JAY – Directors of the Jay Development Corp. voted Monday to adopt a resolution authorizing an option for a 78-year lease for a proposed new lot in the Community Development Park. The approval followed the objection of resident Jose Diaz.
The development corporation is overseen by a board of directors who are also the town’s selectmen.
Lot 12 would be created in an existing 11-lot subdivision, owned by the town and leased to Bob Bahre and Sandra Bahre, trustees of Jay Realty Trust. Androscoggin Bank wants build a new full-service bank branch on the lot, which would be 40,000 square feet, located south of McDonald’s restaurant in the grassy area at Jay Plaza on Route 4.
The proposal is contingent upon several approvals, including ones from the Jay Planning Board and the state Department of Environmental Protection, said town attorney Michael Gentile.
The town bought the majority of the 65-acre parcel on both sides of the railroad bed in the mid-1970s through the Farmers Home Administration and the parking lot was created with a grant from the federal Economic Development Administration, Gentile said. Bob Bahre also bought a three-acre parcel and donated it to the town for the economic development project, Gentile said.
Bahre was chosen as the developer and given a 99-year lease to develop the park, which now houses Hannaford, McDonald’s and several other businesses. Bahre, of Oxford and South Paris, also has a 99-year lease to provide maintenance on the lot.
Diaz said that 25 years ago a development committee voted against leasing the parking lot. Diaz also said the committee decided not to put in another lot. He said proposal should go to the voters because the land belongs to the town.
Diaz said the property would be more beneficial to the town if it brought in tax dollars instead of the $1 for each lot.
The town does receive tax money from the businesses for the buildings and personal property taxes, but not for the land, Town Manager Ruth Marden said.
“There is a difference between the committee and the Jay Development Corp. Board of Directors,” Marden said.
The committee can make recommendations, Marden said, but it is the board that makes the final decisions.
In 1979, three of the 11 lots were combined to build the shopping center, Gentile said.
The creation of the new lot would still leave a grassy area and there would still be plenty of room to move the signs to benefit all the businesses, Marden said.
The bank’s proposal is for a one-story building, but until the lot is created Androscoggin Bank project manager Rhonda Wilson said she can’t determine what the building will look like.
In business after the directors’ meeting, selectmen accepted “with regret” the resignation of Jay Fire Rescue Chief Brian Shink, who is moving to Livermore, and appointed his brother, Deputy Chief Scott Shink, as chief until February.
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