Robert H. Miller
Phone: 603.627.8145
Fax: 603.641.2380
rmiller@sheehan.com
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St. Lawrence,Town of Warner Resolve Dispute Over Garage |
(October 16, 2006. Manchester, NH.) - Rick and Bonnie St. Lawrence will keep their new two-car garage after all.
And yet, the Town of Warner has also preserved its important interest in enforcing conformity with its local ordinances.
In a complicated agreement reached Wednesday night between the St. Lawrences and the Town of Warner Zoning Board of Adjustment and brokered by Sheehan Phinney land use litigator Rob Miller, Rick and Bonnie St. Lawrence acquired three separate area variances that will allow them to relocate their 720 square foot garage to a different footprint on their property — ending a dispute that had garnered statewide attention as the latest in a series of collisions between property owners and municipal boards in the ever increasing conflict over land use in New Hampshire.
The St. Lawrence property had featured a non-conforming two-car garage approximately 24 feet from the seasonal high water mark of the Warner River for more than 40 years. That garage collapsed in the 1990s, and the St. Lawrences removed the structure. When they replaced it last year with an expensive new garage on the same footprint, both the Town of Warner and the State of New Hampshire stepped in and ordered the St. Lawrences to remove it — as the structure, having not been replaced soon enough, had lost its grandfathered status and was, thus, in violation of a host of new state and local land use protections including the Shoreline Protection Act and various local setback requirements. The Town of Warner Board of Selectmen had threatened the St. Lawrences with hefty daily fines until the offending structure was removed. Concerns about possible FEMA involvement, implications for the Town of Warner's flood insurance policy, disputes over the precise boundaries of the Floodplain Overlay District and 100 and 500 year flood zones, and an enforcement letter from the Department of Environmental Services added additional layers of complication.
Last month, Attorney Miller argued the St. Lawrences' case before the Town of Warner Board of Selectmen, convincing the Selectboard to waive the accrued fines and to provide additional time for a reasonable compromise to be explored before the Board of Adjustment. Negotiations with the Department of Environmental Services followed.
The ZBA's approval of the three separate area variances represented the final step in the compromise, and cleared the way for the garage to be lifted by crane and relocated to the St. Lawrences' side yard — outside of the floodplain overlay district, and beyond the setback line required by the Shoreline Protection Act — satisfying all national, state and local concerns. The St. Lawrences expect to have their building permit in hand within a week, and to complete the project before the winter.
"The Town of Warner's municipal officials deserve a lot of credit for approaching this problem thoughtfully instead of simply driving it into expensive and protracted litigation," Miller noted. "As visible as this case was, let's hope that it can now stand as a prime example of what can happen when good and well-intentioned people get their heads together, and work hard to find common sense solutions to difficult problems."
Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green is a regional business law firm with offices in Boston, MA, and in Manchester, Concord and Lebanon, NH. The firm provides a broad range of sophisticated legal services to businesses and institutions in traditional and emerging areas of the law. Its diverse client base includes local and regional organizations, as well as national and international businesses with interests in the Northeast. |
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