DURHAM – A code enforcement officer’s denial of a building permit for a back lot has been upheld by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, ending a four-year challenge by a Freeport couple.

Jeffrey and Rhonda Merrill lost their fight to develop their parcel near the intersection of Snow and Parker Schoolhouse Road. When Code Enforcement Officer Dan Feeney denied their request, they went to the Board of Appeals and then to Androscoggin County Superior Court, which both supported Feeney.

On April 10, the high court backed the Superior Court’s decision.

Feeney denied the permit because the parcel lacks the required frontage on a town road or deeded right of way.

A house had been built on the lot at one time and was destroyed by fire in the early 1990s. In 1998, the Merrills bought the lot and obtained a building permit. However, they did not build within the required two-year period under the provision of the ordinance and the permit expired.

In 2003, the Merrills sought a new permit, which Feeney denied due to lack of frontage.

In its ruling, the high court concluded that the town’s back lot development ordinance contained “clear and unambiguous language” and “applied to all back lots whether developed or undeveloped and that the board’s action denying the permit was consistent with the purposes underlying the ordinance, as well as the land use ordinance.”

According to the town attorney Curtis Webber, the lot “never did comply with the minimum requirement of the ordinance when it was created in 1986 and thus it never became legally nonconforming and was not grandfathered.”