Planning Board 

Highland Plantation Planning Board Minutes

Thursday, August 10, 2023, at 5 p.m.

Present: PBM:  Dan Howard, Art Kaminsky, Jay Staton, and Rose Staton

CEO:  Not Present

Citizens: Jodie Dunphy

Old Business: 

Ron Nunes (CEO) was not available to give an update on current building permits. 

Jodie Dunphy stated that the Hiembach construction project is continuing without a permit. Dan Howard is going to speak to the CEO. Construction should be stopped until the application has been approved. 

Blue Shed–CEO will speak to Mr. Pascucci once again. If the shed is not moved an affidavit will be attached to the property deed. This should be completed by the next planning board meeting in October.

New Business:

Assessors are concerned that the building permits and fees are not getting to Highland’s Clerk from the CEO. Fees must be paid and building permits posted on the Highland website before work begins. 

Fee schedule was revised and recommendation sent to the Assessors for discussion and vote for approval or denial.

A new proposed building application was reviewed and revised. It will be sent to Highland’s  Assessors for discussion and vote for approval or denial.

Adjourned:  7:05

Minutes posted as written by: Rose Staton

Highland Plantation Planning Board Report

2018

Planning Board members are:

Greg Drummond                   Darrell Nix

Rose Staton                           Monica Nix

Dan Howard                          Mike Malesky     Code Enforcement Officer

The board met 8 times to discuss a variety of issues. Our original Licensed Plumbing Inspector, Robert Dunphy retired and a new one was appointed. Leo Mayo, of Embden is the current LPI. For any residential building permit a soil test and plumbing permit must be acquired before we can act on a building permit. You can reach Leo Mayo at 566-7341. Greg Perkins is a soil scientist with a property in Highland. He can be reached at 735-6013. If a driveway provides access from Long Falls Dam Road you will also need a permit from DOT for that. There were several minor ordinance violations to consider during 2018 and all were settled with cooperating landowners. Since landowners have made every effort to correct their violations and since we are all learning as we go, no penalties were assessed. In June we learned that changes have been made to Maine’s Shoreland Zoning under Department of Environmental Protection. We are required by law to adopt these changes in our Highland Ordinance and have, after a lot of work, edited our original ordinance document to comply with the new regulations. A copy of the edited version will be available on the Highland website and we have five paper copies available for study. In order to make the required changes there must be a public hearing to discuss any issues involved and a town meeting to vote on it. Information concerning the hearing will be posted in the Irregular and at the Town House and Fire House. Finally, we found that our Building Permit Application combined requirements for a simple CEO permit and a more complicated Planning Board Permit. This proved to be confusing, so we now have a separate application for each. Thank you all for your patience and cooperation in 2018.

Greg Drummond

Highland Plantation Planning Board Committee Meeting Schedule. All Meetings will be held at the Highland Town House unless otherwise stated. Everyone is welcome.   Call Greg Drummond 628‐3333 or Rose Staton 628‐4761 for further information.

Meeting Schedules