Board Approves Plans for New Church

Members of Orchard Christian Fellowship are preparing for an October groundbreaking after plans for a new church building on Pillsbury Road were conditionally approved by the Planning Board Wednesday night.

The project at 136 Pillsbury Road will be built in two phases, with construction on the 300-seat sanctuary set to begin next month.

"I'm ecstatic," said Doug Campbell, who serves as chair of the church's building committee. "We plan to start in October and we hope to be done in six months."

The 15-acre plot is zoned for agricultural-residential use and abuts school district property, an existing apple orchard, the historical society and the Londonderry Presbyterian Church.

It's the second time the church proposal has been before the Planning Board, after an earlier proposal was met with concerns about the visibility of the parking lot and whether it might be a detriment to the scenic area of Pillsbury Road.

The newest version of the plan includes a 100-space parking lot that will be built up on a berm surrounded by trees. Campbell said the plans will also preserve roughly 15 existing crop apple trees along the front of the property.

"We want to keep the Apple Way spirit going," he said. "... We have 'orchard' in our name, so we're interested in keeping them, too."

Town Planning and Economic Development Director Andre Garron commended the church for responding to resident concerns.

"You listened and you're providing the aesthetic appeal not only of the building, but the landscape, as well," he said.

The Orchard Christian Fellowship currently holds services and Sunday school classes at nearby Matthew Thornton Elementary School.

The church is one year into a capital campaign, Campbell said, and members are already gearing up for the funding of the project's second phase. The next step will be to build two wings onto the sanctuary, one to hold classrooms and the other office space.

The 300-member church is relatively young, having left the Londonderry Presbyterian Church in 2008 to form its own congregation as part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The Londonderry Presbyterian Church belongs to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

A settlement following the split awarded 15 acres of land next to the Londonderry Presbyterian Church to members of the Orchard Christian Fellowship, Campbell said.

And Campbell said plans for a new church building began almost immediately.

"The day it happened, we knew we wanted to plant a new church here," he said, referring to the split.

Members of the next-door Londonderry Presbyterian Church were also expecting to see a new church crop up in the near future.

"We knew that it was going to happen," said Londonderry Presbyterian Church member John Foster, who spoke at Wednesday's meeting. "When the settlement was over and they were granted that land, obviously they were going to use it for a church, but we didn't know when or what it would look like."

Foster said he was concerned about protecting the existing shrubbery and brush that serves as a visual barrier between the two properties. Campbell said the church wasn't intending to make any updates to that section of the parcel.

The church project is still waiting on final septic and alteration of terrain permits from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.