[rjh200]

It has been shot down as a business but from what the site says they can't be stopped from opening the land as a private club. I guess it goes back in front of the board on May 1st. See below.

"ALTON — Jody Persson is not yet finished with his efforts to put a motocross track at the site of the old Coffin Brook Gravel Pit on Route 28. The Wolfeboro man said yesterday he’s going to appeal a recent decision by the Zoning Board of Adjustment to reject his request for a special exception that would have allowed him to build a one mile dirt track for motocross enthusiasts several hundred feet back from the state road. And while he’s confident the board will reconsider its ruling, he’s not as confident the members will change their minds — so he’s got another plan he’s working on just in case. “I’m going to go to a conceptual meeting with Planning Board (representing) a not-for-profit club,” he said. “And then we wouldn’t need the ZBA approval. “I started a club a little while ago and we’re getting people to join,” Persson said. Since the club, called “Live Free or Die MX” – “MX” stands for motocross activities — would not be a business, Persson said it would not have to win an exception from the ZBA to start operating. “I’m not trying to pull a fast one on the town but with the club we could afford to go and purchase the property,” he explained. “There’s not going to be any (large weekend) events if that happened but there’s still going to be riding in there,” he said. “It would probably be a different schedule, different times of the week and all that. And it would be for a smaller amount of people, it would be restricted to members only. But from the beginning this has always been about the fact that we’re looking for a place to ride.” Persson and his supporters appeared before a ZBA hearing last month to ask to be allowed to build the track under the “outdoor recreation” special exception allowed in the rurally-zoned area. But a swarm of neighbors came and spoke out against the idea, claiming the bikes would disturb their community. After three sessions of the public hearing, the ZBA voted to reject Persson’s application on the grounds that the gravel pit is an inappropriate location for a motocross track and that the neighbors had demonstrated its noise would be disruptive. Persson said he’s spending $10,000 to get a site-specific sound study of the gravel pit to prove to the ZBA that the track will not create unacceptably loud noise in the neighborhood. (Persson has previously committed to require bikes using his facility to stay within a 96 decibels noise limit, the standard for state-owned trails but not for privately owned facilities.) Persson said he’s confident about getting a rehearing before the ZBA because of what appears to be a technical error. “I believe the town of Alton did not record the decision within 144 hours after it was made and by state statues that means I can appeal it,” he said. “I can appeal it anyway but they just have to have a good cause to open the case again, and it’s almost an automatic appeal because they didn’t record the decision within 144 hours.” In addition, Persson has already scheduled a conceptual meeting with the Planning Board to discuss his idea of operating the track under the umbrella of a not-for-profit club. No matter what course of action Persson takes, he’s confident about eventually winning his point. “The ZBA has to meet certain criteria whenever they make their decision. It’s in the state statutes and we met all of those seven criteria except for two,” he said. “But in their ruling they (ZBA members) wrote on those two, ‘it’s our opinion” or ‘we feel’ or ‘we think.’ And that’s not factual stuff. We were told by them throughout the process to stick to the facts and then it seems like their decisions were made on their opinions, thinking and feelings. “I think they’re good people but they got stuck between a rock and a hard place from Peter Ferrell’s campaign.” Ferrell, who lives on Stockbridge Corner Road, rallied residents of the neighborhood against the motocross idea. At the second and third sessionsof the ZBA hearing, a large contingencyof local residents complained the track would be both a noise nuisance and possibly harms the environment. However the environmental issue is not mentioned in the ruling against the track, Persson said. “They (the board members) didn’t have complete facts enough (to make a decision),” he said. “I’m going to try to go back to them with enough facts.”And if neither approach works, Persson said he’s ready to appeal the town’s planning decisions to the N.H. Supreme Court."