NEWRY – After six months of work on a proposed 74-lot, single-family residential subdivision on just over 308 acres in Newry and Bethel, long-sought approval might come at month’s end.

At Wednesday night’s meeting, Newry planners went through their criteria for approval with Main-land Development Inc. of Livermore Falls, the agent for applicant Locke Summit Estates LLC. They didn’t, however, approve the project, Chairman Joe Aloisio said after the meeting.

“They were not given final approval because we need to meet with Bethel (planners) first,” Aloisio said.

Bethel planners and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection have also been reviewing the project. Locke Summit Estate’s entrance road off Sunday River Road would lead to 28 lots and a common area in Bethel, and 26 lots in Newry.

Aloisio and Newry planner Becky Bean both said they scheduled a tentative joint meeting with Bethel planners for Wednesday, Jan. 30, at the Bethel fire station.

Approval from planning boards in both towns could come at that meeting.

“It’s coming to a close after six or seven months,” Bean said. “It’s a big project to have two towns involved. There is a list of conditions we want to impose, so we will go over them with Bethel.”

Bean also said she learned Wednesday night from Main-Land that Locke Summit Estates could be approved by the DEP in two weeks.

In other business, Newry planners continued work on Sunday River Ski Resort’s proposed nine-lot subdivision. Bean said it was lacking a letter from the Fire Department and a soils report, along with a minor wording change regarding a road.

She expects planners to OK that project at their next meeting in two weeks.

At that meeting, they will also take up a proposed modification to the Great Brook Preserve project, which they OK’d on July 19, 2006.

According to the documentation dropped off Wednesday night, MaineVest LLC, developers of the preserve, have proposed adding four new lots through further division of existing lots.

Other modifications include corrections of dimensions and areas of several lots and curve segments, and a proposed decrease of Lot 61 due to a reconfiguration of other lots to achieve the land areas already approved by planners.

Lot 61 would be decreased by slightly more than four acres to a total of 575 acres.