Judge upholds permit denial of Bangor Wal-Mart proposal

BANGOR – A proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter proposal took another hit this week.

In a decision issued Wednesday, Superior Court Justice Jeffrey Hjelm upheld the city planning board’s 2001 decision to deny New York-based Widewaters-Stillwater LLC’s application for a site location of development permit.

The developer needed the permit in order to build a 224,000-square-foot store on a roughly 28-acre parcel near the Bangor Mall and the Penjajawoc Marsh, which state environmental officials consider a valuable wildlife habitat.

Hjelm’s decision comes a week after the Maine Board of Environmental Protection’s 5-3 vote March 20 to reject a similar application, despite a November staff recommendation that Widewaters be granted a permit, contingent upon the developer’s meeting more than 20 conditions before beginning construction.

What the two decisions mean for the Bangor project remained unclear this week.

Keith Morris, Wal-Mart’s director of community affairs for New England, said the company still was reviewing its options internally.

Kevin Kane, spokesman for the DeWitt, N.Y.-based Widewaters Group, did not return telephone calls this week.

A spokeswoman for Bangor Area Citizens Organized for Responsible Development, a local conservation group opposed to the project, said Friday that the group was satisfied with this week’s ruling.

“Basically, this is what we were expecting,” Valerie Carter said. “We did not think there was much, if any, chance that Widewaters would win this appeal because the planning board put so much time and effort into its finding of fact. “While we were not surprised, we were certainly gratified that the judge found in our favor,” she said.

Widewaters applied for a city site location permit and two conditional use permits in early 2001.

After a public hearing, the city’s planning board voted 3-2 to deny the site location application. Members approved both conditional use permits.