NORWAY – The Board of Selectmen unanimously voted Thursday night to hold a public hearing as the next step in an effort to clean up a burned-out property on Pikes Hill Road.

Town Manager David Holt said it will cost about $8,500 to clean up the property.

It is owned by Christopher and Mary Buckley and was destroyed in a fire in March. The town has a 2010 lien on the property for unpaid taxes in the amount of $11,243.

Towns have the right to secure structures or properties that pose a serious threat to the public’s health and safety and can have a structure torn down at the owners’ expense.

The town must notify the property owner and hold a hearing if they wish to declare a site a nuisance or hazard and take further action to get it cleaned up.

The town also had the option to ask Oxford County Superior Court for an order to demolish a structure or remove debris if it is appropriate under the law, but the board decided against that move.

Holt said the decision to go ahead with public hearing was made because it was felt the owners would not clean up the property in a timely manner. The public hearing will allow the selectmen, if they so chose, to clean up the property at the town’s expense but the property can not be sold until the debt is paid back to the town, he said.

“This doesn’t mean we take the property,” he stressed.

“It tells other people, ‘No, we’re not going to pull right in and take control of someone’s property,’” board Chairwoman Irene Millett.

Holt said it is unclear where the owners live now.

Owners of almost a dozen properties in Norway  including the Buckleys, were notified in May that they must clean up their properties or face possible action by the town.

Two downtown properties – a business at 24 Marston St. and a rooming house at 467 Main St. — that were ravaged by fire have been sold and are being cleaned up.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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