New Hampshire Site Fight: Wal-Mart Hearing Delayed

Hearing on city’s rejection of new Wal-Mart superstore delayed [Nashua (New Hampshire) Telegraph]

Opening arguments in a lawsuit over the city’s rejection of a new Wal-Mart superstore on Amherst Street have been delayed.

Attorneys for the city and the owners of the Amherst Street property where Wal-Mart wants to build a 147,000-square-foot superstore were scheduled to debate the merits of the case today in Hillsborough County Superior Court.

But Judge Bernard Hampsey Jr. had to delay the hearing because of a scheduling conflict. A new hearing date has not yet been set but will be scheduled for sometime next week, said the court’s deputy clerk, Mike Scanlon.

The planning board in early 2006 narrowly voted to reject the Wal-Mart proposal, citing traffic concerns and the project’s proximity to wetlands.

Lawyers for AS-VR Realty are appealing the board’s decision, claiming in court papers that the board made several procedural errors before voting 4-3 against the project.

AS-VR attorneys Dean Eggert and Alison Bethel have argued the board’s decision was “unlawful and unreasonable” because it prevents their clients from making a reasonable use of their land.

Wal-Mart wants to tear down a Building 19 store on the 24-acre site and replace it with a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week superstore.

Eggert and Bethel contend that the mayor’s representative on the planning board should have stepped down from the case earlier than he did.

They also argue that a city engineer who opposed the plan should not have voted because he had “an inherent conflict of interest in the outcome of the vote.”

According to the suit, Streeter’s representative Mike Lowe participated in three public hearings on the plan, on Dec. 8, Dec. 15 and Jan. 5. During those hearings, he indicated he opposed the plan, and it wasn’t until Jan. 12 that he said he couldn’t vote on it because he was a friend of Allan Fuller, chairman of the Pennichuck Watershed Council.

Fuller and his group opposed the proposal because of the site’s proximity to streams and ponds that are part of the city’s drinking water supply. Fuller testified against the project Dec. 15. AS-VR argues that Lowe’s failure to disclose his relationship with Fuller “renders his participation in public hearings unlawful and unreasonable.”

The company is challenging city engineer Steve Dookran’s participation because of comments he made Jan. 12, after the public hearing was closed, when he surprised everyone by saying he felt Wal-Mart’s plan for road improvements on Amherst Street would not work.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, August 16, 2007

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