After hearing public testimony, taking a site walk and reviewing documents, members of the Boscawen zoning board denied a proposed Dollar General two of its five requested zoning variances.
Another variance was rendered moot, and the other two will be considered at a continuance scheduled for July 19 at 7 p.m.
This was in part the outcome asked for Tuesday night by abutters. In the second part of a continued public hearing from May 24, abutters told the zoning board their quality of life would be adversely affected by the Dollar General store proposed to be built at 169 King St.
Elaine Clow, who lives to the south of the property, said she was worried about losing the enjoyment she gets from working in the garden, watching cars go by on the porch and living a quiet life with a commercial business open between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. next door.
“The entire quality of life we enjoy now is going to disappear,” she said. Clow added that she moved in a decade ago in order to take over her family’s home. She said she has been told it was one of the two oldest houses in Boscawen and thought the historical spirit of the property should be preserved.
“In my house now you can see traces of the original 18-by-18-foot cabin” dating back centuries, Clow said.
Several other residents spoke in opposition to the project, citing traffic concerns, their dislike for Dollar General’s treatment of employees and their predictions of declining property values in the area.
Others asked whether the zoning board had all of the information it needed to make its decision.
Bill Murphy said to the board, “Does anybody know what this building is going to look like?” Though the board had drawings of a rectangular, brown building surrounded by a parking lot to refer to, Murphy wasn’t convinced that would be the final product. He described the rendering as “a square drawn on a piece of paper with a crayon by an 8-year-old.”
What the board does know it learned from testimony in May from Bohler Engineering representative Austin Turner, who spoke on behalf of Dollar General.
Draft minutes of the May 24 meeting show extensive notes from Turner’s presentation. He described a 9,100 square foot store receiving about 10 transactions an hour with 30 parking spaces, two signs and a stormwater system designed to Department of Environmental Services standards.
To better visualize those descriptions, board members visited the mostly wooded, elevated property along Route 3 before Tuesday’s meeting. Standing on the small concrete parking pad there, members asked Turner to explain some of his May testimony, and they also asked about the number of trees that would be removed.
Turner answered, “We’re going to keep as many as we can.” He added that the entire front of the property would be deforested.
Abutter Andy Newcomb wasn’t convinced this the tree situation would work with his property, from which he said he would be able to see the lights, hear car doors slamming and hear the “beep, beep, beep” of backing up tractor-trailers delivering merchandise.
“It negatively impacts my property,” he said.
At the two portions of the public hearing, no one spoke in favor of the Dollar General, and no abutters were in favor of the project.
When it came down to considering the applications to grant variances for the store being on a too-small, non-conforming lot, having too much area covered, and having too few parking spaces, board Chairwoman Gail Devoid said she felt obligated to stick to the spirit of the zoning ordinances approved by voters.
“This was voted in by the town because this is what the town wanted,” Devoid said.
The non-conforming lot variance was considered moot since it was an existing commercial lot, but the variances for coverage and parking were denied. Only Vice Chairman Ed Cherian voted to approve the coverage variance.
Dollar General’s requests for variances for its signs, which are currently too large and lit, still remain.
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)