One of the slides shown to Penacook residents curious about the future of the Rivco manufacturing plant showed tree-lined streets and new townhouses.
There were just two cars visible, one parked, one seen in the middle of the road in what looked like an idyllic scene from a children’s book. No traffic. Lots of room to walk. You could almost hear birds chirping.
Another image shows a sleek five-story building with a sitting bench out in front of neatly trimmed flower beds. The modern structure could hold a number of different uses – condos, retail, even some office space.
A third slide shows a row of tidy detached single-family homes with green lawns under a blue sky. The arching sidewalks next to newly planted trees were an open invitation to take a stroll.
“We want to see a project that works for all,” owner John Wolters told the packed cafeteria at Merrimack Valley High School. “We’re not proposing Section 8. Part of the attraction is that beautiful river that flows in the back.”
And while the Contoocook River is, indeed, nice as it moves toward the mighty Merrimack, the undercurrent of neighborhood skepticism and concern could not be ignored because of a few pretty pictures.
Wolters – who invested in the Rivco Building complex and has been looking to sell for the past few years – learned quickly that Penacook features a tough, gritty, no-nonsense crowd. The identity of the area, long living in the shadow of big-brother Concord six miles to the south, was in the hands of an outsider, and those in attendance were ready to grill Wolters like sausage on a summer day.
And they did, playing devil’s advocate to any rosy scenarios Wolters tossed out as he seeks to rezone the parcel to allow the types of mixed-uses he showed in his slideshow. Like the one with the trees and townhouses that, along with the possibility of retail shops, made residents wonder about traffic, parking and property values.
Nice idea, they said, but is there really enough room down Merrimack Street, near Penacook and Rolfe streets, for this sort of vision? Wolters and his attorney, Philip Hastings, mentioned that increased parking and congestion would not be significant enough to rob the area its charm, nestled just down the street from the cows of Morrill Farm Dairy.
No one really bought that, though. Some people chuckled, finding nothing funny about it, their way of calling the notion ridiculous.
The idea to build a pair of six-story apartment buildings created the most noise, prompting one resident to ask, “Would Mr. Wolters want a six-story building in his frontyard?”
“It all sounds so utopic,” Cathy Lord said by phone after the meeting. “He’s painting a picture to get us to grab for the carrot. Traffic is a huge concern. That much on Merrimack Street would be a nightmare.”
Some residents mentioned the investments they’ve made in Penacook. Not monetary investments. Life investments.
Kids grew up there, then their kids grew up there, then their kids grew up there, and on and on it’s gone for a lot of people. Giving the green light on any idea Wolters comes up with is a scary thought, its nature so permanent, its future so hard to gauge.
Considering the topic, though, with its huge impact on the community, the dialogue was relatively tame. Hastings said he did not sense any sort of crowd softening by the end of the 2½-hour meeting, but at least there was no brawling.
Not yet.
“People have their opinions and they want to impart that information,” Hastings said. “We did our best. At the end, some people spoke and thanked John for coming. I took away that it was a respectful exchange. I have been in other communities and that has not always been the case.”
Penacook residents’ empathy for Wolters went only so far, however. Yes, they appreciated that Wolters stood before a nervous crowd and answered every question. And they sensed he was genuinely trying to reach a compromise, find a solution so Penacook would not be the home for something like a foul-smelling chicken factory.
But citizens were quick to point out that Wolters had been trying to sell or lease for a few years now, and after last week’s meeting they feared he had extended an olive branch, while hiding his true reason for accepting the Penacook Village Association’s invitation to meet: panic.
“He’s been trying to lease space and so now he is looking for something else to do,” Kris LaBrake, who was at the meeting, said later by phone. “It’s a major change for the neighborhood.”
The skepticism needed no backhoe to uncover. Someone said an unofficial dump had been created below the Rivco warehouse, then covered with dirt. Will that be addressed? Will an influx of new residents cause the local high school to burst at the seams?
A grassroots organization called Bog – formed as a watchdog group to fight crime, raise morale and question investors who insist there’s nothing up their sleeve – was out in full force Thursday. The face of the group is Cathy Lord, a fitting name, in this case. She’s nervous.
“I don’t feel good,” she said. “I’m open to development and change, but he
will have to work with us. I give him some credit for showing up. He got an earful and I’m not sure he was ready to hear what he heard, and we did not get a lot of answers, so it was very frustrating.
Next, Wolters will try to convince the planning board on Feb. 20 that rezoning is a good idea. To be fair, he’s in a lose-lose situation now, damned for seeing market-rate housing and quaint shops near a river, and damned for perhaps creating overcrowding and lower property values, and leaving the town with a giant empty building.
For now, Wolters is staying in the background, declining comment to the press, letting Hastings stand out front and speak for him.
And the lawyer, a Concord resident, had a nice vision for voters to think about. Sort of like those conceptual drawings shown at the start of the meeting.
“The people in Penacook have a habit of selling themselves short,” Hastings said at the meeting. “We’re not Portsmouth or Salem; we’re Penacook. You should be proud of that. Make it bigger.”