FRYEBURG – In a surprising move Monday night, the Board of Appeals reversed its decision against Poland Spring Water Co. and said the Planning Board acted correctly in approving a loading station on Route 302.
The vote was 3-1, with Buddy Webster abstaining.
With prodding by its attorney, Michael Hill, the board revisited the question about whether the Planning Board had been fair and impartial when it granted the company a permit last fall to build the facility in a rural residential zone. The station would allow tanker trucks to load water pumped from a well in Denmark a few miles away.
Townspeople have objected, saying the truck traffic would interfere with quiet, country life.
Attorney Philip Merrill, who is representing a group of neighbors fighting the facility, argued that the Planning Board violated procedural rules.
Earlier this month, Merrill convinced four of the five members of the Board of Appeals to side with him.
But Board of Appeals member Bill Lowell said at Monday’s hearing, “I voted the wrong way, and that’s in my conscience.”
After the vote Monday, alternate Planning Board member Hannah Warren said that in her two years on the board, she had never seen the board use the standards it did when deciding for the permit from Nestle Waters North America, which owns Poland Spring Water Co.
The Board of Appeals went on Monday night to consider 22 points made by Merrill that argued against planners finding the facility was an allowed use in that zone.
On three of those points, the Board of Appeals found in favor of the Planning Board, including that the board was right to consider the loading station a natural resource-based business, which is allowable in the rural residential zone. As of late Monday night, the review of the 22 points was continuing.
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