FARMINGTON – The appeals board unanimously denied an appeal for review of renovations to a duplex at 247 High St. Wednesday night.

Board member Nancy Twitchell’s request to be recused from voting was accepted. Living near the property, she would have a hard time being impartial, she said.

The board considered an appeal by neighbors of the High Street duplex, which is undergoing renovation by owners Mark and Heidi Goodwin. Initial plans to change the duplex into a four-unit dwelling were withdrawn in April. Later the Goodwins began renovations to make the duplex into two four-bedroom apartments, a change that ostensibly did not require code enforcement or Planning Board approval. In October, the Goodwins agreed in court to temporarily cease further construction at the site.

In question was whether changing an attached barn from storage to living space required approval.

David Sanders, attorney representing property abutters Ralph and Judith Granger, Roderick Prior and Holly Price, presented several reasons why he believed the project required town approval.

He argued that renovations to the barn constituted a change or expansion of use because it changed storage into living space.

It doesn’t matter whether there are four units with two bedrooms each or two units with four, he said.

“Two times four is no different than four times two,” Sanders said. “They’re trying to stuff 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5-pound sack.”

The structure is and continues to be a two-family unit, or duplex, said Roy Pierce, the Goodwins’ attorney. According to the ordinance, changes to the interior of an existing duplex do not require town approval.

Because the home would be routinely rented to college students, an increase in occupancy of unrelated individuals would constitute an increase in vehicles requiring off-street parking, said Sanders.

Ralph Granger provided photographs of a single vehicle parked in the duplex driveway in 2003, before renovations, compared with seven parked there and on the front lawn in November.

Neighbors contended that the increase in parked vehicles was turning the small parcel into a parking lot and felt the impact on the neighborhood had not been considered.

“What will we turn our neighborhoods into?” asked Granger.

This is a fringe case, said Frank Underkuffler, the town’s attorney. Though it seemed to him that changing the barn into living space constituted a change in use due to its size, that is not necessarily the way he would interpret the ordinance.

“When does a duplex turn into a dormitory?” he asked.

If the board sets precedent by approving the appeal, the code enforcement officer will have to regulate every sunroom changed into a bedroom, he said.

“We’ll get into micromanaging every single-family home and duplex,” he said.

Perhaps the ordinance needs to be rewritten, he suggested.

“You apply the ordinance you have, not the ordinance you wish you had,” he told the board.

Through a series of consensus decisions and votes, the board in the end voted to deny the appeal, saying that although the arguments were compelling, it was “dealt a hand of somewhat inadequate ordinances.”