NORTHFIELD – Residents will vote this evening in a special town meeting whether to support a 180-day moratorium for all building permits that fall within the shore land or watershed areas of the town’s two largest lakes.

The chairman of the planning board said the emergency measure is in response to the town’s need to keep the water quality of Bog and Fulton lakes close to baseline standards set in 1987, when the lakes were last tested.

But Eric Burke was challenged Tuesday evening by several among the 60-plus people who packed the town office for a public hearing on the matter.

Some questioned the planning board’s sincerity, suggesting that the rush to put the building-permit process on hold is a reaction to one developer’s interest in creating a 35-lot subdivision on Bog Lake.

Others wondered why the moratorium ordinance was not included within the warrant for the town’s annual meeting on July 26. With little awareness on the part of residents who don’t hold town offices, selectmen posted the building moratorium on Aug. 15 – subject to a townwide vote on Sept. 7.

The issue has the town of 131 residents divided. Some at Tuesday’s hearing simply wondered why they didn’t have more time to figure out the impact of the issue, given that maps outlining the affected locales have not been readily posted for easy study recently.

Supporting the moratorium now could lead to the selectmen’s extension of the moratorium every 180 days, if they found cause.

A second question, also to be voted on today, would give the town permission to use $5,000 to pay for a water quality consultant to test the two lakes.

That sampling actually took place on Aug. 25, even though residents have not yet approved that expenditure. It will be two or three months before the results of that testing is known, Burke said.

Voting down the moratorium would allow others to build their homes and camps amid the lakes, just as many residents have done.

Residents – as well as

nonresident lot-owners with intentions to build – got their turns to make their points Tuesday evening. But not before Burke completed his 45-minute opening statement on behalf of the planning board.

“I think you understand that there is increased developmental pressure coming to us in the future,” Burke said.

He pointed out that the panel must work according to the town’s land use ordinance, which was considered environmentally progressive when it was enacted in 1987. Nearly 30 percent of the houses in town were built in the 1980s, according to the 2000 Census figures.

Northfield isn’t necessarily prepared to absorb a 35-lot subdivision, Burke said, or even any building that might affect the “public health, safety and welfare” of the town’s lakes and residents.

The 1987 ordinance specified that the lakes would be monitored for water quality every five years, or even more frequently. But no testing has taken place in the last 18 years. Burke said he had been on the planning board for just one year, and had no idea why no testing has occurred since 1987.

That’s all the more reason, some responded, why the town could wait to learn results of the health of its lakes before putting a moratorium in place.

Residents will gather again this evening at 7:00 for the vote.