The Hanover Zoning Board of Adjustments has voted to approve proposals by both town residents and Dartmouth to re-hear the College's request for a special exception to its educational zoning status.
The board's original decision granted Dartmouth an exception to build two residence halls on North Maynard Street contingent on the College satisfying nine stipulations.
The College has asked that the first condition, which stipulates that the College must commission a traffic study, be stricken. The condition asserts that the study must analyze the extra vehicular and pedestrian traffic created by both the residence halls and a future dining hall. Dartmouth, however, maintains that this is impossible since it does not yet have a final plan for the building.
"General practice is you do a traffic study on all the buildings," said Mary Gorman, executive officer of the Provost's Office.
In fact, given the needs of the aging Thayer dining hall, the College's plan to put a dining hall on North Maynard Street might be significantly delayed.
The original decision granting the College the right to build the dual residence halls was handed down by the board in early March. The 343 beds of the proposed dormitories would add much needed capacity to Dartmouth's on-campus residence system.
Because Dartmouth property is zoned as an educational area, the College must apply to the zoning board to construct buildings outside the scope of education. If Dartmouth does get final approval from the zoning board, it will then need to seek the permission of the Hanover Planning Board as well as Hanover's building inspector. In all, the approval process could take up to three years to settle.
The residents, led by Eleanor Shannon, a Rope Ferry Road homeowner, want the board to remove all language from the decision that states that a future dining hall would not require a separate exception. Because special exceptions are required for Dartmouth to build residence halls and "restaurants," it is unclear whether an additional exception would be necessary.
However, zoning board member Arthur Gardiner suggested that residents might be reading too much authority into the decision. "We do not mean for the statements to be binding" he said.
The board will likely rehear the arguments of the College and neighboring residents in late April or early May. After that rehearing, the decision will be final from the zoning board's perspective. Either side may then take their case to court.
While the board will hear arguments from both sides as to how the decision should be modified, the rehearing opens up the entire case to reexamination. As a recent decision by the board on CVS demonstrated the board is free to make changes to any part of its original decision.
"The Zoning Board of Adjustments had put some conditions on the CVS drive-thru. CVS asked for a rehearing and got the drive-thru rejected," planning/zoning director John Edwards said.
