Court seeks Wal-Mart case information

PORTLAND – The Maine Supreme Judicial Court said Friday that the Bangor planning board failed to produce sufficient reasons in denying a controversial plan for a Wal-Mart Supercenter near the city’s Penjajawoc Marsh.

The six-member court has asked for more information from the Bangor planning board before it will rule on the appropriateness of a Superior Court finding that overturned the board’s denial of the project.

The planning board is expected to provide the court with the requested findings of fact sometime next month, according to city solicitor Norm Heitmann.

The ruling also affirmed Superior Court findings that Bangor Area Citizens Organized for Responsible Development, opponents of the Wal-Mart project, should be able to act as intervenors in the lawsuit originally brought against the city by the New York-based developer, Widewaters-Stillwater Co. LLC.

The citizens group intervened after the city opted not to appeal the Superior Court’s ruling last June that said the Wal-Mart project could go forward.

The board initially rejected the development plan in April 2001 for a 224,000-square-foot retail center. In rejecting the plan, the board’s majority cited a vague city ordinance which allows them to consider the development’s “effect on the scenic or natural beauty of the area or … rare and irreplaceable natural areas,” namely the nearby Penjajawoc, home to a number of bird species on the state’s endangered or threatened lists.

A month later, the developer won an appeal in Superior Court after Justice Jeffrey Hjelm ruled the ordinance was unconstitutional and unenforceable. The Superior Court ruling forced the city to issue the necessary site development permit. BACORD then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Friday’s ruling said that the board failed to support its initial denial of the permit with a “written decision or findings of fact.”

“The majority of the board should have stated the basis of the denial of the permit and should have made factual findings underlying the decision,” according to the majority opinion issued by Justice Susan Calkins.

Edward Gould, attorney for BACORD, was positive about Friday’s ruling.

“The case has been thrown back into the arena where we won,” Gould said Friday. “Essentially, the Law Court has reinstated our victory before the planning board and we’re very happy about it.”

Attorneys for Widewaters-Stillwater LLC couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.