APPLETON, Maine — A homeowner who built a house despite a legal challenge over local zoning law will launch a petition drive to have residents decide whether he has to move the building.
Jacob Boyington attempted Tuesday night to get Appleton selectmen to call a special town meeting to consider a consent agreement that would allow him to keep his two-bedroom home at 99 Searsmont Road.
But with only two of three board members on hand for the meeting and both recusing themselves, the request was considered denied, Board Chairman Donald Burke said Wednesday. Burke recused himself because he is Boyington’s uncle. No reason was given for Selectman Scott Wiley’s recusal.
The remaining option for Boyington, according to Burke, is to collect signatures from 76 registered Appleton voters to get his consent agreement placed on a town meeting warrant.
Boyington’s attorney Christopher McLean said Wednesday his client would go the petition route. Boyington earlier had offered to plant trees on the property line with his neighbors and pay the town $2,500 to settle the 6-year-old case.
“We want to resolve this as quickly as we can to save the town and everyone else from any further expense. The appeals by the neighbors have cost the town thousands of dollars in legal fees,” McLean said. “We hope that this legal nightmare can come to an end within the next 60 days.”
Boyington purchased the 0.18 acre lot from the town for $4,100 at a public auction in August 2008. The town issued Boyington a building permit in 2009 but neighbors Paul and Rita Gagnon and Lorie and Patrick Costigan challenged it, saying the lot was too small for the house to be built on and would be located too close to the road under existing zoning ordinances.
The neighbors also argued that Boyington was able to get a permit, in part, by presenting an inaccurate description of the land to the town.
Though the legal challenge was still winding its way through the court system, Boyington built the two-bedroom house. The lot is assessed by the town at $17,000 and the house at $93,560.
The town rescinded the building permit after being ordered to in May 2014 by Superior Court Justice Jeffrey Hjelm. He later ruled that the town’s zoning board of appeals also erred in granting a zoning variance to Appleton Ridge Construction and its owner, Boyington.
The town’s code enforcement officer since has ordered Boyington to comply with the town ordinance, and last year said she did not know how that could be accomplished without the house being removed.
The town filed a land use complaint against Boyington at the end of February and a hearing on it is scheduled for April 27 in Rockland Unified Courts.