China planners hold rescheduled meeting on solar farm

/0 Comments/in , /by
by Mary Grow

On Nov. 14, China planning board members held their rescheduled public hearing on Novel Energy Systems’ proposed community solar farm on Parmenter Hill Road, the section locally known as Moe’s Mountain.

Attendees included nearby landowners who attended the Sept. 26 preliminary discussion and Novel representatives. Main issues were those already raised Sept. 26 – possible contamination, effects on property values and decommissioning at the end of the facility’s useful life (see the Oct. 5 issue of The Town Line, p. 2).

In the interim, codes officer Zachary Gosselin had provided a copy of Novel’s information at the China town office for interested parties to read.

Novel permitting specialist Scott Tempel repeated information he offered Sept. 26, for example that there are no known cases of aluminum or other metals leaching from solar panels – or from widely-used aluminum siding, he added – into soil or groundwater. His assurances were again met with skepticism.

Novel plans soil testing to establish a baseline as part of project construction.

Abutter Jennifer Whitney asked if there would be battery storage on site. The answer was no; there is on some projects, but none is planned here, and adding it at a later date would require another planning board permit.

Tempel again said there will be erosion control measures in place during construction, and that maintenance of the facility will involve planting native grasses and plants that attract pollinators, with occasional mowing. No chemical herbicides will be used.

After the three-quarter hour hearing, board members indicated they will review Novel’s application again at their next meeting, scheduled for Tuesday evening, Nov. 28. A decision is possible if they find the application complete.

They briefly discussed another set of amendments to China’s Planning Board Ordinance, in preparation for a presentation to China select board members at that board’s Nov. 20 meeting.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Starrett family of China

/0 Comments/in , , /by

There are 20 Starretts and three women whose maiden name was Starrett buried in Chadwick Cemetery, in China.

by Mary Grow

Two weeks ago, this series featured China-born inventor Laroy Sunderland Starrett. As suggested in that story, he was a member of a large family with generations of China connections.

This article will provide information about Laroy Starrett’s family. A warning to readers: there is a fair amount of genealogy, which your writer realizes some people find uninteresting, and a fair amount of contradiction and frustration. The latter are due to lack of information, or at least available and consistent information, about long-dead people who were mostly just ordinary, though of great importance to their families and friends.

Your writer found three sources that should be accurate: a genealogy (spelling Laroy’s name Leroy) included in the China bicentennial history, an on-line transcript of information from the Starrett family Bible and copies of gravestone inscriptions. They do not always agree.

In addition to consistent records, your writer would like more personal information. What did Laroy think of his South China relatives, and vice versa? Did his Massachusetts-born children spend time with their Maine grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins? How did so many 19th-century Starretts get from China to Illinois?

* * * * * *

According to the genealogy in the China history, Abner Starrett and his family were the first Starretts in China.

Abner was born September 28, 1776, in Francestown, New Hampshire. Kingsbury’s Kennebec County history says his father’s name was William, and his grandfather was Hugh Starrett, “who came from Scotland to Dedham.” (Your writer assumes Dedham, Massachusetts. She did not find a Dedham in New Hampshire; Dedham, Maine, was settled in 1810 and incorporated in 1837.)

On September 22, 1800, Abner Starrett married Elizabeth Dane (born in New Hampshire Jan. 23, 1779, the Starrett family Bible transcript says, or July 21, 1779, according to China cemetery records). The couple had four sons and three daughters, born between October 1801 and December 1813. They moved to China in 1814 (Kingsbury’s date).

Abner, Elizabeth and children settled in the area called Chadwick’s Corner on what is now Route 32 South (Windsor Road). Chadwick’s Corner was named for Ichabod Chadwick, who was there by 1797.

Abner Starrett died in China on Aug. 14, 1819, when he was 43 years old. His widow lived until July 21, 1865. Abner and Elizabeth are the earliest of 23 family members buried in Chadwick Hill cemetery, 20 Starretts and three women whose maiden name was Starrett.

