By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

WILTON – Planning Board members on Thursday unanimously approved a new business for the Nichols Welding building.

Gil Reed, owner of the business, a weekly wholesale auto auction, said he had already hired four full-time employees to run the business and expects to need an additional 16 to 20 part-time workers on Fridays during the auctions.

Reed expects to see a car sold every three to four minutes during the auctions in the part of the building now known as the Expo. He hopes to bring in up to 300 cars weekly, which will be stored in the large lot near the building until auction and will be taken as they are sold.

“Bang, bang, gone,” he said of the process.

He also hopes to attract up to 100 dealers and drivers to the area from throughout New England each Friday. He is working with local businesses, the country club and local inns to create package deals to entice dealers to stay overnight or through the weekend, he said.

The only other wholesale auctions of this type in Maine are in Richmond and Brewer, he said, and the Brewer one is small. He has interest from dealers from as far away as Massachusetts, he said.

Board members unanimously approved the proposal permitting Reed to hold the auctions between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. each Friday.

Earlier in the evening, almost a dozen residents and planners walked the site of a potential development on Village View Street, about 100 feet above the abandoned Forster mill. The property has a sleep slope next to Wilson Stream.

Neighbors of the proposed five-lot development above Wilson Stream expressed concerns with potential erosion, sewage and other issues on property.

Residents also learned at a Planning Board meeting May 5 that developer Adam Mack of American Homes did not plan to build homes on the property but rather to sell individual lots to homeowners.

Neighbors were concerned with the types of homes that might crop up on the lots that, given a resource protection zone and setback ordinances, would permit a maximum 50-foot swath on which to build.

Before the group walked the property, Mack’s consulting engineer, Bob Berry, told them that the developer, after hearing residents’ concerns, agreed to prohibit mobile homes or houses under 1,000 square feet to be constructed as part of sale contracts.

Jeanne Lambert, a resident who lives on Village View Street across from the subdivision, was particularly worried about whether the soil was firm enough to support houses.

Her neighbor Aaron Gagnon asked about sewage.

Most of these issues have yet to be addressed but will be during the planning process, Chairman Keith Swett assured them.

Another issue was the town’s subdivision ordinance, which dictates a subdivision must have its own access road to homes built there. With such a narrow swath of land, including a road for the five homes could prove challenging.

“It certainly has to be addressed,” said Berry.