Something fishy going on in Winchester

The Keene Sentinel January 27, 2008
Letter to the Editor

To The sentinel:

This letter is in response to an article in the Regional section

of the Sentinel, published on Jan 10th, 2008, under the heading,

"Briefs".

The article, headlined, "Waivers Granted For Housing Plan"

stated: "A proposal to build 32 condominium units in Winchester

may be approaching it's second judgment day after the granting of

several new waivers by The Winchester Planning Board ..."

Outrageous!

Every taxpayer in Winchester should be up in arms over this

decision by the Planning Board and especially chairperson

Margaret Sharra, over her push to reopen the application of the 32

unit condo project, which had been previously denied by unanimous

vote at the Sept 19th meeting.

Mr Jack Marsh had convinced the board to deny this application

based on town law and his and the board's concerns that many

issues had been left unresolved.

Now,suddenly the board has done a complete turnaround and has

granted three of four waivers submitted to the town board by

Mr Vandyke's attorney and representatives of the engineering firm hired

to develop this project.

This includes granting a waiver to allow Mr Vandyke relief from having

to submit a completed application, as required by the town zoning laws

on any building project,under the premise this would cause him undue

hardship by having to spend the money required to submit completed

design changes.

The Planning Board also granted Mr. Van Dyke a special waiver to

intrude upon the required 100 foot buffer zone surrounding the project,

meant to protect abutters and wetlands, to construct water retention

ponds and culverts; which will channel runoff from the project onto the

adjacent neighbors' properties.

They are also allowing him to extend the entrance to the cul-de-sac

125 feet over the zoning ordinance requirement of 400' simply because

his lot layout doesn't meet the criteria,not because of any topographic

obstacles. As stated in the article, this proposed project just doesn't

fit the terrain.

No mention of the impact of leaching upwards of 20,000 gallons of

live sewage into the hillside behind existing neighborhood homes or

whose responsibility it will be to provide for these people if their water

and septic systems fail.

Nor did they have concerns what impact the approval of this project

will do to our over strained $10,000,000.00 school budget and our

property taxes.

As a member of the budget committee, I know firsthand how fragile

the school budget is. What's the impact going to be once these 32,

two- to- three bedroom units are occupied by school children?

Many of our citizens are not aware that Winchester taxpayers

currently pay the fourth-highest rate in the state.

Why have they granted all of these exemptions of the zoning

ordinance rules for this applicant?

Is Margaret Sharra, working for the townspeople; or is she

actually pandering to this applicant? Was Sharra, at the October

15th, Planning Board meeting, working in the best interest of the

town when she introduced the matter of reconsideration, passing

out documents she researched, to planning board members

indicating other towns being sued, casting out fear that the board

acted too hastily?

I feel that there is more going on here than meets the eye and that

there are other interests at stake,based on the out come of the

board's decisions.

When I questioned why certain members did not recuse themselves

when there was a special interest in the outcome of their vote, I was

verbally attacked by certain members of the board for raising these

concerns.

Have some of our board members broken their oaths; to protect the

rights, health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Winchester and to

enforce and abide by all of our current land use rules and zoning laws,

by showing their indifference to their responsibilities?

Citizens of Winchester, I implore you to stand up for our town, to be
present at the next Planning Board meeting on February 11th
( call the town hall for time )
Call or write the selectman and planning board members.

BOB DAVIS
893 Old Westmport Road
Winchester