TOPSHAM

Topsham Selectmen said last week that they are open to accepting 26 acres of land from a developer who has bee stymied by the market and road construction costs. but wanted to hear from their attorney before making a decision on the offer.

The Roberts Hill subdivision, located off Route 196, was approved in 2008 for a total of 14 lots, according to Town Planner Rod Melanson. The project has hit a road block during construction. The landowner and developer Chip Bowie has liens on the remaining property starting to mature in February. He told selectmen he can’t afford to keep paying money on this property.

Melanson said the landowner can go through a foreclosure process or can offer the town the remaining parcels of the subdivision.

Selectmen Chairman David Douglass said the current subdivisions has built up to a stream and the cost to cross that stream is substantial, “to the point where it probably doesn’t make the project very viable any longer for the developer.”

Douglass said the developer has come to the town willing to gift the land to the town and pay any fees to make that happen, as well as paying off all tax liens, a total of $13,510.

If selectmen don’t accept the property as a gift, it goes into foreclosure and then the town still gets the land but wouldn’t recoup the $13,500, Douglass said.

Selectman Ruth Lyons said she wants advice in writing from the town’s attorney on what action the board should take.

Lyons asked what if a number of developers came to the town wanting it to take their property and questioned the effect setting this precedence could have on the town. She is concerned about titles and deeds and “to me there’s a whole host of legal issues before this board could make a decision tonight.”

Douglass said there are now performance bonds required to assure this kind of thing can’t happen in the future regarding subdivisions.

Town Manager Rich Roedner said selectmen weren’t asked to make a decision Thursday but rather to have a conversation about their comfort level with the gift option.

“The big question I have is if we accept this gift, do we accept any liability to the existing property owners to finish this road,” Roedner said.

The town’s subdivision ordinance requires the road cross the stream because of road connectivity standards to avoid dead end roads. Roedner said the project got preliminary approve in 2003 and upon final approval, the planning board had the applicant come to the board of selectmen at the time, to get access to this land through Deer Run, a town-owned parcel with no detailed restrictions on it “much to the chagrin of that neighborhood.”

Douglass said selectmen are being told this land will become theirs anyway, “so we don’t want to lose sight of that.”

He said the paper road connecting Deer Run to this property was a piece of land the town mandated be set aside for natural space so residents on that road were unhappy a road was to be constructed through it to allow for road connectivity. The bridge would cost several hundred thousand dollars.

“In the big picture, we broke one of our own rules to enforce connectivity,” Douglass said. “I think we have an opportunity here if we do accept this. One way or the other we’re going to have this property… We have an opportunity to return that to natural space.”

Chip Bowie, the developer, said he started the process in 2003 and got approval in 2008. Since he got his road estimate in 2006, the lot values went from $75,000 to $50,000 creating a substantial loss, and his road costs almost doubled to a most recently estimated $450,000 to $500,000 — to access six lots on the other side of the stream. He can’t afford to keep paying taxes to wait for lot values to rise again.

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