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New Hampshire
Incoming Concord City Councilor Suing ZBA To Stop North Main Street Housing Project
CONCORD, NH — A mosque, whose president is about to be sworn in as a new ward Concord city councilor, is suing the city to stop 30 units of new housing from being built on North Main Street.
Jonathan Chorlian and Benjamin Kelley, the developers of the Saint Peter’s Church site, as well as other properties, last year proposed redeveloping the First Congregational Church at 177 N. Main St., the former site of the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness shelter, as an apartment complex. Their first proposal included 34 one- and two-bedroom apartments with rents expected to start at $1,400 monthly. The pair agreed to purchase the building for $770,000 and planned on spending about $5 million renovating the building.
Chorlian and Kelley also accessed a 79E tax abatement via the Concord City Council for the project to save around half a million dollars in property taxes across seven years.
Find out what’s happening in Concordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The developers also needed to request several variances, including approval of 34 units where only eight were allowed, buffers for parking and patios, including some within 5 feet of a lot line, access to a private yard, loading area changes, and refuse container location approvals.
During several months, including hearings, variances were initially rejected by the Zoning Board of Appeal.
Find out what’s happening in Concordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
After the first rejection, the developers scaled the project back to 30 units, dropping the density increase request by 50 percent, and made other changes. They returned with newly requested variances, including 49 parking spaces where 60 were required and some prior variances.
This time, the plan was approved.
IQRA Islamic Society of Greater Concord, an abutter to the church, whose president is Ali Sekou, the newly elected Ward 8 Concord city councilor, was against the plan.
After approval and being denied a re-hearing, the mosque filed a suit against the ZBA in Merrimack County Superior Court in October 2023.
In a 13-page filing, the mosque’s attorneys, Brian Shaughnessy and Brett Allard of Shaughnessy Allard PLLC, said the ZBA “acted unlawfully and unreasonably when it purported to find that it could reach the merits of the applicant’s second variance application.” The second application, they said, offered a “fairly minor change” of a reduction of four or a little more than 11 percent of the project’s units. The filing noted the project was still much larger than the allowed density.
The attorneys claimed the ZBA “discouraged the public from repeating comments” from a July 2023 hearing because “the new application is only ‘a little different’ and ‘very similar in character’ to the first application,” they wrote. Both proposals, they added, included the same number of bedrooms — 44, with “the only ‘change’ to the second application was that the applicant ‘combined four pairs of one-bedroom units’ into several other units.”
Citing Fisher v. Dover, the attorneys said when the ZBA approved the second, even though there were limited changes. The decision by the state supreme court in Fisher v. Dover states, “[w]hen a material change of circumstances affecting the merits of the application has not occurred or the application is not for a use that materially differs in nature and degree from its predecessor, the board of adjustment may not lawfully reach the merits of the petition.”
The attorneys also said the ZBA acted unlawfully when granting the variances, saying the previous charge offered “limited hours” and had “peak intensity on Sunday mornings.” Even as a homeless shelter, the attorneys wrote, the “use was similarly passive.” A 30-unit, multi-family apartment building, however, would “significantly alter this and create an intensity of use foreign to this property and area.”
The attorneys also said the ZBA “mischaracterized and misinterpreted (the) petitioner’s motion for a rehearing on the basis that it was not improper for the ZBA to determine that it could reach the merits of the applicant’s second application purely based upon its review of the applicant’s written materials and without hearing additional testimony.”
The attorneys requested the court reverse the decision of a rehearing, reverse the approval decision of the second application, send the second application back to the ZBA for reconsideration, reverse the granted variances, and pay the attorney fees, which would essentially kill the project.
Sekou confirmed the lawsuit and acknowledged receipt of an email requesting comment but did not return comment before post time.
The new units were proposed during a continuing, severe housing crisis in the city, and a lack of apartment and home inventory was a campaign issue in the November municipal election cycle. The civil case was filed on Oct. 30, the week before the Nov. 7 election, meaning voters could have found out about the lawsuit involving Sekou before the election but did not. He was campaigning on a leadership platform in community development and housing at the time. Sekou defeated the nearest of two other candidates running by around 180 votes, meaning it is unknown if publication of the lawsuit before the election would have affected the race.
Patch only learned about the lawsuit last month and obtained the documents on Tuesday.
Kelley, in a statement, said he and Chorlian were “disappointed in the Islamic Society’s decision to pursue legal action against the city of Concord challenging the approvals that were granted for our proposed redevelopment,” which offered the opportunity to reuse a historic building and add much-needed housing to downtown.
“As our approved site plan shows, our redevelopment is oriented toward Washington Street, and we are grateful that it was strongly and unanimously supported by all of our Washington Street neighbors,” he added.
Kelley said the developers and the IQRA were still discussing issues surrounding the project despite the lawsuit.
“Based on recent meetings with the Islamic Society, we are cautiously optimistic that an acceptable resolution is close,” he said.
Sekou will be sworn in as a city councilor on Thursday.
Have you got a news tip? Please send it to tony.schinella@patch.com. View videos on Tony Schinella’s YouTube.com channel or Rumble.com channel. Check out the #FITN2024 NH Patch post channel and follow our politics Twitter account @NHPatchPolitics for all our campaign coverage.
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New Hampshire
Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
Local News
Police say the Attleboro man was driving 104 mph in a 55 mph zone on Route 202 near in Rindge, New Hampshire.
A Massachusetts man was arrested late Wednesday night after police say he was driving more than 100 mph on a New Hampshire roadway.
Officers with the Rindge Police Department stopped a vehicle shortly after 11 p.m. on Route 202 near Sears Drive in Rindge following a report of a car traveling at excessive speed, according to a statement from Chief Rachel Malynowski.
The vehicle, a 2020 Kia Stinger, was spotted traveling at 104 mph in a posted 55 mph zone, Malynowski said.
The driver, a 21-year-old man from Attleboro, was arrested and charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle, according to police.
He is scheduled to be arraigned April 5. If convicted, the man faces a fine of at least $750, in addition to the court’s penalty assessment, and a 90-day license suspension, Malynowski said.
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