Planning Board tables Palm Street project

The plan for an apartment complex on land between Palm Street and Parkview Avenue stalled Monday night on its journey through Bangor’s approval process.

The Planning Board was to have considered James Brooker’s proposal for 11 apartments in two buildings on the site of a former commercial laundry on land at 203 Palm St. and 260 Parkview Ave., but neighbors who opposed the project succeeded in mounting a possibly terminal delay.

Brooker first sought approval last summer but met an impasse. He regrouped, modified the plan and submitted it again.

The board voted 5-0 to table Brooker’s request for approval of a special exception and site plan.

Opponents had appealed a finding by the code enforcement officer.

The laundry was a non-conforming use in a residential neighborhood. The cost of restoring a non-conforming building cannot exceed 75 percent of its assessed value.

Monday afternoon, Thomas Small, the code officer, said that the building was assessed at $75,000 and that the restoration planned by Brooker would not exceed the limit.

A spokesman for the opponents said that they appealed Small’s finding for a couple of reasons. They felt the assessed value for an abandoned building was absurdly high and that the repairs needed would exceed 75 percent of a realistic valuation, said Charles Livingstone, who now lives in Boston but returned to take up the cause of opposing the project.

They carried their appeal to the Zoning Board of Appeals. “We feel confident that the zoning board will stand behind us,” Livingstone said.

Monday night, Paul Svendsen allowed no public comment on Brooker’s proposal. The matter is before the Zoning Board of Appeals and “is outside the purview of the Planning Board,” he said.

If the Zoning Board upholds the finding of the code enforcement officer, City Planner John Lord said that the matter would come before the Planning Board for a new hearing.

If the ZBA overturns Small’s finding the project, as presented, would die, he said.

In other business, the board approved a special exception and site plan presented by John Largay. It was the third time in 13 months that Largay had presented the board plans for developing 155 Pine St., currently a vacant lot.

The land is zoned for high density residential use and initially he proposed a nearly 4,000-square-foot office building. The board turned down that plan. And Largay, in the name of Pine Tree Associates returned with a plan for a building that contained 2,000 square feet of office space on the first floor and two apartments on the second floor.

The proposed building borrows many of the features of a Federalist period house, Largay said. The clapboard house would fit well in the historic neighborhood just off Broadway, he said.