NORWAY — Residents voted 385-164 on Tuesday to approve amendments to the Site Plan Review Ordinance that will implement the Comprehensive Plan Policy for rural villages.

In an email to the Board of Selectmen in December 2016, then-Code Enforcement Officer Joelle Corey-Whitman said the additions to the ordinance would “keep commercial and large-scale home businesses or industrial and manufacturing businesses from being operated in the Rural Village areas.”

The four rural villages affected are:

• Swift’s Corner, the area around the four-way intersection of Morse Road, Norway Center Road, Patch Mountain Road and Round the Pond Road;

• Noble’s Corner, the area around the intersection of Greenwood Road and Round the Pond Road;

• Norway Center, the area around the intersection of Norway Center Road and Morrill Road; and

• Chapel District, the area around the four-way intersection of Wiley, French, Dunn and Morse roads.

Corey-Whitman said the amendments would allow “signage, lighting and noise” to be “kept to a more minimum standard versus other areas of town.”

Residents also voted 409-138 to discontinue the Oxford County Recycling Corp. and terminate the agreement for joint recycling, nearly seven months after the town voted against approving the same article.

Town Manager David Holt explained that the board of directors for the Oxford County Regional Recycling Corp. have already voted to dissolve the corporation, and that the town’s recycling will not be affected by the vote.

Selectman Warren Sessions Jr. and former Selectman Mike Twitchell, who were running uncontested for three-year Board of Selectmen terms, were both elected.

Twitchell received 417 votes, while Sessions received 362.

Twitchell will take Bill Damon’s seat.

Damon, who has served off and on since 1987, did not take out nomination papers for another three-year term.

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net

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