Camp Belknap Expansion
Hello Roy,
The purpose on the post is that the town selectman, planning board and zoning do not follow their own rules and state law. Also the selectman and Camp Belknap feel they have the authority to ignore a superior court judge.
The merits of the case are a whole other issue but certainly something Don and I are willing to share. The primary objection identified and offered by the camp in their own words is that a rifle range is a nuance. As they themselves state "the noise can be a nuisance to nearby programming and sleeping quarters". And then they go on to say "The new riffle range will be sited at the periphery of the camp". What they fail to recognize and consider, as usual, is that while the "nuisance" is away from their own activities it's now at the "periphery" next to and on Low Density Residential land. The abutters now have the burden of the sound. So while Camp Belknap selfishly improves and removes a "nuisance" of their own they simply put this burden on many other property owners and frankly much of the bay as this noise will be very close to the water and as we all know noise over water travels.
With regards to the noise and the amount of kids Seth Kassel, director of Camp Belknap clarifies it. In the range there will be 16 kids but as the rifle range is a big attraction the staging will be as much as three hundred kids. The noise of the rifles themselves is at issue but the greater issue is the kids in and around the range and now next to and on Low Density Residentially zoned property.
Specifically where the planning board has failed is this land was in conservation. The camp concocted some sort of conservation easement for their benefit that allowed them to just pull the land out of conservation. Frankly a meaningless conservation easement. Shame on ConCom. Either way the lot and land at issue that the camp owns is in a Low Density Residential zoning and if ever it were allowed to be used commercially it would need to go to ZBA which it never has. If ever this is heard by ZBA the top priority of ZBA is does this commercial use adverse effect the abutters quiet enjoyment and of course values.
I assume you are a property owner in Tuftonboro. I ask you to think of your own home with 300 kids screaming and yelling and clearly a "nuisance" as Camp Belknap's own director Seth Kassel labels it right next to your own home.
Camp Belknap acts as thought they are above the law. They were well aware that a stay order was in place. Hell they put one on the Owen family on Farm Island that lasted for over a year and WE RESPECTED THE LAW! They know what they are doing. So the town got a" SUMMONS". And although no one got incarcerated or fined they were certainly not acquitted. The stay order was reaffirmed and then just days later the town sings and memorandum crafted by Camp Belknap that again is against a superior court judge's order.
As property owners we need a town that respects zoning and the taxpayer's property. Our town is failing us and we are forced to use the superior court at our expense. It is our wish that the reader puts themselves in these abutting property owners shoes and simply just asks themselves what right does Camp Belknap have to remove the burden of their own "nuisance" and put on the back of others?
THE SUMMONS AND ORDERS TO FOLLOW.
THANK YOU FOR YOU INTEREST AND CONSIDERATION ROY
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