RiverWoods wants to construct a 158,000-square-foot, three-story health center along Kingston and Jolly Rand Road. (Provided By the Town of Exeter)
The town’s Zoning Board dealt another blow to RiverWoods’ plans for a new health center, affirming its ruling to deny the necessary variances for the proposed 158,000-square-foot facility on Kingston and Jolly Rand Road.
The board voted 4-0 Tuesday, June 25, to deny the retirement community’s request to grant a partial rehearing of their case for the new three-story centralized health center that would provide assisted living care, skilled care, and memory care for its residents.
The request comes on the heels of the board rejecting two variance requests for the project in April — one for height and another for buffer.
Riverwoods sought a height variance to exceed the 35-foot height limit by 11 feet to install a gabled roof. The other variance would have allowed them to construct 11 parking spaces within the required 100-foot landscape buffer around the building.
The board denied both requests, noting the “massive structure” would alter the essential character of the primarily residential neighborhood.
The proposed project would have replaced three existing health centers in the facility’s neighborhoods — The Woods, The Ridge and The Boulders.
RiverWoods makes case for rehearing
In a May 15 letter to the Zoning Board, RiverWoods’ attorney Sharon Sommers of DTC Lawyers, requested the rehearing, stating the board “had committed an error” in its ruling to reject the buffer variance.
RiverWoods did not dispute the rejection of the height variance, as the building could still be built but with a flat roof.
Sommers argued that the board failed to understand that the request for the buffer variance was due to “a lack of alternative sites” for the new building, adding that only 3,354 square feet within the 100-foot buffer would be impacted by the 11 parking spaces, which is a “modest” amount.
She argued hardship exists as the vast majority of RiverWoods’ property is subject to wetlands or conservation easements.
Exeter ZBA: RiverWoods has ‘alternatives’
Zoning Board member Laura Davies disagreed, stating RiverWoods, who also owns approximately 200 acres of woodlands in the area, can choose to build the health center elsewhere.
“The board was very clear that (RiverWoods) had alternatives, they could build a smaller building, or they could locate their health facility elsewhere on their very large site,” said Davies. “…They have alternatives, they just don’t want those alternatives.”
Davies said the buffer request was “ambitious.”
“I think that the premise of the buffer is to protect low-density single-family neighborhoods from large-scale developments, and particularly this proposal was the most visible, most active portion of the site and provided with the least amount of buffer around it,” added Davies. “The board felt that the buffer should be respected.”
Zoning Board member Mark Lemos said an easy fix to move the project along would be to downscale its size, which would result in fewer parking spaces required.
“If you can’t fit the amount of parking spaces in the spaces you have, then you need to limit the size of the building,” said Lemos.
Before rejecting the rehearing request, Davies reiterated the board believes that RiverWoods has alternative options.
“We’ve identified alternatives in our previous ruling to include a smaller building or to renovate and utilize existing spaces,” said Davies. “We do continue to insist that alternative locations exist, and they continue to insist that they don’t. We just disagree.”
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