NEW GLOUCESTER – The Planning Board this week began preliminary reviews of three commercial applications, two on Sabbathday Road and another on Route 122.
Mark and Darsi Simond’s Cornerstone Cartage LLC facility is a business serving maintenance for their trucks. The business includes furnishing motor vehicles, equipment, drivers and personnel necessary to transport commodities to and from locations other than the Route 122, Ricker Road site.
The business formerly operated on Route 26, but that facility is no longer available.
Town Planner James Isaacson stated in a memo to the board that the business has been operating without proper permits for a while and had finally submitted an application for site-plan approval.
A 7,490-square-foot building will be erected for an office and trucking service on 42.25 acres. The project area will use roughly eight acres of which three acres will be cleared for the operation.
Richard Valentine, project manager, told the board the operation will serve as a maintenance facility for the Simonds’ truck fleet that has contracts with Poland Spring Water Co., Hannaford Bros. Co. of South Portland, and Lepage Bakeries of Lewiston and the New England Public Warehouse at Mechanic Falls.
The service will consist of furnishing motor vehicles, equipment drivers and personnel necessary to transport commodities to and from locations other than the New Gloucester site.
The Maine Department of Transportation recently approved a driveway access from Route 122, the Ricker Road. The site will be serviced by an on-site well and subsurface wastewater disposal system.
The Simonds operate 30 trailers and 15 trucks. No more than 15 trailers are expected to be at the site at any time, the Planning Board learned.
A one-story building will include a three-bay garage with 46 employees.
Low profile lighting round the clock is expected. No trucks will idle and no refrigerator trucks are expected to left to run, except in extreme emergencies.
Planning Board Chairman Jean Libby said the board needs to know how close the operation is to neighbors and the exact hours of business operation.
The board will visit the site at 10 a.m. Saturday. A public hearing is expected once a completed application is submitted.
In other business, the board will visit Wade Trudel’s four-acre parcel Saturday. He wants to make two lots on Sabbathday Road at the Bailey Farm. One commercial lot is proposed. The old farmhouse in the middle of the lot was sold last year. The remaining land is what is being subdivided.
Finally, Vinal Zigouras is proposing to subdivide a 22-acre parcel on Sabbathday Road into four commercial lots. Currently a commercial building is on the lot and a new boat storage business under construction approved last year.
The board said in preliminary discussions that the current zoning ordinance requires a fire pond rather than a series of underground water tanks linked together for fire suppression.
Zigouras is also seeking to use the frontage for lot 3 on the Mayall Road rather than Sabbathday Road. He said his access to the back of the lot is hampered by a wetland area, and he has 514 feet of frontage available. Waivers for underground utilities and stone monuments will be requested.
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