In New Durham, the pitch of the ground decides how much you’re allowed to dig before anyone asks how. The town’s Steep Slope Conservation Overlay takes in every piece of land at 15 percent or steeper. Between 15 and 25 percent you can build, within limits. Past 30 percent the ordinance allows no disturbance at all. So we shoot grades before we talk foundations.
This is hilly country. Copple Crown Mountain sits on the eastern line, and the New Durham side tops out at 1,712 feet — the highest ground in Strafford County. Between there and Merrymeeting Lake a lot of land tips well past 15 percent, and the town’s steep-slope map, dated 2008, is only a guide. The ordinance says slopes get delineated in the field, one site at a time.
The table that matters for a house lot: on an undeveloped lot of record, you can disturb less than 10,000 square feet of 15-to-25-percent slope, or 25 percent of the lot, whichever is smaller, without a conditional use permit. On a lot that’s already built on, it drops to 2,000 square feet or 15 percent. Between 25 and 30 percent you get under 500 square feet. Past 30, nothing. Anything bigger goes to the Planning Board.
Lot size runs off the dirt, too. New Durham sets minimum lot area by soil type, with 60,000 square feet as the floor. Very poorly drained soils don’t count toward it at all, and poorly drained soils can make up no more than a quarter. And a newly subdivided lot has to pass a perc test and get state septic approval before a building permit issues.
If your New Durham house site looks steep, have us shoot the grades before the design is final. Moving the pad a few dozen feet can keep you out of a conditional use permit.
Test pits first, and in New Durham they’re the easy part on paper — the stormwater article specifically excludes test pits, test borings and soil surveys from its disturbance thresholds. Two or three where the house and the leach field want to go. What comes up in the bucket tells us about seasonal water, boulders and how far down the ledge might be, which moves the price more than anything on the plan does.
Then the slope. If the pad lands on 15-percent ground, we lay out the cut and fill to stay inside the overlay’s square-footage limits, or we tell you up front that it needs a Conditional Use Permit. Sometimes sliding the house forty feet onto flatter ground saves you a whole Planning Board cycle. Worth asking before anybody forms footings.
Frost runs four feet and more up here, so footings go below it, and the digging season is roughly April into November. Spoil gets stockpiled uphill. Silt fence goes in downhill before the first bucket. Any bank we open gets seeded and mulched before we leave it, because a bare cut on a New Durham hillside doesn’t stay where you left it.
Machine and operator run $110–$200 an hour around the region. Foundation digs in New Durham usually land between $3,000 and $10,000. Flat, well-drained sites sit toward the bottom; steep-slope pads with extra cut and fill, boulders or ledge push the top, and any rock-breaking is billed as it happens. Test pits come before any firm number.
Any land at 15 percent grade or steeper, which is a rise of a foot and a half over ten feet. The town’s 2008 map gives a rough idea, but the ordinance requires slopes to be delineated on each site. Between 15 and 25 percent you can work within limits; past 30 percent, no disturbance is allowed.
On an undeveloped lot of record with 15-to-25-percent slopes, less than 10,000 square feet or 25 percent of the lot, whichever is smaller. On an already developed lot, under 2,000 square feet or 15 percent. Between 25 and 30 percent, under 500 square feet. Anything beyond that goes to the Planning Board.
New Durham uses soil-based lot sizing. Better-drained soils support a smaller lot, wetter soils need a bigger one, and the minimum is 60,000 square feet either way. Very poorly drained soils don’t count toward lot area at all, and poorly drained soils can fill only a quarter of the requirement.
Not under the stormwater article. Test pits, test borings, observation wells and soil surveys done to design a project are specifically excluded from its disturbance thresholds. You still need a Dig Safe ticket before the machine goes in, and we backfill the pits before we leave the lot.
Free site walks, test pits before quotes, flat pricing, and a crew that knows Lakes Region ground.
Tell us where the property is and what you’re trying to do. We’ll walk the site, talk it through, and give you a straight, flat quote.
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