Robert Blechl Staff Writer
As the Littleton Planning Board’s conditional approval of a gravel pit off Alder Brook Road remains under appeal by abutters at superior court, the road itself, and whether it is a private or Class VI town road, is now a topic of discussion in Bethlehem, where a small segment of the road connects to state Route 116.
The working plan now, following the Bethlehem Select Board’s meeting on Monday, is to take the issue of Alder Brook Road, as well as other roads in question in Bethlehem, to public input sessions for abutters to provide input on how a new classification would impact them, and then take it to town meeting for voters to decide how they want to classify the roads
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Recently, the town of Bethlehem was approached by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation in regard to whether Alder Brook Road is Class V road, Class VI road, or a private road, said Veronica Morris, chair of the Bethlehem Select Board.
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For years, the town of Bethlehem has treated its segment of Alder Brook Road, which is used as the access to the Alder Brook shooting range in Littleton, as a private road with no town maintenance.
Before a vote on any warrant article, Select Board members said they would like to give the users of the road and the gun club the opportunity to speak if they believe there would be an issue turning the end of the road in Bethlehem into a private road.
“I don’t think it would be prudent to move ahead declaring this a private road without getting the opinion of the actual abutters,” said Morris.
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Bethlehem resident Mary Polaski, who filed the appeal at superior court against the gravel pit, said the road is important to her and her husband, John, because they are the closest and most-impacted abutters to the gravel pit, which she said evolved from a permit to cut trees without any monitoring.
Sheridan Brown, the attorney for the Polaskis who represented them before the Littleton planning and zoning boards and is now representing them for the appeal, said once a road becomes public, it can only be discontinued by a town meeting action.
“It sounds like that happened in Littleton,” he said. “I haven’t found any record of that happening in Bethlehem. And it impacts more than just abutters because it’s a matter of public access. Some people might like to walk on the road or may want to access Alder Brook for whatever reason, to hike, bird watch, take the dog down there. It’s not strictly an abutter issue … You don’t have a duty to maintain it as a Class VI road. It primarily comes down to the public access issue and how much input you have into traffic entering Route 116 from that road.”
There are other roads that NHDOT has asked the status of and that the town of Bethlehem has been treating as private, said Morris, who added that putting them on warrant articles would clean up the documentation. . .
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One of the reasons Alder Brook is mislabeled on Bethlehem’s map is because, at one time, it was a neighborhood of sorts, with a post office and railroad station, said Brown.
“And that name has been overlaid on the position of 116 even though it was once on maps on the same place referring to a neighborhood,” he said.
And at one time, some in Littleton accused the town of Bethlehem of moving the boundary ever so slightly, said Brown.
“Supposedly, that entire road was in Littleton at one point,” he said. “Whether that’s true or not, who knows.”
Brown agreed with Bethlehem’s slow approach in any change to the classification of roads.
“There may be people who use things recreationally and they may not speak up about it,” he said. “And then it goes away and you have people showing up who are upset. If you can include folks at a meeting, that’s probably the best way to go.”
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