Freedom—February 25, 2025—Two conservation organizations last week challenged Wabanaki Campground’s plan to expand four rental structures called “hutnicks” in preparation to sell shares of the 11-acre Ossipee Lake property to the public as part of a cooperative.
In separate letters, Freedom Conservation Commission and Ossipee Lake Alliance recommended that Freedom’s Planning Board deny the application, saying there was a need for a “site-wide” approach to addressing the property’s zoning and environmental issues, including runoff into the lake.
At Thursday night’s Planning Board meeting, campground owner Mark Salvati asked that the application be continued to March, which was granted.
The letters from the two organizations came after the release of a 22-page professional review of the application that concluded it should be withdrawn or denied because of “inconsistencies and regulatory problems.”
The review, by TND Engineering of Portsmouth, was sought by Ossipee Lake Alliance and campground abutters Maureen and Dr. Anthony Raynes after the campground’s agent, Horizons Engineering, failed to comply with a Planning Board directive that it “strip back” its documents and focus on the “hutnicks.”
Planning Board members issued the directive last month after concluding they no longer understood what they were being asked to approve because each plan revision contained changes to the campground that were unrelated to the “hutnicks.”
Horizons responded by submitting a new plan that was based on an April 2024 document instead of the January 2024 document the board specified, and still showed the entire campground in addition to the “hutnicks.” The board declined to take up the new plan.
Last year, several board members and a town resident speaking publicly cautioned Board Chair Linda Mailhot that an approval of the “hutnicks” using a plan showing the entire campground could potentially allow the document to be used as a subdivision plan.
“Hutnicks” that the state described in 2001 as “simple enclosures (walls and a roof) with no sanitary facilities” evolved without approvals into cabins with porches and outdoor appliances by 2011, as shown in a Wabanaki Facebook post from that year.
That possibility was also raised in TND Engineering’s report, which called the Horizons submission a subdivision plan in all but name.
The report pointed to the application’s “depiction of the lines and labeling of units” for “closed parcels,” and the campground’s sales materials promoting the opportunity to “own a little piece of paradise” by purchasing “lots” and “units” of the property.
“Whether paradise or not, whether for sale or lease, or rent, this is all very clearly a subdivision proposal as defined by the town and the State,” TND Engineering’s Rick Chellman said, adding that the application needed to comply with subdivision requirements.
Chellman said a 2000-2001 DES subdivision plan for Wabanaki’s water and septic systems described the “hutnick” structures as “simple enclosures (walls and a roof) with no sanitary facilities.”
He used a digital overlay to compare the DES document with the Horizons plan and concluded that the “hutnicks” appear to have already been improved and expanded without state or town approvals.
Pointing to RSA 216, which regulates Recreational Campgrounds and Camping Parks, he said that “At least 5 of the 8 ‘hutnicks’ appear to exceed the [state’s] 400 sq. ft. limitation to qualify as one of the 3 allowed [types of] campsites by statute.” Five of the “hutnicks” also lack street access in apparent violation of RSA 674:41.
The report took particular aim at Horizons Engineering’s January 30 cover letter asking the Planning Board to focus on the “hutnicks” despite all of the extraneous material in the five-sheet submission.
“The submitted plans depict fundamental noncompliance with town and State regulations that the applicant seeks to remove from the Board’s attention, namely the zoning ordinance, the site plan review regulations and State statutes.”
While the review did not cover septic disposal, water lines and related physical features shown in the Horizons submission, it cited an environmental consequence of the campground’s addition of an extra apartment to its apartment building after a 2007 fire.
The increase from 3 to 4 apartments, which was not approved by the state or the town, resulted in a 33% increase over the authorized septic flow that was not corrected until the septic system was modified two years ago, the report stated.
“That represented a 33% overloading of the leach field for approximately 16 years, all inside the Shorefront Overlay District.”