LIVERMORE – The appeals board began a two-part hearing Wednesday to determine if the Barnyard All-Terrain Park on Route 108 was appropriately approved under the town’s site plan review ordinance.

Robert Boothby and David Damon, both Livermore residents who live on the road, with Damon a direct abutter, and David Andrews of Paris, who owns a subdivision near the track, appealed the Planning Board’s Jan. 23 approval of David Lovewell’s all-terrain park on 55-acres of the family’s farmland near the Turner line.

The appellants believe the Planning Board’s approval violates the town’s site plan review ordinance, specifically section 1, which includes “minimizing the adverse impacts on adjacent properties; and fitting the project harmoniously into the fabric of the community.”

They say the park impacts property values and the environment, and creates a noise nuisance among other issues.

Lovewell operated the park on temporary approval in 2006 on weekends during daytime hours before the Planning Board granted final approval in January without limitations to the number of events and no prohibition on winter events.

Events will continue on weekends during daytime hours with mud runs, sand runs, ice runs, deep-pit runs, 4-by-4 events, off-road and other events permitted.

The Planning Board maintains it followed the performance standards in the town’s ordinance and appropriately granted the approval. There is no noise standard in that ordinance though Boothby says that noise is a factor in the ordinance for a home occupation.

Since the town’s ordinance does not direct otherwise, the Board of Appeals is charged with holding a review process that starts from scratch with the board holding its own hearings, creating its own record and making its own independent judgment of whether a project should be approved, based on evidence on the record that the appeals board created.

More than 20 people attended Wednesday’s hearing, which will continue at 3 p.m., Wednesday, March 28, at the town office.

Joan Walton, a planner with Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, facilitated the session with appeals board members, Chairwoman Muriel Bowerman, Dennis Stires and Irma Bowles conducting business.

Lovewell reviewed his application and actions taken leading to approval of the project to the appeals board.

He provides a safe environment for families, those participating and people attending the park, Lovewell said, and prohibits alcohol and glass. He also says he has met the site review ordinance criteria and done his best to minimize impacts on abutters.

Damon said he requested a berm as a buffer, and it had not been provided. Lovewell said there are 600 feet of mature pine trees between the properties, and the Planning Board did not think another row of trees would matter.

Stires asked if an archeological review of the property was done.

Lovewell said it hadn’t, but the land had been farmed for generations and no artifacts had turned up.

Boothby said the project was not vigorously examined and scrutinized by the board and instead was rapidly approved.

Lovewell disagreed, saying it’s been a year and the process is ongoing.

Vicki Lovewell, sister-in-law to David Lovewell, read a letter from Jessica Tessier, who lives about 1 miles away and said the noise has not been bothersome and her family has enjoyed attending the park.

Brandon Soper, a Livermore resident, said that even if the track is not allowed to continue, it’s not going to stop those with trucks and all-terrain vehicles, and instead it’s going to spread them out rather than being in a safe, legal, fun environment.