By Wayne E. Rivet

Staff Writer

Before the Bridgton Planning Board’s decision regarding whether “fill” is permissible in the Stream Protection Zone in the Hotel Bridgton plan heads back to Superior Court, it will make a pit stop.

Attorney David Lourie, who represents Susan Hatch, Sigvard Von Sicard and Judy Von Sicard (Save Kennard Street), has filed an administrative appeal with the Town of Bridgton, claiming “an error was made in a decision by the Planning Board.”

Code Enforcement Officer Brenda Day said the Appeals Board will take up Lourie’s appeal on Jan. 7. The board will review the Planning Board’s decision, and either support or reject it. Previously, the Appeals Board overturned the Planning Board’s approval of Hotel Bridgton, but developer Justin McIver appealed that decision and initially won in Superior Court.

Sharon Abbott, who voted to overturn planners’ approval, has since resigned from the Appeals Board. Day said that vacancy has not been filled. Currently, the Appeals Board includes chairman John Schuettinger, vice chairman Mark Harmon, Bruce Hancock, Kevin Raday, Dick Danis and alternate Kappy Sprenger.

Day suspects however the Appeals Board rules, the Hotel Bridgton project will likely again land on the Superior Court bench.

In the administrative appeal, Lourie contends “The (Planning) Board failed to give credence to the SZO (Shoreland Zoning Ordinance) prohibition on ‘filling and earthwork’ in the SPZ (Stream Protection Zone) and failed to apply the stricter of the inconsistent provisions governing earthmoving in the SPZ.”

The issue of “fill” was the point Superior Court Justice Thomas McKeon remanded back to the Bridgton Planning Board. The justice wrote, “Whether the project contains impermissible fill is a determination that should first be made by the Planning Board and not by the court. To give credence to the ordinance’s ban on ‘filling,’ the Planning Board should first make a determination one way or the other whether the work in the SP (district) will include ‘filling.’”

Lourie highlighted the word credence, defining it as the belief in or acceptance of something as true.

“The Board failed to accept as true the court’s finding that Items 27 and 28 unambiguously bar ‘filling’ in the 75-foot setback from Stevens Brook,” he wrote.

Lourie also questioned the Planning Board’s “strained interpretation” of the word depression, “claiming there is no proof of a depression in the soil in that area.” Lourie points to the developer’s admission that they “intend to raise the grade contours in this area.”

“The Planning Board construed the definition of the term ‘filling and earthmoving’ unreasonably, out of context and without regard to its objective of providing protection from soil disturbance within 75-feet of Stevens Brook,” Lourie wrote.

The 11-page appeal raised other questions whether planners went beyond the scope of the Remand Order to planners failing to apply the stricter prohibition on “filling and earth moving” when inconsistencies surface between town ordinances.

“Throughout the approval process and again on Remand, the Planning Board treated the ordinances it administers as a grab bag from which it could choose to whichever provisions suited its purpose in approving a popular project. This approach undermined essential protections intended by these ordinances to prevent arbitrary approvals of site plans inconsistent with the ordinances adopted at town meeting,” Lourie wrote.