FARMINGTON – Planning board members have tabled an application to convert a barn into apartments until next month. The action followed three hours spent by board members Monday on a second review of the project.

The board opted to continue consideration of parking requirements in January, despite an attempt by an abutter to move the meeting to February. Planning board members also requested that Mark and Heidi Goodwin, owners of the 247 High St. property, get a study done to determine whether a proposed parking lot drainage system could adequately handle additional surface water.

The Goodwins want to convert a barn attached to a duplex into two additional apartments making it a four-apartment complex.

The Planning board had approved the Goodwins’ project on Sept. 11. But several abutters appealed the decision and hired Livermore Falls attorney David Sanders to represent them.

In November, the appeals board sent the proposal back to the planners. The appeals panel found that planners hadn’t adequately considered the fact that the Goodwins’ application for the barn renovation involved the change of use of a nonconforming structure and not an expansion of use.

The appeals board requested that the board go through a fact-finding to determine if the project would have an adverse impact on abutters. And the appeals board also found that the planning board may have inadvertently given a variance on the parking requirements under the terms of the zoning ordinance because it didn’t properly consider whether the application involved a new use of land, which it does, and as a result did not apply the 24-foot driveway access width requirement from the off-street parking standards.

Planning board members voted Monday on some use standards but tabled three, including whether the rate of surface water runoff would increase until the Goodwins submitted the drainage study.

Board members did agree that noise, odors, smoke, and dust and air discharges of the proposed use would increase.

The board is scheduled to consider the parking standards at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 12, at the Municipal Building. Abutter Ralph Granger had requested the board change the date to February because he would be out of town, but only three of five members were in favor of that. It takes four votes to approve a motion at the planning board level.

dperry@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link