EXETER — RiverWoods is moving forward with a revised plan to construct “a new state-of-the-art” health center along Jolly Rand and Kingston Drive.
The continuing care retirement community went before the town’s Planning Board on Thursday, June 27, for a preliminary conceptual consultation on the proposed three-story building.
The proposed 158,000-square-foot building will replace three existing ones at The Woods, The Ridge and The Boulder campuses. The new “centralized” location for care, they said, will promote efficiency due to staffing issues.
The new plan can be built without any zoning relief.
In May, RiverWoods' request for two variances was rejected by the Zoning Board . One would have allowed the project to exceed the 35-foot height limit for a gabled-roof design, and the other would have allowed 11 out of 116 parking spaces within the 100-foot landscape buffer of the building.
The board rejected both requests, stating the “massive structure” would alter the essential character of the residential neighborhood and suggested a scaled-down project would better suit the area.
The new plan by RiverWoods calls for 113 parking spaces — 49 on the front portion of the building, 64 underground, and none within the 100-foot buffer. It also calls for a flat roof design with a dormer to keep its height within the 35-foot limit.
Robbi Woodburn of Woodburn & Company Landscape Architecture said the revised building and parking plan will be wrapped around trees to “soften” the impact on the neighborhood.
Eric Harrmann of AG Architecture said the building will offer 126 rooms — split between assisted living, memory support and skilled nursing. There will also be two courtyards in the middle for “secured access to outdoors” and “sun-filled areas to units.”
Erik Saari of Altus Engineering said once the new building is complete, RiverWoods’ long-term plan includes turning the three existing health centers into independent living facilities.
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The plan before the Planning Board was only a preliminary conceptual consultation, and therefore, abutters were not notified.
Still, many residents of the area attended to voice their “serious concerns.”
Pickpocket Road resident Karen Prior said the project has been on an “irregular path.”
“This project is at the Planning Board stage after being rejected outright by the Zoning Board of Adjustment… The reason this proposal is going forward is that RiverWoods has more money to spend on attorneys than the abutters do,” she said. “We are a neighborhood, this is not how our town government is supposed to work.”
Laura Davies, a Pickpocket Road resident, said she’s “astonished” by the size of the building RiverWoods is trying to put into her neighborhood.
“Just to give you an idea of the scale of this: The YMCA on 56 Linden Street is 30,935 square feet. This proposal will be between 155,000 and 207,000 square feet. So that’s six YMCAs in our low-density residential neighborhood,” she said. " … The former high school at 30 Linden Street is 205,936-square-feet so this proposed building will be on a scale of the former high school."
Davies, a real estate and valuation professional, is also a member of the Zoning Board.
“This would make this property the largest building between the railroad tracks and (Route) 125,” she said.
Fred Burt, who spoke against this project at the Zoning Board level, also voiced his opposition to the “gigantic” project.
“This is a neighborhood, that thing is massive,” he said. “It’s just too large. It doesn’t fit the neighborhood, and I prefer RiverWoods not become the villages of Exeter, like the giant retirement community in Florida.”
Additionally, he said noises emitted by the building, such as generators, trucks carrying daily shipments, and an increase in overall traffic would disturb the neighborhood’s “peace and quiet.”
“When they drop a dumpster over by RiverWoods at eight o’clock in the morning, we hear it,” he said. “I would like to ask the Planning Board to ensure that the buffer is heavily, heavily buffered.”
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Paul Roberge, who also lives on Pickpocket Road, questioned RiverWoods' credibility, citing they had planted trees as a buffer around its existing buildings before but “immediately ignored” and abandoned it after. He said he could see dead trees on the RiverWoods property from his house.
“Right now, if you go and stand on Pickpocket Road… you will see to the right a horrible mess of invasives that have killed most of the trees they planted,” he said. “So when they promise to have a beautiful view that would shield this monstrosity of a building, I really don’t have any faith that they will keep that screen, they will ignore it.”
Prior agreed with Roberge, stating that “over and over RiverWoods have promised to become good neighbors and they have not.”
Kingston Road resident Ruth Hooten, who lives adjacent to the proposed location, said her major concern is that the building will be on top of a slope, which would affect her property.
“Their land is above my land, and it slopes down into my pond,” she explained. “ …You’re going to get (water) runoff into my pond, you’re going to have more water going down.”
With the difference in the inclination, Hooten also raised the concern with lighting.
“There would be light coming into my house,” she said. “I don’t care how much trees you put up and bushes, I live right surrounded by RiverWoods, I see lights all year round.”
The Planning Board did not decide as it was only a preliminary conceptual consultation.
RiverWoods said they plan to return for a design review with the board before filing an official application for the project.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: RiverWoods returns with revised health center plan: Neighbors call it a ‘monstrosity’
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