FARMINGTON – A youth outreach program’s project is going back to the Appeals Board for a second time, another look requested by a neighbor who disagrees with the Planning Board’s most recent Jan. 8 approval.

Lewiston-based New Beginnings hopes to turn the 147 Perham St. duplex into housing for youth who are at risk for homelessness, Executive Director Bob Rowe said.

Abutter Jim Andrews, who lives near the duplex, believes turning the apartment into housing for a youth outreach program is a change of use for the property. If so, the Planning Board must complete site plan review on the proposal before approving it. Site plan reviews include a public hearing, which is what Andrews and other neighbors are hoping for.

The Planning Board voted in October that New Beginnings does not need site review, and Andrews appealed that decision. The board voted Jan. 8 to uphold its original decision. Andrews dated his appeal Feb. 2, and the appeal hearing is scheduled for March 2.

“It’s not that we don’t want the organization there,” Claire Andrews explained. Rather, the abutters want to make sure that the people who live there are given the kind of care they need, so they can be successful, and not a danger to the community. Some if not all of the potential tenants have emotional problems and some have criminal records, Andrews said. The building is close to Mallett School, and locals want to make sure convicted sex offenders or felons aren’t going to be placed there by New Beginnings, she said.

But Code Enforcement Officer Steve Kaiser has said he believes calling the New Beginnings plan a change of use is nothing short of discrimination. College kids – of similar ages to the prospective nonprofit tenants – lived there in the past, he’s said. Some of them may have criminal records, and many people in the general population have emotional issues.

Jim Andrews, though, says that what sets New Beginnings apart is the fact that the potential clients need help from the outreach service to be able to live on their own, whether it’s for financial, emotional, or other reasons.

“They are funded through public tax dollars via state and federal grants … They plan to use the property as a residence for qualifying young adults who are enrolled in their Community Living Program. Case management by New Beginnings is a requirement for any tenant living in their Community Living Program,” Andrews said in his appeal.

What the Appeals Board is going to do is anyone’s guess, Kaiser said. The board doesn’t have the jurisdiction to require the Planning Board to make a different decision, Kaiser said, just to revisit the issue. “They’re an appeals board, not a planning board. They can’t usurp (the Planning Board’s) authority,” he said.

Andrews said he’s not sure what he’ll do if the Appeals Board finds in the Planning Board’s favor, but said Friday all he wants is the chance to talk and come to a compromise with New Beginnings.

“I just think the Planning Board is making a factual and legal mistake,” he said. “At the end of the last meeting, I had hoped there was going to be some room for compromise. I just don’t understand why they’re so reluctant to have that conversation.”