Many residents attended and emailed the Planning Board yesterday, asking them to accept the recommendations from the Conservation Commission.

The Planning Board listened!

This means that in addition to the City Council vote reducing the amount of project funding to make grass more likely on the baseball field at DHS, both the Conservation Commission and Planning Board have officially recommended using natural grass, and less plastic overall to the JBC.  

On Sept. 8, the Conservation Commission was asked by the Joint Building Committee (JBC) to endorse a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) to allow relief from the Secondary Groundwater Protection District for development that creates more than 20% impervious surface for the renovation of the Dover High School Athletic Complex. 

The plans submitted included options for natural grass or synthetic turf on the baseball/multi-sport field, and also the use of crumb rubber with two other alternates as infill on Dunaway football field.

Many of us wrote to the commission members and several spoke at the Sept. 8th meeting.

The Conservation Commission conditionally “endorsed” the CUP with these recommendations:

• Natural grass or organic infill is used where required
• The City staff in charge of drinking water submit their input to Planning Board as part of the packet.
• JBC uses the recommendations and information from staff when choosing which bid to accept.

On Sep. 23 the Planning Board reviewed the same stormwater CUP. The Board can only make non-binding recommendations to the JBC because of a NH law that gives all JBCs the ability to make all decisions regarding materials used for projects, once funding is provided.

They voted unanimously to endorse the CUP with the non-binding recommendations from the Conservation Commission.   

We are grateful to both the Planning Board and Conservation Commission for doing their part to prioritize water quality protection, and hope that the JBC will take their advisement seriously by incorporating these recommendations in full to their final decisions.