KEENE, N.H. (MyKeeneNow) A Sullivan resident is challenging the Keene Planning Board’s recent approval of a gravel pit expansion along Route 9, arguing the board violated both state law and city regulations when it granted the permit earlier this month.

Jim Manley, a direct abutter who has opposed the project since it first surfaced in late 2024, filed a motion for rehearing last week through his attorneys. The board will review his request at a special meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at City Hall.

Manley’s filing claims the board ignored evidence of potential hazards, failed to require a new traffic study, and allowed the applicant, Jaffrey-based G2 Holdings, to move forward despite discrepancies in its testimony about truck traffic and visual impacts. He also alleges the company misled the board about the timing of groundwater measurements.

An attorney for G2, Ariane Ice, rejected the allegations, arguing Manley may not have legal standing and that his concerns about noise, dust, property values, and visual impacts are either overstated or already addressed through the permitting conditions. G2 has maintained that existing tree buffers will remain in place, that ledge faces left behind are common in New Hampshire landscapes, and that testimony from neighbors of its Gilsum pit has no bearing on the Keene site.

Keene Senior Planner Mari Brunner noted that state law allows any interested person, including abutters, to petition for a rehearing. If the board agrees to one, it would be limited to the issues raised in Manley’s motion and must be scheduled within 30 days. Friday’s session, however, will not include public comment.

At issue is the board’s Sept. 8 decision to approve the project on a 7–1 vote, attaching strict conditions on blasting, traffic, environmental safeguards, and liability insurance. That approval followed months of contentious hearings where residents from Keene, Sullivan, and Roxbury warned of damage to wells and homes, increased truck traffic, and permanent scarring of the Nims Hill landscape.

The expansion would unfold in phases over the next 13 years, pushing operations up the hillside and eventually across the Keene–Sullivan town line. While G2’s application in Keene said truck trips would not increase, the company told Sullivan officials in April that loads could rise to 60–75 per day. Ice later explained the discrepancy as a difference in measuring “trips” versus “truckloads.”

The Sullivan Zoning Board is scheduled to decide on the Sullivan portion of the project Oct. 15.