For a price of $4 million, Dartmouth College purchased 53 acres of land on Mount Support Road in Lebanon near Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center this past Friday.
It remains unclear what exactly the College plans to use the property for. Henry LaHaye, co-trustee of the Theresa M. LaHaye Trust from which the College bought the property, said Dartmouth had "no immediate plans" for the land and that they "were just making an acquisition" when he was negotiating the deal.
How the College chooses to develop the land, though, could have important implications for several proposals on the table by the Lebanon City Council Zoning Advisory Committee to alter current zoning ordinances.
Under current law, the land around DHMC is divided into five different zones: MC, which contains the medical-center complex and health-care services; IND-L, or "light industrial," containing light industrial facilities like research labs and warehouses; R3, or residential, single-family houses; R1, or high-density housing and RL3, or rural lands, used for large residential lots or forestry.
Under the new law, however, the MC, IND-L, R1 and R3 areas would all be covered by the same zoning laws, which would allow all four forms of land use in each area.
Some Dartmouth officials have praised the plan because it will allow the construction of housing close to areas where people actually work and will thus reduce future sprawl and traffic on Route 120.
For example, Tim McNamara '78, an engineer in Dartmouth's real estate office, told a local news outlet Thursday that he supported the plan because "it makes sense, we think ... that housing be co-located with nonresidential uses -- where the jobs are."
"I think it shows a lot of foresight on the part of the city and could go a long ways to solving the traffic problem on 120," he said.
Since there are now no owners of undeveloped land other than Dartmouth who might wish to build housing in the areas affected by the proposal, the viability of the new ordinance may largely be determined by what the College decides to do with the land.
The zoning proposal also has a provision which would eliminate light industry and apartment buildings on land along Route 120 and Mount Support Road south of DHMC and the Centerra business park. Lebanon officials have said that they intend this provision to create a "wildlife corridor" between these lands and other undeveloped properties immediately to their east and west.
Conservation commission member Susan Almy also supported the changes during a recent planning board meeting, as the linking of these undeveloped tracts of land does much to preserve the animal gene pool.
Other College officials, however, were not so sure of the viability of the new zoning proposal.
"It's such a significant change from what the land is zoned now, I think we'd need a period of time to digest it and think our way through it," associate director of the real estate office Larry Kelly told local media outlets.
LaHaye, however, has filed a formal zoning ordinance protest petition against the rezoning of the land on July 9, as he said the zoning changes will adversely impact the value of his property and greatly limit the development possibilities for land on Route 120.He plans to further lobby against the zoning changes should they come to a vote.
The College was not the sole bidder for the property, according to LaHaye. He said that he chose to sell the land to Dartmouth because it offered "the easiest way to release the property in this time sequence.
Paul Olsen, director of Dartmouth College's real estate office, could not be reached for comment yesterday, despite repeated phone calls. Bill Walker, Dartmouth's vice president for public affairs, also could not be reached.
