The Hanover Planning Board revised its restrictions of the College's construction plans for Chase Field last night, but it is unclear if the changes will put an end to the battle over the proposed new sports complex.
The board spent over an hour at Town Hall discussing and revising the wording of many of the 17 conditions the board placed on Dartmouth's original site plan for construction on Chase Field.
But neither side -- the College nor the group of Hanover residents fighting the construction -- gave any indication last night that the revisions would cause them to drop the appeals they filed in Grafton County Superior Court following the board's original decision.
. . . . .record is produced, and then we'll go from there," DeWitt said.
Chase Field is currently used by the soccer, lacrosse and field hockey teams. The College plans to build indoor tennis courts and an artificial turf field with lighting for night practice and competition -- but a group of town residents has fought the project because of the potential disturbance from lighting and noise.
The project was debated at 10 public hearings last year before the board reached its original decision on Nov. 24 -- a compromise plan which placed 17 conditions on the field project and its use.
One of these restrictions limited nighttime game play to only 10 events per year, while another limited the use of the public address system. The College filed an appeal in December calling such restrictions "unfair" and in violation of the First Amendment since it prohibited free speech.
The issue was again placed on the board's agenda following the College's appeal. The group of Hanover residents fighting the construction filed its own appeal, in response to the Dartmouth appeal.
The residents announced their plan to appeal the Planning Board's original decision at last Wednesday night's meeting, saying they would have accepted the original decision were it not for the Dartmouth appeal.
One of the residents, Nina Lloyd, who authored the statement wrote, "To protect their interests, the neighborhood has no choice but to follow Dartmouth into Court."
Lloyd said the residents were not completely satisfied with the board's decision, but had been willing to accept it "in the spirit of compromise."
The residents gave no indication last night as to whether their appeal would be affected by the Board's revisions.
The six attending Board members voted unanimously to amend provision three, which limits the use of the sound system to game-related commentary and the national anthem. Condition three now explains that the condition is "not intended to prohibit life, safety or emergency announcements."
The College had earlier contended that this condition restricted freedom of speech, a right granted to all Americans by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
"It appeared to me that they're still restricting content," DeWitt said.
Condition 11 -- a stipulation requiring a walkway which the College argued constitutes an unconstitutional seizure of private land -- now requests that "grating shall be configured to allow pedestrian traffic along the Eastern side of the [field]." However, Board member Nancy Collier said the Board was not concerned with wheelchairs, so the walkway need not be paved.
The Board agreed to maintain the remainder of the provisions as they had been when first submitted to the College in November of last year, and to re-submit the proposal to Dartmouth.
Once the official proposal has been sent to the College, DeWitt and other Dartmouth representatives will decide whether to accede to the Board's conditions and end its feud with the town or to continue with legal action.