* * * * *  *

Abner and Elizabeth’s children were the second generation of Starretts in China, born in the first two decades of the 1800s. The four sons were another Abner (your writer will imitate some, but not all, sources and call him Abner, Jr.), Daniel Dane (Laroy’s father), William and David. All four sons married; at least had three large families, many of whom stayed in China.

Abner, Jr., was born Aug. 14 or Oct. 14, 1801 (the genealogy and the Bible record differ). On Sept. 4, 1823, in China, he married Mary C. Weeks (born March 24, 1802). Mary’s parents – his in-laws – were Abner and Lydia (Clark) Weeks.

Jonathan Clark, Jr., one of the brothers who first settled around China Lake in 1775, and his wife Susanna had a daughter named Lydia (Nov. 4, 1769 – April 8, 1853). An on-line genealogy says Lydia Clark married Abner Weeks (1766 -1846) and had by him two children, Mary Clark Weeks (1802-1889) and Solomon Weeks (1810-1824).

In other words, Abner, Jr., connected himself by marriage to China’s founding family.

Abner, Jr., and Mary had nine daughters and two sons, including two more Marys, Mary Emily and Mary Ann; another Elizabeth; and another Abner. These were the elders of the third generation, born between the 1820s and 1860s; they were Laroy Starrett’s first cousins.

The Bible transcription says Abner, Jr., died in June 1857.

* * * * * *

The first Abner’s second son, Laroy Starrett’s father, was Daniel Dane Starrett, born Nov. 25, 1802 (genealogy) or Feb. 9, 1803 (China cemetery records). On Sept. 25, 1825, he married Anna Crummett or Crummet, born to Joshua and Sarah Crummet(t) of China on Jan. 27 (genealogy) or March 3 (China cemetery records), 1803.

The Starrett genealogy says Daniel and Anna had five sons and seven daughters between Dec. 17, 1826, and Dec. 27, 1848. The Find a Grave website lists only six children, three sons and three daughters. Both include Laroy, born in 1836.

The genealogy says four daughters married men from China and two married men from neighboring Vassalboro. One died before her second birthday.

According to the genealogy and the China history, the only son who definitely remained in China was Laroy’s younger brother, Samuel C. Starrett. Born April 30, 1844, he served in the Civil War and came home to marry Charles Mosher’s daughter, Emily, on Feb. 26, 1869.

Samuel and Emily had five sons and two daughters, the genealogy says. They named their youngest son, born in 1887, Leroy S., presumably after his uncle.

Samuel served as a China selectman from March 1876 to March 1878 and again from March 1881 to March 1883. (His father, Daniel, had been a selectman in 1840.) In 1882 and 1883 he was among the founders of Erskine Academy, South China’s private high school near Chadwick’s Corner, and served as the school’s first treasurer.

Kingsbury wrote that Samuel Starrett was the second commander of South China’s James P. Jones G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) Post, organized in April 1884. In the summer of 1885, he helped organize the South China lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, serving as its first “master workman.”

In April 1890, Samuel and Daniel Starrett were among seven men – two others were Chadwicks –the China history lists as founders of the Chadwick Hill cemetery association, created to care for the cemetery. The only Daniel in the genealogy is Laroy and Samuel’s father, Daniel Dane; in 1890, he would have been in his late 80s.

About 1900, the China history says, Samuel Starrett and Louis Masse built “a store with an apartment above it” on the north side of South China’s Main Street (then the Augusta to Belfast highway), near the church. The first man to live in the apartment and run the store was Samuel and Emily’s son, George (Laroy’s nephew), born Jan. 7, 1882.

According to the genealogy (but not to any other source your writer could find), Laroy and Samuel’s youngest sister, Mary (born in China Dec. 27, 1848), was a doctor, who married another doctor, Dr. Horace W. Sibley, of Vassalboro, on Jan. 27, 1870. (See box.)

