The state of New Hampshire decided to sell 30 acres of protected forest to nearby landowners after the city of Concord declined to match the $132,000 purchase price.

The sale of the Allen State Forest off Warner Road along the Contookcook River to David Price and his son, also named David, who own the Deer Meadows manufactured housing park has sparked concerns from an executive councilor and state agency head. 

The land on the west side of the city was deemed “not an economically viable working forest” by the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and set to be sold.

Citing transparency with the process, Executive Councilor Janet Stevens objected and was one of two votes on the five-member council against the sale. 

“I’m not seeing a checklist for the hierarchy or proceeding on how you would contact potential buyers,” Stevens said. “It’s very nebulous." 

The younger Price said the state approached him as an abutter and that he has no plans to develop the land.  He plans to use it as a future water source for his housing park, if needed, but mostly as hunting land in the meantime.

“We’re not looking to expand. By no means, that's the last thing I want to do,” he said. “You can’t go hunting anywhere anymore. We’ve been buying land to protect our business and hunting.” 

When the state looks to dispose of surplus land, state law dictates that the host municipality must be offered the first right of refusal. 

The parcel was not a priority for city’s Conservation Commission, according to Beth Fenstermacher, the city staff liaison to the commission. 

The city commission was originally contacted about a potential sale by Robert Spoerl, a land agent for the state, in July 2022. With poor road access and little wildlife value, the commission decided against acquiring it in a nonpublic session, according to Fenstermacher. 

 The state offer regarding the forest did not come before the Concord City Council. 

When the land was officially announced for sale in February 2023, a memo was sent to City Manager Thomas Aspell, Merrimack County Commissioner Ross Cunningham and Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission, asking for interest in the parcel. 

In the letter, the state indicated that the purpose of the sale was to maintain the “conservation integrity” of the land. 

“Given this information, and that there was no interest to purchase the land for conservation purposes, there was no logical reason to utilize taxpayer dollars to acquire a land-locked parcel of land,” city spokesperson Stefanie Breton wrote in a statement. 

Breton did not respond to requests for further information. 

The state initially looked to dispose of the parcel due to its “inherently difficult access and small size,” according to a letter to Gov. Chris Sununu and Executive Council from Sarah Stewart, the commissioner of the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. 

The parcel was not an economically viable working forest, she continued. The city held the same rationale. 

“The state found no conservation value,” said Fenstermacher. “The conservation commission didn’t view it as a priority.” 

The city process of acquiring land for conservation purposes falls into a case-by-case basis, said Fenstermacher. In some cases, land is offered for free or sold at a reduced price. 

In this case, the state was selling the property at fair market value, along with an administrative fee, for a total of $132,000. 

To Stevens, the process was not promoted on the public market and she said she spoke with two land conservation organizations that were not aware of the sale.

She said the sale failed on two fronts – preserving land and the fiduciary responsibility of the state. 

At the council meeting, Stevens was the only one to note that the abutters owned a manufactured housing park adjacent to the parcel.

The current park sits on 55 acres according to assessing records from the town of Hopkinton and houses 60 manufactured houses. On average the homes are valued at $175,000 and residents pay a park rent of $615 a month, according to the park’s website. 

It’s a family business, run by the younger Price and his wife. With the current cost of housing they could not afford to develop the land, he said. 

“I don't want another mobile home park and even if you could develop it, it would be so expensive nobody could live there,” he said. 

In an appraisal for the state from Peter Nault, which was presented in the council contract, he noted that the land does not have road access, aside from a deeded right of way from Warner Road. 

In conversations with the city, Nault noted that to develop the land the buyer would have to obtain variances due to the lack of road frontage. 

The land would require driveway access with a minimum width of 12 feet and an adequate turnaround for emergency services, Nault wrote in a memo. 

The appraisal was completed based on the assumption that the Prices would be denied a variance to develop the site for residences. The value for the property could have been different without this assumption, wrote Nault. 

Since it was a private sale, the intended use of the property did not need to be disclosed. 

Prior to the executive council, the state’s council on resources and development – a group of a dozen state agency heads – met in March 2023 to approve the sale. At the meeting, Shawn Jasper, the Commissioner for the Department of Agriculture was the lone dissenting vote. 

Jasper’s opposition should raise concerns, said Stevens. 

“The soil quality is stellar and secondly, this property abuts a habitat for an endangered, threatened species,” she said. 

At the executive council meeting, Patrick Hackley, the director for the state’s division of forest and lands, defended the sale. Since abutters were interested in the parcel, the state decided to sell to them as soon as possible. 

“We saw this as an opportunity to get this to market it and sell the property to a willing buyer,” he said. “We had a motivated and willing abutting land owner willing to pay fair market." 

To Stevens, the response was concerning. 

“There was a lot of pushback,” she said. “That’s what I find very troubling." 

The law does not require the state to go out to the public, Hackley noted. The state could have put the parcel up for auction or worked with a broker to sell the land, which the Department of Transportation has done in the past. 

To Cinde Warmington, the District 2 councilor who represents Concord and is also a gubernatorial candidate, the sale was a routine function of the council. Often, the state owns land with plans to expand highways or parcels held in conversation and votes to sell and dispose of them, she said.  There was nothing unusual about the sale or process to her. 

“It’s a pretty routine transfer of property that the state has determined to be a surplus,” she said. 

To Stevens, though, the law is too broad, she said. She took her concerns with the process to the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Unit, which did not find any malpractice with the process. 

 Her concerns remain, though, and the sale is something she will be continuing to challenge, she said. 

“The statute provides too much discretion,” she said. “I’m disgusted by this.”