June 13, 2008
Seacoast Online
EXETER — After a presentation by the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources, the Heritage Commission decided Wednesday night, June 11 the Fort Rock Farm property on Newfields Road is historically and culturally important to the town and the St. Michael Parish proposal to build a church and parish center will have an adverse impact on its cultural heritage.
The committee, which is purely advisory, will send a letter stating its opinion to the Planning Board which may or may not take it into consideration during its review of the parish’s proposal. The project is scheduled to go before the Conservation Commission on July 8 and the Planning Board on July 12.
“I think there is definitely a significance to this piece,” said selectmen representative to the commission Julie Gilman. “That’s all we recommend to the Planning Board, that they be sensitive to this piece of property.”
The parish is planning to conduct an archaeological survey of the property that includes 53 acres; the church’s plan is to build on 11 of those acres. Edna Freighner, review and compliance coordinator for the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources, a review agency for the state, spoke before the commission Wednesday. She said the parish is responsible for conducting the survey because it is applying for a federal permit from the N.H. Department of Environmental Services for a wetlands dredge-and-fill application. The requirement is part of Section 106 of the National Preservation Act of 1966 and RSA 227C and is followed by the N.H. Division of Historic Resources but ultimately ruled on by the Army Corps of Engineers, Freighner said.
Section 106 is not designed to stop a project, Freighner told the commission, but to be a voice for the resource to be recorded and respected in the community, state or nation.
Freighner said she could not speak to the archaeological resources that may be on the property as the division is awaiting the results of the survey. The division has identified the property as eligible for the National Registry of Historic Places and therefore, the development will have an adverse affect on the resource in the divisions eyes, Freighner said. As a result, the Army Corps will ask St. Michael Parish to present three alternative sites that had been considered for the project to explain why those parcels were not ultimately chosen for the development.
Representatives of the parish asked whether the division takes into consideration the preservation of the existing structures and partial landscaping on the site.
“We’re very sensitive to the buildings, but the entire parcel is what’s considered eligible,” Freighner said. “We have to look at the parcel as a whole. It’s not just an isolated farm house, an isolated barn, it’s the whole landscape.”
She also informed the commission, as well as members of the public, that under Section 106, those interested could apply to the Army Corps to be a consulting agency, which could be an abutter, town board or commission or any other interested party.
“A consulting party, or public outcry, are usually the parties that can change an outcome,” Freighner said.