the shorefront district.

Hovering over the discussion about drip lines and disturbed surfaces was a pending request by Horizons, on behalf of Mark Salvati, the campground’s owner/manager, to waive the 100-year stormwater plan required by Freedom’s Site Plan Review Regulations. Horizons said the plan was “unnecessary” because the expansions were “insignificant.”

While waiver requests are not uncommon, it was perhaps inevitable that this one would raise concerns because of the campground’s size and location on the big lake, and because of recent questions about the campground’s history.

In a series of emails to the Select Board from April to June, long-time Freedom resident and title search professional Susan Hoople used deeds and state databases to establish facts about the property after some of the town’s documents could not be located.

Among her findings was a 1970 approval of a 16-lot residential subdivision for the site. It included a system of drainage ditches, catch basins and culverts to capture and carry stormwater into the lake. The approval was later amended to prohibit camping on the property.

The subdivision was never built out, and the owners at some point began renting campsites to extended family and the public in apparent conflict with the subdivision approval. The current state of the stormwater drainage system on the 11-acre property is not publicly known.

With that as context, the Planning Board’s consideration of the waiver request for the “hutnick” stormwater plan evolved into broader questions about drainage. The applicant and his agent pushed back.

Horizons Engineering’s Berlind said he would “hate to see” the property turned into a three- or four-lot residential subdivision.

“I’m not making threats or anything,” he said, “but there is a permissible use, which is residential there.”

“The impermeable count by the time the McMansions go up would be far greater than what exists now or is being proposed today with this campground,” Berlind said.

A discussion ensued about whether a stormwater plan should encompass the entire property or just the impact of the “hutnick” expansions.

Planning Board member Brian Taylor argued for the entire property, saying that during an April site walk he saw “serious erosion” at the beach area, with “sand going into the lake.”

Board member Bob Rafferty countered with a motion to accept the applicant’s request to waive the stormwater study.

“The site hasn’t changed in over 100 years. I don’t see how it’s going to make a difference whether we have a study or not,” Rafferty said. His motion did not receive a second.

Select Board representative Les Babb argued that since the “hutnicks” will be new buildings, he wouldn’t want to waive everything.

“The calculation of the square footage of the roof and the runoff and the amount of water caught up in a 100-year storm determines how deep and wide those drip line trenches are,” he said.

Planning Board member Anne Cunningham said the board has in the past approved the kind of drip trenches being proposed, but noted that they can get filled with sand or pine needles and stop working.

“My concern is that this is a very densely developed site,” she said, agreeing with Taylor that there should be a stormwater plan for the entire site, adding that the board had an obligation to “get it right.”

Campground owner Salvati responded to the discussion by saying he might withdraw his application.

“I mean, you’re talking about I have to pay him [Horizons Engineering] to do the stormwater plan and that gets reviewed by someone [the third party] I pay as well,” he said.

Board Chair Linda Mailhot read from the site plan regulations to clarify that a stormwater plan is required for all site plans, and the requirement pertains to improvements on the property, not the full property.

The board agreed to require the stormwater plan and limit its scope to the impact of the “hutnick” improvements. It then voted 3 to 1, with one abstention, to hire a third-party to review Horizon’s plans in regard to runoff, soils, and wetlands.

The next Planning Board meeting on the Wabanaki application will be on September 19.