A proposal to develop a former brick mill building at 21 Chamberlin St. in Greenville into a drug- and alcohol-treatment center has been continued again, without discussion, due to a miscommunication between the town and applicant.
Applicant Georges Realty has proposed to renovate the building to turn it into a facility for patients who would stay between 60 and 90 days for inpatient treatment.
The majority of audience members at Thursday’s Planning Board meeting appeared to be in attendance for the purpose of giving feedback on the rehabilitation center project, leaving directly after the continuance.
Letters from David Eckman, principal engineer for Eckman Engineering, representing the project, sent to both New Hampshire Environmental Services and the Souhegan Local River Advisory Committee on April 20 indicated that the applicants intended to request a continuance of the meeting until at least the following month.
While notices for the meeting did include the rehabilitation center, town’s website and the agenda for the meeting noted that a continuance was anticipated.
Representatives for the applicant told the board that this was a miscommunication – that while the applicant was not prepared to complete its presentation on Thursday, representatives were prepared to speak on the application and receive feedback to further refine it. However, the board felt that because of the noticing of the intent to continue, it would be unfair to the public to allow the presentation to move forward or to take public comment.
The hearing was continued until June 15 at 7 p.m. at the Mascenic SAU offices.
In a separate case, the board reviewed a proposal for a new commercial and flex space on Blanche Farm Road, in the location of the former Greenville Zoo, and more recently multifamily homes.
The board reviewed the application for completeness, but although members did not raise major issues with the two new buildings expected to be built on the property – one a 4,000-square-foot building commercial offices and the other an 16,800-square-foot flex space likely to be used by contractors – the board was concerned about the lack of information about a business already operating on the site.
An existing garage on the property has been used as a business for assembling trailers, but never underwent a site plan approval. The owner of the business did appear before the board for a conceptual hearing, but then never filed an official plan until the proposal for the commercial offices and flex space.
While those plans included the footprint of the trailer garage, they did not have any reference to the business or items such as hours of operation, or number of employees.
“Without having that, to me it’s incomplete,” said board Chair Mike Sadowski.
The board discussed accepting the application as complete, with conditions to add information about the existing business, to allow the public hearing on the merits of the project to move forward on June 8, as originally planned, but Sadowski said he wasn’t comfortable with that option.
“A small condition, I could see. To me, this is not a small condition,” Sadowski said.
After discussion, the board agreed to continue the acceptance hearing to June 8, at 7 p.m., at the Mascenic SAU offices, but allowed that if the updated application was satisfactory to the board, that the board would also hold a public hearing on the merits the same night, after accepting the application as complete.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.