MINOT – The Planning Board assured Grange Avenue residents this week that water runoff from Bill Turner’s 12-lot Verrill Homestead subdivision would not adversely affect their properties.

Board members, however, foresaw problems with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection plans for the maintenance of the subdivision’s storm water control features.

Norm Chamberland, an engineer with Carroll Taylor Associates, explained that in judging the project’s long-term environmental impacts, the DEP requires that inhabitants of the subdivision join a homeowners association that will bear the responsibility for the care and upkeep of the various features of the subdivision’s storm-water management plan.

Chamberland said that now, when the DEP approves a storm-water management plan, it issues a five-year license that requires the license holder – in this case, the homeowners association – to inspect the drainage features several times a year and repair failures in the drainage control system once identified.

Every five years, the homeowners association must give the DEP a log of what has been done as part of its license renewal.

Board member George Buker pointed out that parts of the storm-water control system will be on the town right-of-way and parts on private property.

“The road will be a public road. There is a problem with a homeowners association doing work on a town road,” Buker said.

In turn, the town also requires an easement to work on private property and Planning Board Chairman John Geismar noted that, if the homeowners association fails to properly maintain the drainage features, the town should be able to step in and do the work at the association’s expense.

“The selectmen will want to have the power to bill for the work the town does and, if it isn’t paid, be able to collect the money owed the way it does with the tax lien process,” Geismar said.

Geismar said that before the board can consider giving the subdivision final approval, it will need to review the homeowners association agreement and any changes that the DEP might make in the features of the storm-water management plan.

Chamberland said the DEP review will take awhile, but he could be back for final approval in about three months.

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