Winchester residents fired up about proposed shooting range

By Xander Landen Sentinel Staff

 
WINCHESTER — Residents took aim at a plan to build a shooting range in town Thursday night.
About 60 people gathered at the zoning board meeting where Ridgeline Shooting Sports LLC, a Massachusetts-based company, presented its design for a shooting range and wilderness survival skills training area that would be built on nearly 250 acres between Route 119 and Fenton Hill Road.
After the company’s presentation, about a dozen people spoke before the board, criticizing the proposal over economic, safety and noise concerns.

Sander Lee, who lives on Ashuelot Street, less than 700 feet from the proposed range, said during the meeting he’s worried about how the consistent sound of gun shots would affect the quality of life in town.

“We moved to this area because it’s a quiet rural peaceful area, and this is going to destroy that,” Lee said in an interview with The Sentinel before the meeting.

Alex Hartmann, the president of Ridgeline Shooting Sports, said the range would be designed to minimize noise pollution.

With the infrastructure his company is planning to put in place, Hartmann said he will be able to “bring (the sound) below the levels of the ambient sound on Route 119.”

A Plywall sound barrier designed to deflect sound waves would be built around part of the property, according to Ridgeline’s written application to the board.

Hartmann also said he would plant vegetation throughout the property to absorb some of the noise, and cover and side the 19 proposed lines of fire where shots would go off.

He acknowledged that it would be impossible to completely eliminate the sound of gun shots coming from the range.

Lee said even if the sounds of gun shots are muffled, the quality of life in the area will decrease significantly if residents can hear them on a regular basis.

“It’s going to fundamentally change the character of that area and that neighborhood,” he said.

Others residents were concerned about the danger a shooting range might pose to those who live near it.

Julianne Mallet, who lives off Fenton Hill Road, behind the proposed shooting range, said her house is in the same general direction as the line of fire. She said she’s worried about her two young children being hit by a stray bullet, or wandering onto the range.

“I know there’s a lot of mothers that are sitting here today and who are not sitting here today ... that are not OK with this,” Mallet said at the meeting.

But Hartmann said that with fences along the property, clearly posted signs and range security officers constantly monitoring activity on the firing range, it would be nearly impossible for someone to get injured.

“No one in the public would be in danger unless they purposely put themselves in danger,” he said in an interview with The Sentinel after the meeting.

Hartmann added that because the firing range sits 60 feet below properties on Fenton Hill Road, and because there would also be 20-foot-tall berms — walls designed to stop bullets — set up us a safety precaution at the level of the properties, Mallet and her children would not be put in danger by stray gunfire.

If the proposed gun range were built and opened, Hartmann estimates that 300 patrons would be drawn to the business every week. Not all patrons would be firing guns, however, as Hartmann said they would have to pass a series of strict tests before they could shoot.

“I can’t stress enough that it’s not like your normal gun club where a bunch of people show up to see how fast they can shoot,” Hartmann said.

Hartmann told town residents at the meeting that aside from the range, his business would also offer courses on how to use firearms, and educational programs to teach wilderness survival skills.

If it opened, he said, it would be an economic boon to the community.

As the only 1,000-yard shooting range in New England, Hartmann said it would draw in tourists from all over the region who would, in turn, pour money into Winchester’s local businesses.

But town residents argued the range would only create a handful of jobs for the area and cited lower property values as a potential cost to Winchester.

“The only benefit is to the owner of the range,” resident Paul Taylor said at the meeting.

Despite the criticism he heard at Thursday’s meeting, Hartmann said he’s already received a lot of support for the project and feels confident going forward.

“The thing with zoning meetings is that the people that want it don’t feel the need to come fight for it. ... The people that don’t want it are going to be the most outspoken,” Hartmann said.

Ridgeline came before the board Thursday night seeking a special exception and variance because the property on which it hopes to build spans commercial, residential and agricultural zoning districts.

At the end of the meeting, the board made a motion to continue the public hearing on the proposal, citing the public’s overwhelming concern over the project.

“I want to make sure that people have the opportunity to have their voices heard,” zoning board Chairman Lou Fox said.

The next public hearing on the proposal will be held Thursday, Sept. 8, at 7 p.m. at Winchester Town Hall.

Xander Landen can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1420 or xlanden@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @XLandenKS

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Winchester's quality of life is at stake

Two public hearings in Winchester Town Hall next week have the potential to dramatically affect the town’s center and the whole village of Ashuelot.
Residents who are concerned about life in Winchester during the next decades and beyond should attend those hearings and speak up. We need to ensure that discussion is thorough and open, and decisions are either well-reasoned or postponed until they can be well-reasoned.

