Greenville Planning Board working on several ordinances

GREENVILLE — In order to bring the town’s land use ordinance up to date, Greenville Code Enforcement Officer Ron Sarol and the planning board have been working to address a lack of some guidelines and missing components of the document.

Sarol gave an update during the Dec. 18 planning board meeting, mentioning he continues to work on land use ordinance violation penalties. “Right now we have nothing, so if somebody’s in violation we have no guides as to what to do about it or what we can even do about it,” he said.

The code enforcement officer said the state has guidelines for land use ordinance violations “for some penalties and things we can and cannot do” but said elsewhere the Maine guidelines are vague.

For example, fines include a minimum of $100 and maximum of $5,000 per day for violations. “It doesn’t say what you have to do prior to getting to that point,” Sarol said. He said any penalties devised for Greenville would be approved by the planning board and then go to the select board for its approval.

Sarol is also working on creating an abandoned building ordinance.

“We had more calls on the abandoned building up on Lewis Street that’s in really bad shape,” he said. The code enforcement officer mentioned another structure in town that the owners have boarded up. They are deciding what to do such as sell the property or see if the fire department may be able to burn the structure.

Sarol is researching what other towns have on the books for vacant and abandoned building ordinances, including Dover-Foxcroft’s, as Greenville has nothing of the sort currently.

When asked, Sarol said four changes to land use ordinance permit fees, approved last month by the select and planning boards, have been posted on the town website.

“It’s on our ordinance so when I hand one out they get the new copy and it’s been put on the website,” he said. The code enforcement officer said he has not heard much of a reaction to the fees, saying these were inexpensive and still are.

The four adjustments include an increased fee for a habitable finished structure to 40 cents a square foot with a minimum of $20 for the permit and increasing a nonhabitable, unfinished structure to 30 cents a square foot with a minimum of $15. There is a new $25 fence permit and the demolition permit fee was raised to $50 from $25.

Sarol mentioned he is working on setback changes. 

“There are some very small lots in town,” he said. “Up in the highlands the lots are 50 by 100, when you take that 15-foot setback away from each side you’ve got a 20-foot strip in the middle to build on.” Sarol said there are 42-foot wide lots on Maple Street.

To rectify these challenges, Sarol said variances could be granted to parcels under a quarter of an acre in size in order to build closer to the property lines. He asked the planning board to consider if a setback limit should be 5 or 10 feet or be left as is.

Sarol said this would only apply to parcels in the village section of town. He said in Dover-Foxcroft there is a 5-foot setback in the downtown district.

Giving an example of how a setback change would be of benefit, Sarol mentioned a resident wanting to extend their garage. With the structure located near the property line, they would not be able to extend back, but would instead have to build another structure away from the line.

Planning Board Chair John Contreni suggested Sarol come up with setback adjustment language for the next meeting — which will be Wednesday, Jan. 15 — to be reviewed. “I think the authority rests with our board to grant those amendments to the land use ordinance,” Contreni said.

In other business, an item concerning the use of the building of the proposed new home of Greenville Grinds Coffee Shoppe was taken off the meeting agenda as an additional use permit application is still being worked on.

Currently Greenville Grinds Coffee Shoppe owner Lindsey Botello rents at the 3 Lakeview Street location. Botello is considering purchasing and moving into the former home of Gabriel’s Books at 13 Moosehead Lake Road. Before doing so she would like to know how the property can be utilized so Botello met with the planning board to learn more during the November meeting.

Sarol said at one point the building had been divided into three separate businesses, a bar and restaurant in the lower portion and a residence above

“They would like to put a fourth business possibly upstairs, maybe an office space,” he said. The application is still in the works and would be given to Sarol and then presented to the planning board 

“So it’s grandfathered for three uses but not four,” Contreni said.

In November Botello said she would like to keep an upstairs 2-bedroom living quarters at 13 Moosehead Lake Road but wanted to know how many retail spaces could be put in to serve as affordable rents to help keep business in Greenville.

Sarol said being in the downtown district a use is permitted for every 2,500 square feet, with the lot at around 6,100. Being 1,400 square feet short of the needed 7,500 square feet, the appeals board can grant a variance for a fourth business which the planning board said was reasonable and could work with Botello on.

The code enforcement officer said his report for the meeting was slim. 

“I haven’t written a permit in the last four weeks,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of housekeeping now, putting old files away, just going through old files. There’s a lot of stuff in there,” with many from previous code enforcement officers.