Freedom—May 20, 2025—Freedom’s Planning Board on Thursday denied a request for a continuance for Wabanaki Campground owner Mark Salvati’s Site Plan Application to expand and refurbish cabin-like structures called “hutnicks.”

On a motion by Select Board representative Les Babb, the vote was 6-0, with one abstention, to deny a continuance to June “without prejudice,” a phrase that typically means the application may be resubmitted at a future date.

The application was submitted more than a year ago as part of Salvati’s preparations to convert to co-op ownership and sell 77 property “units” to the public. The application requested additions to five “hutnicks” and septic upgrades.

In January the board voted that the Site Plan Application was “conditionally complete.” One of the conditions was that the applicant submit a new, “stripped down” plan based on a January 2024 plat that showed only the “hutnicks.” The applicant has not fully complied with the condition.

The condition was established after it was determined that Wabanaki agent Horizons Engineering was making changes to its depiction of campground elements unrelated to the “hutnicks,” including adjusting the number and placement of RVs and decks, and moving campsite lot lines.

Board members said it was no longer clear what they were being asked to approve.

Concerns that an approved Site Plan for the “hutnicks” could be used to meet the state’s co-op conversion requirements surfaced last year after a town-approved subdivision plan for the property could not be found.

Board members on Thursday also learned that Board Chair Linda Mailhot twice requested and obtained an “extension agreement” from Salvati since January without the board’s knowledge.

As opposed to a “continuance,” which is an applicant’s request that a board delay a scheduled hearing to a future date, an “extension” is a board’s request to an applicant to grant the board more than 65 days to review and rule on an application once it has been accepted as “complete.”

In the Wabanaki proceeding the board did not accept the application as complete, only as “conditionally complete,” and the applicant did not meet the condition for completeness.

Asked about her actions, Mailhot acknowledged that the board did not accept the application as complete, but said she was “erring on the side of caution.”

“I did not get a legal ruling from our Town Council to do that. I just went ahead and did that,” she told the board. “So if we don’t need it, then we have it for nothing.”

Campground owner Salvati, who was not at Thursday’s meeting, said he did not receive notice of the board’s decision until yesterday, at which time he received an email from Mailhot telling him that the board “may have improperly dismissed” the application.

He declined to comment further about the application. Mailhot did not respond to a request to confirm her email exchange with Salvati or to comment on it.