The Gorham and Buxton planning boards will have a special board meeting on Monday to discuss an application for a subdivision that would sit in both towns.

“Under state law, the boards need to decide to review the subdivision jointly,” said Deb Fossum, Gorham planning director. “We have determined to review the project together and this is the first step in the planning approval process.”

The preliminary plan calls for a 29-lot subdivision on 73 acres of land in the northeast quadrant of Church Hill Road and Finn Parker Road. The land lies in both towns, said Dave Anderson, Buxton Planning Board member. Twenty-two lots would be on the Gorham side while seven lots would be in Buxton.

The proposal comes from Stephen Joffe and Julia Colpitts, husband and wife and owners of the land. Their farmhouse is considered one of the 29 lots, Fossum said.

The couple also sold land several years ago that eventually became the nine-unit Captain’s Way subdvision on Webster Road, across from the new proposed site.

The meeting will be in the Gorham Municipal Center in the Town Council chambers beginning at 7 p.m. Planners will look at each town’s ordinances and what’s required of the applicant to meet those conditions. Ordinances include road standards, fire safety, snow removal, fire safety and storm water runoff.

“The town line defines that everything in Buxton will meet the Buxton code and anything within the municipal boundaries of Gorham will meet our codes,” Fossum said.

The couple will need to go through several steps for approval, Fossum said. The hearing on Oct. 20 is a prelminary plan approval. If the boards approve that, the plans will then be submitted to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. If the DEP approves that plan, then the couple will come back to the towns for final subdivision approval.

Both boards met in October 2007 for a preliminary site walk, but this will be the first official meeting between the two towns.

“This is not normal and it’s not a usual thing that you would have a subdivision divided into two towns,” Anderson said.