Binnie Gets Variances From ZBA

Bill Binnie, the head of a new collection of radio and television outlets that hopes to construct a new studio complex at the former Walker Elementary School, unveiled more extensive design plans at the Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting on April 3, and asked for and received numerous variances that will move the project forward.

The variances, nine in all, lowered the requirements for parking, increased the number of signs allowed on the site, and loosened buffer and lot line requirements for the site.

Richard Uchida, an attorney with , said Binnie and the team had been working with the Heritage Commission and planners on the project – to be called New Hampshire 1 Media Center – to bring the site into zoning compliance while preserving as much of the historic structure and grounds as possible. The building, which was built in 1915, preceded current zoning by many decades, Uchida noted, which meant that relief was going to be needed.

Binnie said he chose the school because he had previous experience renovating historic buildings including his current office, the former city hall in Portsmouth, and an old school in Laconia, that will soon be the new home of WLNH. He chose Concord, he said, because it is the hub of the state and one of the only state capitals in the country without a radio station and television station. He said it would be easier to move to Manchester, which has a bigger advertising base and more opportunity, but he thought it was more important to be in Concord. Binnie said the media center will be home a few of the 16 radio stations the company owns, including 105.5 JYY, the top station in the market, which is now in Gilford, and WBIN, one of two television stations in New Hampshire, which is now in Derry.

“I think that Concord is the unifying city of the whole state,” Binnie said. “This is really an opportunity to put a full-power radio station and a full-power television in the city of Concord, in a beautiful old building. We think we’ve got the opportunity to do something very special in Concord.”

Binnie noted that the Walker School site was where New Hampshire ratified the Constitution, the ninth state to do so, meaning that the United States was literally born at the school site. He added, “I really love this old building.”

The new project will include more trees and vegetation, some which will cover three satellite dishes along Bouton Street where the current playground is, and five large signs, three on each corner of the property and two on the building. Only one sign was allowed by zoning and the sizing of the signs was smaller than proposed. The parking will stay the same in the front and will be slightly expanded on the north side of the parcel. The city has asked for a small amount of the site at the intersection of Bouton and North State street for a bus stop.

Jack Hutton, a North State Street resident, spoke in favor of the variances saying, “I can’t see any way that this will diminish the value of my property” and it would be good to see it on the tax rolls. Another resident wrote a letter supporting the variances.

However, an attorney and representative for Concord Group Insurance Companies, one of the losing bidders for the school, spoke against the parking and buffer variances.

Phillip Hastings of , said while he appreciated the efforts and they didn’t have “an overall objection to the variances and efforts to redevelop” the site,” allowing three signs “was excessive and out of character of the neighborhood.” He added that the sheer size of the signs would “impede visibility and traffic” in an already dangerous intersection.

Hastings also called the parking relief variances, which amounted to a 40 percent reduction in the requirement “very substantial” while noting there were already numerous parking problems in the area due to funerals and at apartment buildings in the neighborhood. Events at the media center would only make parking worse. Hastings suggested that the looped front parking designed be scrapped adding that it made perfect sense for the drop-off kids to the school of the past but it held “no intrinsic historic value” now.

“There’s no reason that the site can’t be redesigned in a way to put more of the parking on the Church Street side,” he said.

John Fornier of the Concord Group Insurance Companies, suggested that ZBA members take a look at how busy the intersection is now and they would realize that more vegetation and the sign size would block sightlines and make traffic worse.

Uchida challenged the testimony of both Hastings and Fornier saying that the current zoning would require vegetation that would block sightlines regardless of whether it was a sign or trees with Binnie saying that whenever they had events at the studios, they would hire security and find remote parking locations to not cause problems.

ZBA members split the variances up into sections with most of the debate dealing with the signage issues.

David Parker, the lone vote against the sign variances, said that he didn’t see the hardship in Binnie wanting five signs on the site when he was only allowed one. He noted that anyone with an arterial side street could ask for more signs and probably not get them.

Christopher Carley, chairman of the ZBA, said “the peculiar nature” of the lot though made it necessary and pointed to previous examples where more than one sign was allowed, like the stores at the Storrs Street shopping center, and the Courtyard by Marriott.

In the end, the ZBA approved all of the variances.