Wolfeboro planners flag mismatches between shoreland ordinance and permit application; staff to draft updates

The Wolfeboro Planning Board reviewed the town’s Shoreland permit application at a March 18 work session and agreed staff should draft updates to the permit form and propose clarifying ordinance language for the board to consider at its April 15 meeting.

Shanna Saunders, the town’s interim planner, opened the discussion by noting a discrepancy between wording in the newly adopted town Shoreland ordinance and fields on the current permit application. “What I am seeing…is that the wording of the ordinance and the wording in the applications do not match,” Saunders said, adding the application on file is dated February 2012.

The board’s review focused on three linked parts of the ordinance used to assess development in shoreland areas: impervious coverage across the 250-foot shoreland zone, the natural woodlands buffer in the 50-to-150-foot band from the reference line, and the 0-to-50-foot waterfront buffer with its 25-point tree-score grid segments. Saunders and members traced how the application currently calculates the woodland-buffer percentages but omits the information the ordinance requires when a lot does not meet the buffer standards and must meet the ordinance’s renewal standards.

Key ordinance provisions discussed (as read…