Frustrated at the time the Windham Town Council is taking to review his application for a proposed quarry, developer Peter Busque said this week that the issue will likely be solved in a courtroom rather than council chambers.

Busque, citing actions taken on previous quarry proposals, urged the council on Tuesday to accept the planning board’s findings as fact and approve the project immediately.

In the application currently before the council, Busque seeks to create a 15-acre quarry on a 110-acre site near Nash Road and Route 302. The plan addresses issues with the first proposal by decreasing the area to be mined, increasing a buffer zone around the quarry, and routing the access road to Route 302 instead of Nash Road, Busque said.

The council, however, followed the advice of town attorney Natalie Burns and will proceed with a full review.

Meanwhile, Busque said the fate of the quarry likely rests on his first application, which was rejected by the council last year, a decision Busque is appealing to Cumberland County Superior Court.

“It’ll be decided in court,” Busque said.

At their meeting Tuesday, the council disagreed on whether to speed up the review process, as well as on the council’s role in approving the application. Councilor Blaine Davis said the council should follow the lead set by the Planning Board and approve the project, while others, including Robert Muir and John MacKinnon felt the council should do a complete review.

Since the first hearing on the application was held April 8, the council has set aside an hour or so at each of its meetings to work through the proposal and take public comment. The review has become time-consuming, and the council has found it difficult to move through the information in one-hour segments two or three weeks apart.

Following testimony Tuesday night on the proposed quarry’s depth that took up much of the allotted hour, Councilor Kaile Warren suggested that in the future the council remove the self-imposed hour time cap on the hearings.

“I do think it would benefit everybody to gain momentum in the process,” Warren said.

Councilor Davis said the council should schedule more night meetings to tackle the quarry application, but councilors John MacKinnon and Carol Waig said the council should first get through the busy budget season before putting more on its plate.

The review is an intricate process, added Councilor Robert Muir, and the public should be given every opportunity to speak on the quarry application.

“I don’t think this is something we should rush,” he said.

Busque presented to the council two previous applications for quarries in Windham, one from 1996 and one from 2002.

In both cases, Busque said, the council tied their decision to the conclusions reached by the Planning Board. Because his application has already been approved by the planning board, he asked the council to follow suit and approve the quarry immediately.

“I am asking the Town Council to consider my application the same way it has previous applications,” he wrote in a letter to the council.

Town Manager Tony Plante said the 2002 quarry application, by Grondin & Sons, was approved by the Planning Board but never forwarded to the council. The expansion proposed in the application has never taken place, he said.

Since it seems the council did not complete the wholesale review of the 1996 application for the Tandberg River Road gravel pit, it doesn’t seem “fair and equitable” to change the process for the Busque application, Davis said.

Changing the process now could leave the town in legal jeopardy, said Burns.

Busque appealed the rejection of his original application to Cumberland County Superior Court, where it awaits review. While the town’s legal counsel has interpreted the ordinance to say the council must complete a full review following approval by the Planning Board, that matter will be decided as part of the court case, Burns said. If the town changes its review process now, that will weaken its case in court, she said.

“My legal advice would be to not change tack now,” Burns told the council.

Burns said the June election would not interfere with the review. If the composition of the council changes in the election, new councilors would merely have to catch up on the application by reviewing transcripts from the hearings, she said.