ROME — The noise standards in the town’s commercial ordinance could be difficult to apply to the application for a summer camp on Long Pond, according to a review by the town’s attorney.
David Porter, a Sudbury, Massachusetts, resident, has proposed to build Camp Caruso for male siblings in foster care on land he owns on the north shore of Long Pond.
The camp has gone through a months-long planning board process and faces fierce opposition from neighbors. The planning board is waiting for an updated noise study before taking a vote on the project, and some believe the application will be denied because Porter cannot meet the standard.
But the noise standards in the ordinance “raise several issues,” according to Farmington attorney Frank Underkuffler in a Nov. 23 letter to selectmen.
The ordinance doesn’t differentiate between noise and sound and might not apply to human voices, Underkuffler said.
Even if human voices are considered noise, standards are highly subjective and “tend to be litigious, to say the least,” Underkuffler said.
“A decision denying a land use application on the basis of a noise standard alone will always be in for an uncertain future in the courts,” he said.
Meanwhile, Porter has complained that Planning Board Chairman Dick Greenan is personally opposed to the project and is looking for ways to obstruct the application.
“Mr. Greenan is choosing to pick his spots in his best effort to defeat the camp, which he has told numerous people in the town who are willing to sign an affidavit to this fact,” Porter said.
Porter, through his attorney, Sarah McDaniel, last month filed a public document request with the town under the Maine Freedom of Access Act that asked for communication related to the summer camp between planning board members and town officials, staff, consultants and anyone else. Porter said the town responded to the request on Monday with “reams” of documents.
“It will become a legal mess for the town as long as Mr. Greenan is involved,” Porter said. “A good fight doesn’t scare me off.”
Greenan, in an interview Monday, denied having a bias against the project and said he would not recuse himself from deliberating on it.
“I have no bias one way or the other. The chips may fall where they fall,” Greenan said. “I have to do my due diligence.” Porter will not be able to demonstrate where he would have a bias, Greenan added.
“If I had a bias, I would have stepped down long ago,” he said. Greenan is also on the board of directors of the Belgrade Lakes Regional Conservation Alliance.
“The applicant thinks we are making it difficult for him, but the townspeople don’t see it that way at all. They see that we are doing a good job under the circumstances,” Greenan said.
The planning board was going to try to take a vote on the application at its Dec. 14 meeting, but Porter has not responded to a request for more details in the noise survey to gauge noise on the shorefront, Greenan said.
“We will not be voting on it on the 14th, one way or another,” he said.
The camp would take up about 15 acres of a 68-acre plot with frontage on a quiet inlet on the northern shore of Long Pond known as Beaver Cover.
It includes bunk houses, a main lodge, waterfront docks, sports fields, administrative and storage buildings.
The proposal has faced stiff opposition from nearby seasonal and year-round residents who are concerned about the camp’s effects on water quality and property values and worry that a boys camp will upset the quiet cove. Residents have sent dozens of letters to the planning board about the project, and the group Concerned Citizens of Beaver Cove has hired an attorney who specializes in land use issues to review the application.
Opponents have looked to the noise standards in the ordinance as a possible way to get the project rejected at the planning board level. The standards require that any noise produced at a development cannot exceed 55 decibels when recorded at the boundary with an adjacent property; 60 decibels is about the sound of a normal human conversation.
Porter amended his plan to move sports fields 300 feet back from the boundary with an adjacent property to comply with the ordinance standards.
But according to Underkuffler, the difference between noise, like machinery and barking dogs, and sound, like voices or music, is “somewhat hidden” in the wording of the ordinance.
Even if there is loud shouting, the sound might not be considered noise, because it is one human being communicating with another, and loud speech is not noise, Underkuffler said.
“I think that is why, in my experience at least, noise standards are applied to kennels, racetracks, mills, quarries, metal shredders, air compressors and chippers, and not schools, churches and athletic facilities,” Underkuffler said
“If an opponent of the camp thinks the noise standard is applicable, I would place the burden on that opponent to provide the planning board with a reported case where another planning board has successfully applied a noise standard in a similar, human-sound context,” he said.
Even if the sound from the camp is considered noise under the ordinance standards, one would not know if it exceeds the limits until the camp is in full swing and can be measured again, Underkuffler added.
In an interview Monday, Underkuffler said that the selectmen asked him to review the noise standards, and he was not writing an opinion on the Camp Caruso application.
“The cautionary tale is that this type of ordinance is very difficult to apply,” Undekuffler said.
“I’m not saying you can’t regulate it under the noise standard, but if you do, you have to recognize that it is a difficult issue,” he said.
On Monday, Greenan acknowledged that the noise standards were tricky, but the standards have become an important factor in the application.
From his research, noise can be defined as something that is foreign to the area, Greenan said. In this case, the possible clamor from a summer camp in a quiet residential cove would meet that definition, he said.
Although the planning board has tried to keep the case from going to court, it looks as though that is where it is headed, Greenan said.
Noise, glare, smoke and the environmental impact of the camp are important issues for neighbors. Even though the camp fits the state standards for phosphorus run off into the lake and other issues, it will still have an impact on the environment, he said.
“I don’t think anyone can deny there is going to be an impact, and that is a problem because a single home is an impact, let alone a summer camp.”
Peter McGuire — 861-9239
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