Greenville zones may be amended

GREENVILLE — The Greenville Planning Board is considering several zoning changes to allow some properties to be used for different purposes than are currently permitted.

Code Enforcement Officer Ron Sarol presented the planning board with the proposed changes, which include some parcels that would go from the commercial industrial zone to the adjacent village zone, as well as what is permitted and not permitted in each part of town, during the March 5 meeting.

“It allows for quite a bit more, it allows for housing as well as some more commercial ventures,” Sarol said about the village zone. He said most of the listed commercial industrial zone parcels are along the Greenville Steam Road and some of these landowners would like to build houses.

In the village zone, single and multifamily dwellings are permitted but mobile home parks are not. The zoning change could increase housing stock in Greenville while not limiting business, as the zone also allows for retail sales such as a convenience store or restaurant.

Another proposed zone change would reclassify a portion of the Hammond Lumber property.

“They want basically everything they have out in the weather right now, they want to be able to put under a roof,” Sarol said of Hammond Lumber. This would allow for the construction of a large storage building.

“Under the current zone they would not be allowed to build a structure over 5,000 square feet and this would allow them,” he said. “It allows them to build a larger structure while still maintaining some open space.”

Planning Board Chair John Contreni recommended waiting on any action until the board can learn more about the commercial industrial to village zone proposal. The planning board would later bring any zoning amendments to the select board and changes would be voted on through a town vote.

In his report, Sarol said he is working on land use ordinance violation penalties. He has made some progress but is not yet ready to bring these before the board.

The first draft of the property maintenance and dangerous building ordinance was presented to the planning board, Sarol said. Planning board members also have examples of property maintenance ordinances from other towns, including Anson and Oxford.

They will look at rolling the property maintenance and dangerous building ordinances into one or continuing to have each be separate, Contrenti said.

“We have complaints, especially about a few properties along the main roads,” Sarol said. Comments about dwellings on Pritham Avenue and the Lily Bay Road include that the structures could be dangerous, that there’s garbage left outside and that they are unsightly. 

A few dangerous building complaints have been made, the code enforcement officer said. One is for a home next to the Moosehead Historical Society on Pritham Avenue that has a roof caving in. No one has lived in the house for years.