The Town of Rangeley was served notice that a Petition listing the Town as defendant was filed in Franklin County Superior Court. The petitioners are asking the court to void a permit issued by the Town for the construction of a solar array.
Maine based Dirigo Solar applied for a building permit June 1, 2020 to construct a twelve acre solar array. Their proposal is a 5.2 million dollar taxable investment that requires few services on a twelve acre farm field located at 204 Pleasant Street. The array would not be visible from any public roads and there is a thick vegetative buffer between all abutters and the array.
The Rangeley Code Enforcement Officer issued a building permit on August 20, 2020 to Dirigo Solar for the project. Lucas Sirois, an abutter to the project, filed an appeal with the Rangeley Zoning Board of Appeals on September 3, 2020 claiming the Code Enforcement Officer misinterpreted the Town Code and issued the permit in error. The Zoning Board of Appeals voted 2-1 to support the Code Enforcement Officer’s decision thus denying the appeal. Mr. Sirois then filed a request to the Zoning Board of Appeals asking them to reconsider their decision to support the Code Enforcement Officer. The Zoning Board of Appeals, after listening to Mr. Sirois’ presentation, voted 2-1 that he did not present any new evidence that would cause them to change their previous opinion.
The Petitioners listed in the complaint are Mr. Sirois, Breck and Heidi Parker and John Muse. The day after the Zoning Board’s hearing for reconsideration Dirigo Solar reached out to abutters Mr. Sirois and Mr. & Mrs. Parker to see if they could address their concerns. The abutters did not respond before filing their petition in Superior Court.
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