On Monday, Aug. 8, at 7 p.m., the Historic District Commission will again take up the question of whether to allow demolition of a 200-year-old house in the town’s central square. This review process now seems more balanced than when it started, but we’re by no means out of the woods.

After initially canceling the customary step of a professional inventory of the house’s historical assets, the Historic District Commission did re-commission the survey, and indeed historian May Williams completed an excellent draft. That document asserts the property is eligible for inclusion in the state and federal Register of Historic Places.

Such eligibility, once confirmed by the state, means that a commercial developer who preserves the house’s historic value could benefit from valuable local and federal tax credits and from flexibility in how to meet the requirements of the building code. Related to this, the Winchester Revitalization/Economic Development Commission is brainstorming directly with the developer about how to profit from a development plan that preserves and utilizes the house, and perhaps the historic bank as well.

Not so positive are the emotional fireworks that hamper the Historic District Commission’s work. In recent months, Historic District Commission Chairman Denis Murphy twice formally tendered his resignation and then withdrew it. During a Historic District Commission meeting he inexplicably explained that “There really is no such thing as history, at least not since 1492,” and shortly thereafter stormed out of the meeting.

The commission has as yet delayed approving the minutes of two meetings, and the draft version of one set of minutes failed to include key events: the vote to re-schedule the historic survey; and the chairman’s explanation of why the commission previously voted to cancel the inventory. It was, he said, because a town employee had counseled him that guidelines did not specifically require it, and therefore scheduling could expose the town to a suit from the developer. That draft also did not record an apt observation by resident Chris Thompson. Thompson noted that it would be more prudent for the Historic District Commission to worry that residents would sue the town if it did NOT undertake the historic survey because that was central to the commission’s fulfilling its core responsibility.

On Thursday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m., the Zoning Board of Appeals takes up a developer’s request for a zoning variance in order to build a massive firing range and survival-skills park (the biggest in New England). The location is undeveloped and rural land between Old Chesterfield Road and Route 119. The developers have plans to mitigate noise pollution and chemical pollution, and to ensure safety for children, adults, and domestic and wild animals. However, at this point their assertions about mitigation are only theoretical. The challenge is for residents and the ZBA to be able to accurately test and evaluate what the nearly constant noise of gunfire will really be like.

Additionally, residents need to consider what it will be like to have armed survival-skill students wandering around at night in the acres abutting their properties. Further, we should consider other examples. With the introduction of louder and more powerful guns, there’s now a pattern across the country of such facilities ramping up, and a pattern, not surprisingly, of conflicts between the facilities and their neighbors. As nearby as Peterborough, residents have complained that the quality of their lives and value of their properties both lessened when the Monadnock Gun Club increased its noise impact and then refused to respond to a request from that town’s select board to try to quiet the operation. We may want to consider the experience and opinions of those in Peterborough.

I hope to see many neighbors at both hearings. Now is the time to make choices that will send the town rolling down particular roads. Will that development be the kind that it builds upon the real value we already have, stimulating a variety of businesses that will generate and spread income and wealth through our community? Or will that development liquidate our unique historical and environmental assets, for the benefit of others, and set a tone that will discourage, or even shut out, more beneficial and attractive development. It’s up to us.

PAUL DOBBS

Oppose shooting range in tranquil Ashuelot

We wish to urge all residents of Winchester to attend the town meeting on Thursday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. in the Winchester Town Hall to discuss the proposed shooting range.
We have lived in Ashuelot (part of Winchester) for 26 years. We strongly oppose opening a shooting range so close to our home. The constant noise and increased traffic would infringe on our peaceful lives. We have a right to continue our lives in the space we have created for ourselves; the shooting range would be a great detriment to that way of life. It would also dramatically change the lives of our neighbors, many of whom have small children and animals. The applicants claim there will be sound barriers, but no such barriers will be able to eliminate the shots with the range so close to our house. We are not opposed to shooting ranges located in appropriate commercial areas. This range, however, is planned for a residential area, where our neighbors and we will be greatly affected.

We are so disturbed by this possibility that we have even thought that we might have to move if the shooting range is approved. However, even this might not be possible, as having a shooting range so close will drastically reduce the property value of our home and that of our neighbors. We urge our neighbors, the members of the Zoning Board of Adjustment and all other relevant officials to oppose this special exception to the zoning laws.

Please, we beg you, do not allow this shooting range to ruin the tranquility of our lives and those of our neighbors.

Sincerely,

SANDER LEE and WENDY SMITH
 Ashuelot