Track plan in Tamworth wins state permit

TAMWORTH — The Department of Environmental Services has issued the owners of a proposed $28 million racetrack here a permit to alter terrain.

Club Motorsports Inc. wants to build a European-style racetrack on land it owns under Mount Whittier, off Route 25, near the Ossipee town line.

“This is another major step in the permitting review and approval process,” said CMI President and CEO Stephan Condodemetraky. “We are pleased that our project has met all of the standards required to receive this permit, as well as the DES wetlands permit before it.”

This is second major permit the project has received. At the end of July, DES issued a wetlands and non-site specific permit after the department, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Tamworth Conservation Commission agreed to certain wetlands delineations.

In its July approval, DES noted in its decision “that the project will not significantly impair the existing wetlands, surface waters, and groundwater resources.”

A citizens group, Focus: Tamworth, is appealing a dredge and fill permit issued by DES in July. In August, the group asked DES to reconsider the permit. DES declined to do so last week.

The group is now requesting a hearing before the state’s wetlands board.

“The reconsideration request was a required first step in the process,” said Charles Greenhalgh, spokesman for Focus: Tamworth, which has hired a group of legal, engineering and environmental experts to scrutinize the Club Motorsports proposal. “As long as we believe the facts support reconsideration or appeal, we will continue to pursue the process. The reasons for our appeal still appear convincing.”

The group maintains that the proposed racetrack plan “increased the wetlands impacts, rather than decreasing them,” and that DES has not addressed issues raised by the Tamworth Conservation Commission, such as storm water management, runoff on abutting properties and the impact of increased water flow on the stream banks near the project.

“There are many more steps to the process,” Greenhalgh said. “This is a vast undertaking, and every permit must be fully examined to ensure that Tamworth is protected.”