NORWAY – Town officials are rethinking the way they do business after complaints have surfaced about a series of possible zoning violations.

The town has not yet responded to a list of 20 zoning-related questions posed by Hobbs Pond property owner Steven Siskowitz. However, some changes can be expected as a result.

“We can’t be any more nice guys, I guess,” is how Selectman George Tibbetts Jr. put it.

Since Siskowitz spoke with the Norway Board of Selectman on Nov. 18, his questions have raised two main points of concern.

Town Manager David Holt was not available for comment Wednesday. However, at a Dec. 2 meeting he told the selectmen that Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Van Decker has at times settled zoning issues verbally and has not required proof of erosion or sedimentation control plans as necessary for some building projects under the shoreland zoning ordinance.

Citing a lengthy e-mail from Fergus Lea, Planning Division director for the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, Holt said the issues needed to be addressed. He suggested that people like Siskowitz, who are not from the area, are placing pressure on the town. When outsiders move in, he said, generally “you have to have tighter inspections and more rules.”

“We hope that we’re still friendly, but I think we are going to have to be a bit more than a handshake nowadays,” Holt later added.

He said the Norway Planning Board may need to be looked at as well.

Lea, who was asked by the town to respond to Siskowitz’s questions, said Wednesday he was not fully aware of the way Norway handled some of the property owner’s complaints before he drafted his response. His e-mail, however, pointed out that “this case and a review of the development points out a few problems with the administration of Norway’s ordinances.”

Lea said the town should have required erosion control plans for the Hobbs Pond development, and should have made sure the subdivision plans included information on long-term road maintenance.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “the time has probably come to tighten up the administration of the ordinances and provide more detailed reviews of subdivisions, especially ones with road construction.”

The purpose of an ordinance is typically to protect the environment, Lea said Wednesday. Property owners are primarily responsible for adhering to ordinances, he said, but if egregious errors are not addressed, the state may fine a town.

Town officials for the most part feel local ordinances were upheld in the Siskowitz case, and have said the property owner’s complaints are the result of a personal dispute with his neighbor, Paul Airman.

Siskowitz has alleged that Airman has altered his property and a nearby road without the necessary permits.

Jeff Van Decker said Wednesday that he feels he has been consistent in his handling of the permitting and regulation process over the years, although he did acknowledge that he sometimes approves things verbally. After this experience, he said, “a paper trail will be most definitely in place.”

Things will have to change, selectmen Chairman Leslie Flanders noted on Wednesday. “We have the laws in place; I think we just need to enforce them a little firmer.”

But, he said, the casual way of doing business worked for years.