DIXFIELD – Three of five Planning Board members present at Thursday night’s meeting started organizational work toward a new comprehensive plan.

They also grilled Town Manager Nanci Allard over what they perceived as a mistake made by selectmen in a draft copy of the June 7 town meeting warrant.

Planner Pat McBride said work on a new comprehensive plan is “slightly overdue.”

The town’s last comprehensive plan, adopted in 1989, was a revision of its 1983 plan. Times have changed considerably since then, she said, noting that thanks to recent development in the area, there are no more deer wintering yards in town.

McBride said that because Dixfield didn’t get a grant to develop a comprehensive plan, but neighboring Peru did, that the board should work together with Peru in assembling data “in the interest of not duplicating a lot of things.”

She suggested that the board draft an outline of what Dixfield wants in its comprehensive plan and noted that Allard would be working on the mitigation planning aspect as required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Chairman Craig Nash and the board then tasked Allard with contacting the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments to learn what type of data the board needs to collect to create a comprehensive plan.

Planner Ralph Clarke said he expected the process to take between two to three years.

In other business, planners bristled over what they thought was an attempt by selectmen to overrule their unanimous decision at a previous meeting to accept new subdivision rules and regulations.

According to a draft copy of the town meeting warrant, planners objected to language in Article 29 that substituted the word “ordinance” for “rules and regulations.”

“It should read ‘subdivision regulations’ not ‘subdivision ordinance,'” Nash said.

Of the amending regulations, Clarke said it’s a basic change recommended by AVCOG to bring the regulations up to state statute standards, not a new ordinance.

“The biggest change is that the inclusion of lots of 40 acres or more will now fall under subdivision regulations,” something they don’t currently do, Clarke said. “We don’t want control. We just want to know what’s going on (in town). There are two big developments with lots of 40 acres or more here now.”

Nash noted that the board is just starting to get into subdivision regulations because “we’re looking to protect ourselves and the town.”

Allard said she wholeheartedly agreed with planners that the changes should be an amendment to current subdivision rules and regulations rather than to create a new ordinance like the selectmen want.

“The Board of Selectmen are OK with the amendment, but they want to leave it as an ordinance,” Allard said.

Clarke then bristled over what he perceived as an attempt by selectmen to take control over planners.

“We’re not an advisory to the selectmen. If we’re going to be micromanaged, we might as well not be a board. We voted to accept (the amendments) with changes 5-0 last month. This has been researched by AVCOG, and they said it should be considered as regulations rather than an ordinance,” Clarke added.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com