Greenville Planning Board approves property/building ordinance

By Stuart Hedstrom, Staff Writer

GREENVILLE — The Greenville Planning Board gave its approval to a property and building safety maintenance ordinance during a meeting on May 7.

The ordinance will now go before the select board with Planning Board Chair John Contreni planning to do this at the upcoming May 21 meeting. If OKed then the ordinance could be brought to the community for a vote at the annual town meeting on Monday, June 2.

Sangerville has been dealing with the remains of a home that burned 18 months ago but the community has an ordinance in place requiring cleanup, Contreni said. The item provides Sangerville with the steps needed to go through the legal process to clear the property.

“We’re not the only ones thinking about this,” he said. “In fact, Sangerville and Milo and perhaps some other towns are already ahead of us in having a property and building ordinance.”

A third draft of Greenville’s property and building safety maintenance ordinance was presented on May 7 and the version was approved to deal with issues such as dangerous unoccupied buildings, nuisance buildings and/or issues pertaining to the way a structure looks and smells.

In other business, the planning board continued discussions on another proposed amendment to the land use ordinance that would change how far away a structure must be from the property lines in certain sections of town provided specific criteria have been met. Under this change the setback for primary dwellings would be 5 feet instead of 15 feet.

The suggestion of the code enforcement officer requesting a survey if property lines are not clearly defined was mentioned. Code Enforcement Officer Ron Sarol said surveys can sometimes cost several thousand dollars.

“The reason we thought it was appropriate to have a survey is because some of these lots are historic, I mean they go back to the early part of the 20th century,” Contreni said, as property lines may have wandered a few feet in either direction over the decades.

By consensus the planning board said the code enforcement officer can do what they feel is appropriate for requiring a survey in order to grant a setback variance.

The planning board discussed the Blair Hill Overlook subdivision with the now completed application being the sixth of eight steps, Contreni said

Developer Fred Gossoge said he would love to get the project off ground and is looking forward to breaking ground next month if possible.

The subdivision will include some five-acre lots atop the hill and one-acre lots with seasonal cabins and some green space between these and neighboring properties.

“We wanted to do the six one-acre lots because the concept we have is people are going to be able to come in and buy the lot with a cabin, a two-bedroom, two-bath cabin,” Gossage said. “Then if they’d like they are going to have the opportunity, if they’re not using it, to lease it back to (the Blair Hill Inn) which is kind of important because as you know she only has 10 rooms at full capacity. A lot of times that can bring more people to the community, more guests from out of town.”

The next step will be for the planning board to make its decision on the subdivision application, and Contreni said this should be on the May 21 agenda.

In his report, Sarol said the Maine DEP contacted him about a possible outdoor wood boiler violation on Pleasant Street so he is looking into this. The boiler may be too close to a neighboring property.

Depending on the size of the wood boiler, it needs to be a certain length away from the line, per Maine DEP regulations.

Sarol and Greenville Town Manager Mike Roy met with Maine DEP representatives at the transfer station to look into some possible new services there.

The code enforcement officer has issued five permits in recent weeks. “Two were fences, two were signs and one was a demo permit,” he said.

Sarol has issued 20 permits this year, a bit behind the pace of last year at this time.