Nature Conservancy asks for large buffer; planners approve 50-foot industrial buffer and map changes

City planners reviewed a proposal to restore and enlarge Manchester's Conservation District to include additional city-owned parks, Nature Conservancy holdings and several ponds.

The Nature Conservancy and the Conservation Commission asked planning staff to consider a 200-foot buffer along the edge of conserved land to limit encroachment and reduce impacts to sensitive wildlife habitat. Planning staff and several commissioners objected to a blanket 200-foot buffer around the Conservancy's entire 650-acre parcel and said that a citywide, across-the-board 200-foot requirement would be overly broad and legally complicated.

After discussion, commissioners rejected the request for a blanket 200-foot buffer and instead approved a more targeted approach: a 50-foot “limited activity” buffer where the industrial district (and, by later motion, business corridor parcels designated BC‑2) abuts conservation lands. Under the limited-activity buffer, commissioners said, development would be constrained in the buffer to prohibit new impervious surfaces and permanent structures and to limit clearing and grading; passive recreational uses could remain possible.

Planning staff described which properties would be moved back into the Conservation District under the draft map: selected parks (Stark Park, Livingston Park), parts of Piscataqua River Park, Stevens Pond, parcels owned by the Crystal Lake Preservation Association and portions of Water Works property. Staff said most of the land in the proposed Conservation District is city-owned and that municipal ownership does not itself preclude public facilities or recreational uses (parks, ball fields) on those parcels.

Commissioners and staff emphasized two practical restraints on adopting very large buffers: (1) many conservation parcels are municipal and a zoning buffer alone cannot prevent municipal decisions, and (2) some water bodies (for example, Crystal Lake) are already subject to New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) shoreland regulations, which create existing setback requirements.

The commission voted to proceed with the mapped conservation additions and to deny the 200-foot blanket buffer request; a 50-foot limited-activity buffer was approved for industrial district parcels that abut the Conservation District and later extended by motion to BC‑2 areas in the same adjacency context. Commissioners said the plan would make it harder for new industrial or commercial development to immediately abut conservation parcels without leaving an undeveloped buffer area.

Staff and the Conservation Commission said the additional protections respond to public input collected during outreach (survey responses indicated strong public support for preserving natural areas) and the Nature Conservancy’s ecological concerns. Planning staff recommended adding further study of shoreline setbacks and surface-water protections to the ordinance work plan rather than embedding a citywide 200-foot buffer in the current draft zoning ordinance.