The Hanover Zoning Board voted yesterday to grant special exceptions for construction of temporary undergraduate dorms on two out of three sites proposed by Dartmouth College.
The proposal for construction on the College Street site, location of the recently demolished Zeta Beta Chi sorority, did not receive the necessary unanimous vote from the three-person Zoning Board in order to be approved or disapproved.
The sites on Tuck Mall and Maynard Street were approved with the stipulation by the Planning Board that they would be removed after three years. The Zoning Board, however, could not impose the three year condition, as special exceptions are understood to "run with the land" without time limits.
"If the College wants to extend the time [that the dorms will remain installed] it does not have to come back to this Board," Zoning Board member Ruth Lappin said.
Board members did not state their reasons for voting in the way that they did. However, the one site that did not receive unanimous approval was the only site in which the College proposed construction of permanent rather than temporary dorms.
While the Board's decision does not hinder future proposals for development, Reed Bergwall, the assistant director of facilities planning for the College, said, "Timing will preclude any action at that site at this time."
Bergwall said he was surprised at the Board's decision.
"This [the approval of only two sites] is exactly the reason we proposed multiple sites, so that we would have flexibility in case any problems arose," Bergwall added.
The Board did stipulate that once a certificate of occupancy is issued for a dorm, that dorm shall not be moved from the intended site. On the other hand, Bergwall stated, "the life of the structures is long term, and they could be reused by the College."
Installation of six temporary dorms on the other two sites, Tuck Mall and Maynard Street, will begin the week of Aug. 27, although utilities and foundation work may begin as early as today, Bergwall stated. Distribution and arrangements of the six dorms has not yet been decided, but Bergwall said he hopes a decision will be made within the next few days.
In order to grant a special exception to build housing in an institutional area, the Board had to affirm that the proposed building would "not adversely effect the character of the area, the highways and sidewalks or the town services and facilities," Board Member Michael Hingston said. According to Hingston, all three sites meet these criteria.
The two story temporary dorms will be in the colonial style and will be twenty-eight feet high by forty feet long.
