My Story: Variance to the Merging Ordinance

In September of 2008  we file for variance to the ‘merging’ ordinance 9.1.1.  We assumed that the ZBA has some knowledge of the other unmerges and we expected that John Ayer, the Gilford Town Planner would discuss some of the other unmerges with the ZBA and tell the truth about how the town unmerged lots for years.  This discussion does not happen and the ZBA denies the variance.

This event was a real watershed event for us. It was at this point that we realized that there were many forces at work here.  The first was the fact that the Planning Department headed by John Ayer was going to try to deny the fact that they had set aside the ordinance through their own actions.  In retrospect we did not give enough crediance to the political forces at work down at the Gilford town hall.  The employees were afraid of losing their jobs!  So they stayed quite and in effect lied. 

After the denial it became clear that the ZBA did not have a clue as to what the Planning Department had been doing for the past 10 years!  We quickly realized that we would have to produce the evidence of the other unmerges and non merges.  To do this I would have to file several Right to Know requests and search many many property files.

I had various degrees of success with my Right to Know requests.  On one extreme I had the Town Administrator Scott Dunn write DENIED across my Right to Know letter and throw it back across his desk at me.  He stated that he was not going to participate in my 'fishing expedition' and that the town had every right to change how they enforced or interpreted a zoning ordinance. He also clearly stated 'the ZBA will never give you a variance'.  This was a very disturbing day for me to say the least!  How does he know that?  Hmmmm

Now as a side note it is also important to see how my abutter reacts to all of this.  He files an appeal to the ZBA of my nearly year old building permit (the house is mostly built at this point) that the Superior Court  just told him was valid (this is an ethics violation on the part of his attorney).  Seeing an opportunity to cash in on all my troubles he serves up an arbitration demand for 50% of the value of my property!  So in essence he uses the ZBA process to try to demand money from me!  He claims if I pay him he will drop his objection to the ZBA!