The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

Effort Abandoned to Negotiate Agreement in Prohibited Shoreland Zoning Area

October 03, 2011 - Greenwood-More than five years later, around and around Round Pond Station goes.

From draft minutes of the Sept. 20 meeting of the Greenwood Board of Selectmen: “[Town Manager Kim] Sparks said she had heard from town attorney Mr. Perry who told her he had received an e-mail the day before from Jonathan Well’s attorney, Mr. Alkalay, that said he (Mr. Alkalay) had not heard from Bill Kaplan’s attorney, Mr. Crawford, regarding the third draft of an agreement between all three parties involved.”

And by now town selectmen have had their fill of the confusion, miscommunication, misinformation, postponed meetings and accumulating lawyer fees.

“Everybody’s pretty sick of it,” Selectman Amy Chapman told RPS owner Jonathan Wells at last Tuesday’s meeting.

Since 2006 Wells’ attempts to get after-the-fact permits for the conversion of the 1.5 acre South Pond shorefront property from a single-family summer camp to a year-round commercial rental for large groups of vacationers have bounced between the town’s Planning Board and Appeals Board, then, in 2009, on to Oxford County Superior Court.

The court ruled against Wells, but he is reapplying for permits, now contending, town attorney Al Perry noted, that the new applications are “consistent with the agreement between Mr. Wells and the Town regarding the use of the property.”

Perry points out, however: “there exists no agreement between the Town and Mr. Wells.”

Since the 2009 decision, Sparks, as suggested by the judge, had been attempting to mediate a possible three-party agreement regarding RPS, one which would include abutter Bill Kaplan.

Kaplan was one of those who first raised complaints about Wells’ expansions at RPS, and the effect the activities of his clientèle was having on the neighborhood.

The envisioned agreement would have allowed Wells to rent out the property, but with certain restrictions.

The draft minutes above reflect how well that effort has gone.

‘Pull the wool’

Last week, saying he had had enough, Selectman Arnie Jordan motioned that the town enforce the 2009 Superior Court decision, rather than proceed further with negotiations on an agreement.

Jordan questioned Wells’ commitment to the negotiation process.

“It just hasn’t been possible to work things out to your satisfaction,” Jordan said.

He also claimed that since Wells purchased the property in 2000, he had not been dealing in good faith with the town.

“If you had come out in the beginning and told the Planning Board: ‘In my own way and in my own time, I’m going to create a commercial business here [a violation of the town’s Shoreland Zoning Ordinance], but I want you to approve each step as we go along,’ until I get there, would they have approved?

“I don’t think so. … You had a plan, and it was a brilliant plan, that you would go step, by step, by step, pull the wool over the Planning Board, Gootschy [former code enforcement officer John Gauthier] until you got what you wanted.”

“That is not true,” Wells replied, claiming that Gauthier had signed permits without telling Wells he had to go to the Planning Board.

“I went on his reliance. He is, or was, the code enforcer,” Wells said. “If he wanted me to go in front of people, then I would have. There was no ‘mission creep’ like stuff. That’s where this whole thing got lost.”

Wells then contended he had “been singled out,” “ganged up on” and was the victim of being “selectively enforced.”

Jordan’s motion passed unanimously.

“Mr. Kaplan has a right to expect an end to this,” Chapman said, “and since there is a standing judgment, he has the right to expect that that judgment, or the things that he agreed to [in attempts to work out the three-party agreement] will be the end of it.”

Back to Planning Board

Wells currently has two permit applications still in front of the Planning Board.

Attorney Perry, in his letter to the selectmen, noted: “the Planning Board has no obligation to act affirmatively.”

He went on to specify grounds on which the applications might be rejected, including the nonexistence of the alleged agreement with the town, previous boards’ rulings on the matter, and the fact that “Mr. Wells is not entitled to claim the residential rental exception because he never used the property as a residence.”

The selectmen will meet the following day, Oct. 4, Sparks said Wednesday, with Perry and the town’s new code enforcement officer, to select a course of action.

Michael Daniels, Bethel Citizen, October 2011


Lakes: Round Pond
Regions: Sebago


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News