Wolfeboro selectmen accept withdrawal, rescind conditional layout for Christopher Court and Jason Way

The Wolfeboro Board of Selectmen voted on Jan. 15 to accept a withdrawal letter from the Chipmunk Hollow Homeowners Association and to rescind the board’s prior conditional layout of Christopher Court and Jason Way as town roads, removing the matter from the 2025 warrant.

The move followed a public hearing in which homeowners and their attorney urged the selectmen to halt the layout process, citing concerns about mailed-notification failures, disagreement over how many lots are entitled to votes and uncertainty about whether the road would ever benefit the town.

The withdrawal letter, signed by Thomas J. Miller on behalf of petitioning homeowners, listed six property owners and said the petition would be resubmitted only after the concerns of other subdivision property owners were addressed. The board read the letter into the record and then conducted motions to rescind the conditional layout and to not place the article on the 2025 warrant. The board voted in favor; the transcript records aye votes but does not include a full roll-call tally in the public record.

Nut graf: The conditional layout had been tied to a betterment assessment and an estimated project cost the board cited in the hearing (the petition referenced an estimated $366,059). Residents said they were surprised by the financial exposure and by procedural problems — notably, they said many abutters did not receive certified-mail notices and that a lot owner had recorded a merger that, they contend, reduces the number of voting lots.

Homeowners raised several substantive objections during the hearing. Attorney Alan Lucas, representing one homeowner, said a recorded merger (registry citation referenced in the hearing as Book 3526, Page 412) combined two lots into one of record “for municipal regulation or tax purposes,” and that the merger therefore reduced the number of lot-owner votes available to approve the petition. Lucas said that, on that basis, the petition did not reflect a majority of lot owners and that petitioners’ claimed majority was therefore contestable.

Multiple residents said they did not receive the certified mail notification for the initial petition hearing. The town manager told residents the certified-mail return receipts were on file in the executive assistant’s office and offered to provide copies on request. Selectmen said the board must follow state law for road layouts and that the town would provide residents a hard copy of the town’s policy on conditional layouts.

Speakers described additional neighborhood concerns. Several residents said the road is a dead end and that there is no current planning or permit application on file for a development that would make the road a throughway. One resident, Alan Collier, said he had seen grading and a cleared path on adjacent land and asked the town to investigate; others described an incident in which police went to a homeowner’s door after a social-media post asking what was happening on neighboring property.

Board responses and next steps recorded at the hearing included: acceptance of the petitioners’ withdrawal; motions to rescind the prior conditional layout action taken on Dec. 4, 2024; and a vote to remove the article from the 2025 warrant. Selectmen said the petitioners may refile at a later date and that, if refiled, the same statutory process under state law (layout of highways under RSA chapter 231, sections 28–33) would apply and homeowners would again have protest options under state statute.

Ending: The record shows the board accepted the petition withdrawal and rescinded the conditional layout; the town clerk or selectmen’s office will retain the withdrawal letter and the prior counter-petition in the minutes. Residents asked the town to provide documentation of the certified-mail returns and a hard copy of the policy on conditional layouts; the board agreed to follow up.