Freedom—December 5, 2024—Questions surrounding the proposed Wabanaki Campground conversion could be on the agenda for this Monday night’s Freedom Select Board meeting, per a citizen’s request.

Wabanaki owner/manager Mark Salvati wants to convert the business to a campground cooperative of 77 “units” with individual shareholders. Ten units remain available for sale, according to campground’s website. The rest have been reserved for buyers who made non-binding $5,000 deposits earlier this year.

Central to the conversion plan is Salvati’s January application to the N.H. Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau of the State Attorney General’s Office seeking registration under the Revised N.H. Statutes Title XXX Trade and Commerce Land Sales Full Disclosure Act.

The Disclosure Act protects the financial interests of prospective shareholders in co-op transactions. One of its provisions, Section 356-A:5I(n), defines the role played by the municipality where the conversion will take place, in this case Freedom.

Section 356-A:5I(n) requires the applicant to affirm to the Consumer Bureau that he has obtained all governmental permits and approvals. Examples listed in the application include approvals from Planning Boards, Zoning Boards and Building Inspectors.

Freedom has never publicly stated its expectations regarding approvals that need to be obtained and issues that need to be resolved in the Wabanaki conversion. That has left determination of what is required to the campground’s owner.

In his application to the state, Salvati stated that his compliance with Section 356-A:5I(n) was “pending,” inferring that the Planning Board’s decision on the “hutnick” expansions, which is currently before the board, is the final word on municipal compliance.

The state appears to be under that impression as well. In an eight-page letter sent to Salvati in March, the state took note of the word “pending” in regard to Section 356-A:5I(n) and wrote “The Bureau assumes this pertains to the Freedom Planning Board approval. If this is incorrect, kindly clarify.”

Salvati did not respond to the question or others posed in the letter.

Meanwhile, potential issues for the cooperative’s shareholders have been accumulating on the public record in board meetings and minutes. They include observations of shoreline erosion and drainage problems affecting the lake, zoning violations, and the legal standing of the “hutnicks.”

This week, Freedom resident Susan Hoople, who has extensively researched the campground’s history, asked the Select Board to put the campground conversion on its agenda for Monday night.

In a letter to the board she said she was making the request as a “concerned citizen with questions and concerns about the town’s role in considering the conversion,” not as a representative of any board or organization.

Hoople asked whether Salvati should have been required to submit an application to the Planning Board for a “cooperative/condominium,” noting that he told the board in February 2023 he intended to do so.

Instead, more than a year later he submitted a site plan application to “make improvements to an existing campground to include camp structure expansions, sanitary connections and improvements, etc.”

“This does not appear to address the need for town subdivision approval for the campground conversion to a cooperative so that Mr. Salvati can convey interests to share owners that will fall under the consumer protections of NH RSA 356-A,” Hoople wrote to the Select Board.

Hoople also noted that the minutes of the February 2023 Planning Board meeting state the board chair and zoning officer would be discussing the conversion with Town Counsel.

“Did Town Counsel advise them on what the Planning Board and Zoning Officer needed in order to accept and review a condominium/cooperative campground application? If not, why not?,” Hoople asked.

The Monday, December 9, Select Board meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at Freedom’s Town Office.