Lebanon planning board approves Stewart's Shops redevelopment after multiple waiver votes

Lebanon — The Lebanon Planning Board on July 13 approved a site plan for Stewart's Shops to demolish existing buildings at 97–99 North Main Street and construct a roughly 4,500‑square‑foot convenience store with a three‑island fueling canopy, subject to a package of conditions and multiple waivers from the city's site‑plan and landscaping requirements.

Staff opened the Stewart's Shops presentation and recommended the application be accepted as complete; the board accepted jurisdiction and heard a detailed presentation from Chuck Marshall, the company's director of real estate. Marshall described the proposed layout, truck routing, lighting and stormwater measures and said Stewart's had sought several targeted waivers, chiefly for landscape buffers, screening, front‑yard parking rules and photometric uniformity.

Why it matters: the project sits in Lebanon's Central Business (CB/LD) district and board members framed their debate around preserving the downtown streetscape while accommodating an operating gas station. Several members said granting front‑yard parking and landscaping waivers for a visible fuel canopy could set a precedent for downtown design; others, including the applicant, argued operational constraints for fueling and deliveries require some flexibility.

Board discussion and conditions: members pressed the applicant on sidewalk alignment, truck turning radii, snow‑storage drainage and how fuel‑storage systems would be protected. Staff and a reviewer described required environmental safeguards for new underground tanks, including NHDES permitting, double‑walled tanks with interstitial monitoring and a trench drain to manage runoff. The board asked that plantings proposed in the city's right of way be coordinated with the Tree Advisory Board and memorialized by a license or maintenance agreement.

Votes at a glance: the board voted on a series of waiver motions during the meeting. Multiple waivers were approved by 5–1 show‑of‑hands votes (Don opposed on key items). After resolving waiver votes and drafting revisions, the board approved the Stewart's Shops site plan and conditions by a 5–1 vote.

Direct quotes: “We tried to achieve the most pedestrian‑oriented situation we could,” Chuck Marshall said while describing the building placement and delivery routing. A dissenting board member said the board must “use these rules to maintain the Central Business District as it is intended” and warned that repeated waivers could alter downtown character.

Conditions and next steps: the approval includes a set of plan revisions and conditions: extend the Bridal Street sidewalk across the property's frontage, amend the landscape plan (add trees in consultation with the Tree Advisory Board), remove parking spaces 1 and 2 and replace them with a tree well and a bench facing North Main, add a trench drain and grading notes so snowmelt drains into the proposed system, require the applicant to fund third‑party infrastructure inspection, require applicant to apply for a voluntary property merger once acquisition closes, and either provide EV parking in kind or pay a fee into the city's EV fund. The applicant must address city engineer and fire department comments within 45 days and submit a revised plan set (full‑size and PDF/A) for archival purposes. The approval is contingent on those conditions and standard timelines for building permits and construction progress.

What to expect: staff will work with the applicant to finalize wording of the conditions and to verify the revised plan set; the board recorded that failure to meet conditions within specified timeframes could void the approval. The project's construction timeline and any required state permits (including an NHDES underground storage‑tank permit) will be tracked by the Planning and Development Department.