Snow blankets the River Park project site in West Lebanon, N.H., on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. The New Hampshire Superior Court granted a preliminary injunction to reinstate the site’s building permit and extend the planning board’s site plan approval deadline to October 27. (Photo by Alex Driehaus, Valley News)
After months of delays, back-and-forths and testy exchanges between the developers and city representatives, the Lebanon Planning Board recently approved a one-year extension for the site plan of River Park.
The mixed-use development project planned for West Lebanon has suffered one delay after another since it was first proposed 16 years ago.
The decision, in a 4-3 vote by the Planning Board, nonetheless fell short of the two years the developers, David and Chet Clem, had sought.
Board member Eric Stacy, who supported the two-year extension, said he was worried that not giving the Clems additional time to complete the work needed might lead them “to kill the project and sell it on to somebody else.”
That dire concern did not dissuade a majority of the board from limiting the site plan extension to one year, however.
“I don’t believe the applicants made much of a case for two versus one,” said board member Richard Ford Burley, noting that “one seems like the number” a New Hampshire Superior Court judge determined in a preliminary injunction to extend the site plan for River Park’s first phase and reinstate an expired building permit.
The Clems, who did not attend the board’s March 17 vote, declined to comment on the one-year extension last week, but both father and son have repeatedly criticized city officials and the board for what they see as unnecessary roadblocks to their project.
“Site plan” work encompasses the building of infrastructure such as water, sewer and excavation required in advance of construction of the building on the site, for which a separate building permit is required. Generally, both site plan approval and building permits are issued with time limits for when the work is to be undertaken.
The one-year extension applies to site work for phases two through five of the project. Work on the project’s first phase — a 61,000-square-foot life sciences building — is covered under a separate permit.
Stacy, in advocating for a two-year extension, argued that a one-year extension may not be long enough, given uncertainties over the economy and how that could slow down the supply chain and make costs go up. The Clems may be losing patience, he said.
“They are so fed up, the probability of them walking away is pretty high,” Stacy said, at another point complaining that board members who opposed the two-year extension are “just running off business.”
Board Chairman Andrew Faunce came to the meeting with a pre-written one-year extension proposal. “I put a fair amount of time (into) putting this together,” he said, adding that one year was the appropriate length of time to approve.
“I don’t believe the case has been made explicit, let alone for two years. A one-year extension reasonably extends what was lost in phase one and was restored by the court. And it extends that in perpetuity through all of the phases,” he said.
About 20 minutes into the discussion, Faunce called for a vote. “We’re spinning the wheels,” he said.
“Alright. Well, I tried,” said Stacy, shortly before the vote was taken.
Technically, the board voted separately on the one-year extension and the two-year extension.
Karen Zook, Patrick Kennelly, Faunce and Burley voted for the one-year extension. Jeremy Rutter, Kellen Appleton and Stacy for the two-year extension. Kathie Romano abstained.
This article is being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
