RUMFORD — Among the 11 new-business items up for discussion and/or approval at Thursday’s Board of Selectmen meeting at 7 p.m. in the town hall auditorium, are five property-related issues.

These are:

• Approving a Lincoln Avenue Development Project bid.

• Making an abandoned properties declaration.

• Discussing parking on Knox Street.

• Discussing the Swift River Park housing project off Route 120.

• A snowmobile club request to use town property.

According to Town Manager Carlo Puiia, the Lincoln Avenue Development Project involves opening the lone bid for a feasibility study on a block of property adjacent to Route 2 and opposite the Hannaford grocery store.

Currently, the town owns two tax-acquired, multi-family buildings on the block.

Puiia said the study would give the town something to present to future developers about what currently sits in the block. It would also provide selectmen with potential prices for one or more businesses to buy the lot and develop it commercially.

He described the study as similar to a marketing plan. Although a half dozen companies initially expressed interest in the property, only one submitted a bid prior to deadline.

The abandoned properties declaration involves a previously tabled subject in which selectmen may consider declaring some or all of the 80 or so vacant buildings in Rumford as abandoned.

Puiia said that at town meeting in June, a majority of voters gave selectmen the authority to do just that, provided owners of the buildings fail to present a management plan for bringing the buildings up to code within an allotted time.

He said the process, if successful, could begin to reduce blight from unsightly buildings that would be removed.

Knox Street involves finding a workable parking solution in the congested area. Currently, parking isn’t allowed on one side of the street to facilitate better access, Puiia said.

The housing project was first discussed in June. However, a resident now wants to ask the board if the town intends to continue through with the project by rebuilding more than 2,500 feet of roads to install storm drains.

Puiia said the roads were built in the 1960s when storm drains weren’t required. Since then, whenever it rains, water puddles on the roads creating driving hazards.

“It would probably be broken down into a two-year project,” Puiia said. “At today’s prices, the estimated cost is $728,000.”

He said that figures from the current Hancock Street project were used to arrive at the estimate.

The last item is about a Rumford Polar Bears Snowmobile Club request to use 300 yards of an existing all-terrain vehicle trail on town property on Wyman Hill Road.

A private landowner has discontinued snowmobile access across a portion of land, prompting the search for an alternate access route, Puiia said.

“If they can cut across town property, it gives them access to (snowmobile trails) by Mountain View Annex Road,” he said.

If approved, the club will need to remove some brush to use the new route.

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