KINGFIELD – Several residents attended the Planning Board meeting Monday night to voice concerns about proposed property line changes.

The residents’ concerns about the changes were based on a lack of understanding about the issue, said David W. Guernsey, chairman of the board.

Property owner Adrian Brochu had built a house on one of his lots in the Claybrook area. Concerns were raised about the 2.09-acre lot’s river frontage in relation to its size, and about state-required set-backs from the river.

If the property lines are rearranged by a small amount – about 50 feet, according to Planning Board member Marianne T. Stevens – Brochu will be in compliance. Brochu owns the abutting parcel, so the proposed property-line change is not an issue of transferring ownership, but of redrawing the lines of lots that he owns.

Brochu intends to sell the property once the issue is resolved.

The board will be consulting legal counsel to ensure that the proposed changes are legal, and it hopes to be able to approve the change at a meeting July 19.

“It was a matter of correcting past mistakes,” Guernsey said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

In a related matter, the board approved a 14-lot subdivision in the same area during a public hearing.

Guernsey said initial concerns about the subdivision centered on a bridge over the Carrabassett River that provides access to homes there. A private consultant deemed the bridge adequate for the expected increase in traffic.

Questions were also voiced about school transportation for children living in the area. Children who live in the approximately 25 homes in Claybrook now walk across the bridge to catch the school bus. Board members believe that most of the new housing units will be seasonal.

The board unanimously approved the subdivision, to be named Poplar Knoll Estates, for residential use.

Copy the Story Link