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Edgecomb Voters to Consider Waiving Foreclosure on Waterfront Lot

December 15, 2009 - EDGECOMB -- Voters on Dec. 21 will have a chance to do something officials say might be a first for the town: Residents will consider waiving a foreclosure.

Amber and Richard Tonry owe $8,405 in taxes and interest stemming from their unpaid 2007 tax bill, according to Town Treasurer Claudia Coffin. It was Coffin who asked the board to consider calling the special town meeting. She said that is the only way state law provides for the town to avoid taking ownership of the property, a five-acre waterfront parcel at 637 River Road.

Without the waiver, the town will own it Dec. 30, Coffin said.

The Edgecomb couple does not live on the property. Both are commercial fishermen who use it to access the Damariscotta River, Amber Tonry said. In addition, they have been arranging for aquaculturists to begin using it as well. "They would pay rent to bring their product over our dock," she told selectmen.

That rented access is part of a plan the couple is working on with the state to include the property in Maine's working waterfront program.

Tonry, who serves on Edgecomb's Planning Board, said she contacted the Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program in the spring of 2008. Last July, the Land for Maine's Future Board approved paying the couple $145,750 to put a covenant on the property so that it would continue to be a working waterfront, she said. Being in the program would also reduce the property's taxes by as much as 40 percent, she said.

Tonry said she is now working with the bank that has the mortgage. Bank approval is needed in order for the Land for Maine's Future Board to go ahead with the payment. That board's final vote could happen next spring, and the couple could get the state's money by July 2010, she told selectmen.

"The state of Maine moves very slowly," she said.

December 13, 2009
– The Boothbay Register


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