Quote:
Originally Posted by jmen24
A couple of things to remember about this property, it was stated that the land is owned by the conference center, that would mean that all those houses have leased rights to a cottage on what ever small space they were given. This was very common in Maine on paper company land, not so much anymore. Given that this property has seen this tragedy twice, I would be very surprised if the ZBA allows a rebuild in this area. But, the mud in the works is that the ABCC owns the land and leases use. Which means that the owners of the cottages would not have deeded rights to have a building there, only a contract with the land owner. This may not be the case, just basing on prior mention in this thread. You may end up seeing buyouts to absorb the properties next to make one cottage conforming, but who knows. More than likely the State Fire Marshalls office will step in and say no and that will release the town from lawsuits, because the SFMO has the authority to make that call.
I would think that after two major fires that it would be an increadibly difficult fight to get all the cottages put back into there locations. ZBA's can be easy to deal with, but it will still be tough.
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There is a decision that came out of a lawsuit that was settled by the NH Supreme Court. It may be helpful to the folks at ABCC.
This was a case settled in 1997 in favor of Lake Shore Park vs. The Town of Gilford.
http://www.courts.state.nh.us/suprem...s/1997/lsp.htm
Short version is ,the court decided that the town could not force LSP into it's zoning rules as long as the total number of dwelling units did not exceed the the total allowed for the entire piece of property. (LSP has as much land on the non-lake side as it does on the lake side. )
One judge even said something like... " The town can control the number of chickens on the property, but not where the chicken coops are" .
It may be that the ABCC can rebuild using the same logic.
I hope for the families sake, they can all rebuild. I would love to hear Skips' take on this.