FARMINGTON — A site review application for Brookside Village, a proposed 32-unit apartment building at 247 Fairbanks Road, will come back to the Planning Board next month.

The board decided Monday night that it couldn’t vote on the application for the low-income, elderly housing project because it was incomplete. Plans for exterior lighting around the unit were not ready.

William Marceau and Byron Davis propose to build 32 one-bedroom apartments on the site of the former Maine Dowel Mill, which they had torn down in 2003. The cost of the project is estimated at $3 million.

After a public hearing and a walk over of the property, some board members also wanted to see the Department of Environmental Protection report. They expect it will include a ruling on use of the mill pond on the property as a wet pond, a method of treating surface, runoff water.

The pond is within the town’s wellhead protection zone, which was established to protect town water sources.

Assessors from Farmington Village Corp., the town’s water department, also want to see the DEP report before they decide on the project. They were asked to submit a “letter of acceptability” of the plan as a requirement for the Planning Board approval.

In a letter forwarded to board members Monday, James Andrews told members they generally approve of the housing project as a better use of property than some commercial ventures. It appears to be “environmentally friendly,” he wrote for the assessors.

Their concern stems from the “outflow from the proposed wet pond crosses under Routes 4/27,” he said.

The application only refers to the project being within the wellhead protection area and the pond plan meets the “general standards” for storm water management but not the higher standard the ordinance requires for any subdivision or storm water system, he said.

The water department is attempting to contact engineers who completed a wellhead protection study in 1993 to access the aquifer data collected at that time and to provide their opinion on this project instead of “reinventing the wheel,” he told the board.

The assessors also feel “the DEP report on this project should clarify many of these questions and may put the entire issue to rest,” he said.

Brad Smith, whose real estate office abuts the property near the proposed site of the two-story apartment complex raised questions at last month’s meeting about salt, oil and other items flowing into the pond. Water from the pond would flow under Fairbanks Road into two oxbow ponds on the Pratt Intervale, less than 500 feet from the town’s first well.

Smith came back Monday with more questions and concerns which the board went through and attempted to answer.  

With  the amount of surface runoff over the property, small amounts of gas and oil from tenant vehicles creating a problem is “a highly unlikely situation,” board member and geologist Tom Eastler said.

In response to Smith’s concern about selectmen being unaware that the project was within the wellhead protection zone when they agreed to help apply and administer a Community Development Block Grant, Town Manager Richard Davis told Smith the information was not part of the application process and was not necessarily something the board needed to know about before approving the grant application.

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