By Kelly Morgan,Staff Writer

NORWAY – Subdivision applications are landing before area planning boards as the weather grows warm and the ground begins to thaw.

It’s not unusual to see a number of applications at this time of year, said Paris Planning Board Chairman Russ Case on Thursday. “Spring’s usually a busy time anyway, because everybody really wants to get their plans done.”

But in Oxford Hills, some towns are seeing more than their usual share of building permit and subdivision applications.

Paris already has approved one subdivision this year and is in the process of reviewing a nine-lot project planned for Oxford Street. Another subdivision application will be appearing before the Planning Board at a regular meeting next week, said board secretary Joan Bean.

The Norway Planning Board conducted two site walks Thursday afternoon: one for an 11-lot subdivision proposed for Sodom Road and another for an eight-lot project proposed for Young’s Lane.

“We’ve been doing more subdivisions than we have in the past,” Norway Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Van Decker said that morning, “but then we’re growing more than we have in the past.”

Since 2001, Van Decker said, Norway has seen the construction of 217 new homes. Before 2001, he said, “If we did 15 homes a year, that was big shakes.”

According to the Center for Real Estate Education at the University of Southern Maine, 99 new homes were built in the Norway-Paris labor market area in 1999. That number has since risen steadily, reaching 153 in 2003.

The labor market area includes the towns of Norway, Paris, West Paris, Oxford, Otisfield, Hebron, Minot, Buckfield and Sumner, said Bob King, senior research analyst at the Maine State Housing Authority.

“As you will note,” King wrote in an e-mail Thursday, “the 2003 number of new houses constructed is nearly 55 percent more than built in 1999.”

The Oxford Planning Board is in the process of reviewing a 13-lot subdivision proposed for Tiger Hill. Board Chairman John Palmer could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The Waterford Planning Board in February had a discussion with Beech Hill Farm owner Paul Hersey, who discussed creating a 20- or 25-lot subdivision on nearly half of his 220-acre property.

No formal plan has been presented to the board, Chairman Tim Fanning said Thursday, but a 14-lot subdivision proposed for the Norway Road, or Route 118, is being reviewed.

Fanning said Waterford has not seen as much growth as some other towns in the region, but it is increasing. “We’ve had one or two (subdivision applications) a year most years, but the last couple of years they have been larger, with more lots that usual,” he said.

Fergus Lea, planning division director for the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, listed a number of growth theories Thursday. The increased rate may be due in part to low interest rates, which have made buying a home more attractive. Also, he said, some people seem to be cashing in for their retirement while real estate prices are high.

Lea did not discount claims that Oxford Hills is becoming a bedroom community for cities like Lewiston and Auburn. A new Maine Turnpike exit proposed for Gray should bring more development catering to commuters, he said.

While on the Sodom Road site walk Thursday, Norway Planning Board Chairman Dennis Gray said two more subdivision applications are expected to come before the board soon.

“I suspect we’re going to be see more of them rather than fewer of them,” he said.