Most of Tamworth you clear the way you’d clear anywhere in Carroll County: open a Dig Safe ticket, flag the wetlands, respect the 250-foot shoreland line on the ponds. The Chocorua Lake basin is the exception. Up there a lot of land carries a conservation covenant or easement in the deed, and those can say more about which trees stay than any state law does. So before we price a lot near the lake, we read the deed.
Chocorua Lake is 222 acres, averages about twelve feet deep, and a dam holds it at 574 feet. No outboard motors of any kind. The lake with the mountain behind it is the view New Hampshire put on its 2013 America the Beautiful quarter, and people have been guarding it a long time — long enough that the basin’s covenants came before New Hampshire even had conservation-easement law. The Chocorua Lake Conservancy says it protects roughly 2,500 acres through covenants and easements on more than a hundred properties, on top of the land it owns outright.
For a clearing job, that means the deed may set the rule. Some protect a forested buffer along the water. Some protect a view. Some bar new structures altogether. We’ve got no business guessing which, so you or your attorney pull the deed and anything recorded against it at the Carroll County Registry, and if the Conservancy holds the easement you talk to them before a saw starts. Might cost a month. Cheaper than the alternative.
Then there’s the water. Runoff off Route 16 along the east shore was a known source of phosphorus in the lake, and starting in 2000 the lake association, the EPA, NHDOT and the town built berms and swales to catch it. Strip a slope above the lake and leave it bare through a summer storm and you undo that kind of work in an afternoon.
If your land is anywhere in the Chocorua Lake basin, get us the deed and any recorded easement before we walk it. It changes the conversation from the first minute.
Inside 250 feet of Chocorua Lake, White Lake or any other protected water, RSA 483-B governs the cutting first and the deed may tighten it from there. We mark the trees that stay before anything comes down, leave stumps and root mats in the buffer, and keep the forest duff where it lies. Bare mineral soil on a Tamworth slope in a June thunderstorm goes one direction. Downhill.
Away from the lakes the work is ordinary, and we like ordinary. Pitch pine on the sand plains around White Lake — shallow roots, easy grubbing. Hemlock, beech and boulders on the slopes climbing toward the Ossipee Range, where everything takes longer. Stumps under a house or a drive get pulled; stumps under future lawn get ground.
Bigger parcels have one more question. A lot of Tamworth acreage sits in Current Use, and clearing a house site takes that piece out of the program. New Hampshire charges a land use change tax of ten percent of the land’s full value on what comes out. Talk to the assessor before we cut, and clear only what the house and drive need.
Wooded clearing in Tamworth runs $3,000–$8,000 per acre with trees, stumps and grubbing included. Sandy pine lots near White Lake land near the bottom. Steep, bouldery ground toward the Ossipee Range, and anything inside a shoreland buffer where slash gets chipped and carried out, lands near the top. A deed restriction doesn’t change the rate. It changes the plan.
It can, and often does. Many basin properties carry covenants or easements protecting forested buffers, views or open land, and some limit new structures. The recorded documents control, not the contractor. Pull them first, and if the Chocorua Lake Conservancy holds the easement, talk to them before planning any cutting.
Within 250 feet of the reference line, the state Shoreland Water Quality Protection Act, RSA 483-B, limits cutting and requires a vegetated buffer to stay. A deed covenant can be stricter than that. We work to whichever is tighter and flag the line on the ground before a machine shows up.
The developed portion comes out of Current Use, and New Hampshire charges a land use change tax of ten percent of that land’s full value. Clearing only the house site and driveway usually keeps the rest enrolled, provided what remains still meets the program minimums. Check with the assessor before cutting.
Usually. On the sandy ground around White Lake, pitch pine stumps are shallow and the machines move easily. Toward Black Snout and the Ossipee Range you get boulders, hemlock and steeper pitches, and every step takes longer. We price after walking the lot, not off a map.
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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