The Manchester City Council and Mayor?s office have big plans to develop land along the Merrimack River.
The well-publicized project includes a baseball stadium, a hotel, condos and retail shops.
In an effort to keep the plan moving quickly, city leaders are seeking an unprecedented exemption to the state?s Shoreland Protection Act.
That decision has raised a number of eyebrows in the environmental community.
NHPR's Dan Gorenstein reports.
Manchester Alderman Dan O'Neil describes the scrap of land the city wants to develop as long and thin.
It's squeezed by the river on one side and railroad tracks on the other.
And because of the land's limitations, developers might have to encroach on space protected by the Shoreland Protection Act.
O'Neil says no one wants to get that close to the river.
But just in case, the city wants an exemption from the Shoreland Protection Act.
17:50 there may not be a need for an exemption on the site. But what city staff has tried to lay out is all the contingencies and if there is a need that the process has begun. This project is on a very tight timeframe and if we wait for later to decide we need an exemption, it will bring the project to a halt.
And halting the project is something the city certainly doesn't want.
The baseball park, hotel, retail stores etc could mean 70-75 million dollars of private investment to Manchester.
Most city leaders are banking on this development to be the next great project to bring Manchester up into the big leagues of New England cities.
But at least a few city alderman, including Betsy DeeVries voted against seeking a shoreland act exemption.
3:14 : It was something I was not in favor, not as for concern over the shoreline, b/c I believe they have demonstrated in the plans that their effect is going ot be minimal. The difficulty I had, it did not go through our conservation commission, I saw that as a grave oversight.
The Manchester Conservation Commission is composed of seven volunteers with environmental backgrounds.
One Commission function is to perform site inspections of areas where construction may interfere with natural resources.
Commissioners also advise the city and private developers on project planning.
But in this case, the alderman didn't seek the commissioner's advice.
Instead, the council notified the commission the city would move ahead with an exemption.
Conservation Commissioner Jen Drociak says the local group does have concerns.
2:36 one of the commissioners brought up a concern about a stand of pine trees which are used as roosting with bald eagles in the city. the second one is tree cutting on the shoreland - we are concerned about erosion and habitat loss, and lastly there is combined sewer overflow- in times of heavy snow melt or rain, raw sewage dumps into the river.
The Shoreland Protection Act sets minimum standards for erosion control, fertilizer use, buffer zones and drainage.
The Department of Environmental Services Gary Springs believes Manchester's is the first exemption request in the act's nine-year history.
But if Manchester wants to move quickly on the Merrimack project, Springs isn't so sure getting an exemption is the best move.
Track 6
: 1:31 how long would it take to gain an exemption - I don't know. A lot of it would depend on the information we received. If what we get is satisfactory in the first shot, we could probably go very quickly. If we need other information, that information has to get gathered, I honestly don't know, I've never done it before.
Springs admits many of the Shoreland Act requirements exist in other permit regulations, but not all of them.
2:31 - there's the restrictions to the use of fertilizer - we have a 50ft setback from the river from all structures and there is a requirement for a natural woodland buffer be maintained within 150 ft of the water.
Alderman O'Neil takes exception to environmental critics of the project.
He maintains that not only will the plan result in a cleaner site, but city leaders have an established record of being good natural resource stewards.
13:37 - I can remember you couldn't go near the water, the different colors, you didn't know what the hell was in it - I think the city has been aggressive in protecting the environment. I guess I get a little mad when people try to accuse us we are headed in the other direction.
But long-time Manchester activist and one-time state Representative Don Welsh doesn't believe the city is acting in an environmentally responsible way.
4:39 we all have a respect and love for the beauty of what we have in NH, and when we start tinkering with these acts, in this case the shoreline act, we start going down a slippery slope. The exemption and the criteria DES looks at is in the purview of the public benefit.
Both the Audubon Society and the Conservation Law Foundation have promised to monitor the situation.
City leaders hope to watch a baseball game in a new stadium by 2004.
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