Laroy’s mother, Anna, died March 3, 1875, the genealogy says. Daniel died Feb. 9, 1896, aged 93 (genealogy) or February 1897, aged 94 (Bible).

By March 1875, Laroy’s meat chopper had become popular. He was either still in Newburyport, or had moved to Athol, where his wife Lydia died in February 1878, leaving him with a teen-age son and three younger daughters.

Laroy founded L. S. Starrett in 1880; various sources say the company expanded quickly. By the time his father died in the 1890s, Laroy must have been fairly well-known as a Massachusetts businessman.

The genealogy in the China history says four of Samuel’s sons (Laroy’s nephews) moved to Athol to work in the factory. Ernest (born Nov. 30, 1876) spent more than 50 years there before coming back to South China, where he and his wife Aurie (Austin) lived in “the brick house” until their deaths in the 1960s.

* * * * * *

The first Abner’s third son was named William. The printed genealogy and the China cemetery records agree on William’s dates (Sept. 28, 1804 – March 29, 1841) and his wife’s name and dates (Mary Ann Calder, March 20, 1805 – Dec. 21, 1890).

The Bible record says William died April 29, 1841. An on-line genealogy gives his wife’s name as Mary Ann Thurlow and says they married on April 21, 1827. This source says they had at least three sons and a daughter – more of Laroy’s cousins.

* * * * * *

After William, Abner and Elizabeth had three daughters, Elizabeth (June 6, 1807), Lucinda (Jan. 28, 1809) and Sarah (Aug. 28, 1810). Elizabeth married a South China Chadwick; Lucinda married Thomas Giddings, almost certainly from Weeks Mills village in China; and Sarah married Edward Emerson, whom your writer has been unable to trace.

* * * * * *

Abner and Elizabeth’s fourth son, David (born Dec. 1, 1813), married on Sept. 23, 1838, Sarah D. Chadwick (born Aug. 6, 1820). David and Sarah had seven sons, born between 1840 and 1864 – more (younger) cousins for Laroy.

According to the genealogy, the oldest boy, born July 16, 1840, was named David. The Find a Grave website calls him Pvt. David Chadwick Starrett and says in the Civil War he served as a private in the 67th Illinois Volunteer Infantry.

An on-line genealogy calls him Pvt. David Chedwick Starrett. He lived in Orono in 1850 and Alna in 1860, this source says, citing census figures; he “registered for military service in 1862.”

This genealogy does not say where he was in 1862. Its earliest mention of Chicago is his marriage there, on Oct. 24, 1895 (when he was 55); and it says he died and is buried in Chicago.

David and Sarah’s second son died when he was 14, in November 1861. The next boy, Edwin Burnham Starrett, lived to be 90, residing in Massachusetts, Missouri and Wisconsin and dying in Elgin, Illinois.

Son number four, Adrian Frank Starrett, born in 1851, married a girl from Vassalboro, and lived for a while in Alna, but he, too, went to Chicago, where he died May 29, 1931.

David and Sarah’s next two children both died before their second birthdays. Moody Thurston Starrett was born in the fall of 1856 and died in the summer of 1858 (exact dates differ). His sibling, born in April 1860 and died in June 1861, was either a son named Winfield Scott Starrett (genealogy) or a daughter named Winnie Starrett (China cemetery records).

The youngest son, Dr. Carlton Elmer Starrett, was born May 15, 1864, in Alna, and died May 1, 1908, in Chicago. His gravestone in Bluff City cemetery in Elgin, Illinois, says he was a major and a surgeon in the Illinois National Guard’s Third Infantry and was a veteran of the Spanish-American War (1898).

Back to Laroy’s uncle and aunt, David and Sarah Starrett: the China bicentennial history uses them to show how bad China roads were in the 1830s. The history cites town records reporting a July 8, 1834, meeting at which voters recommended giving the couple $125 “for damages by them sustained in consequence of a bridge being out of repair (as they say).”

The vote needed endorsement by the spring 1835 town meeting. On March 23, 1835, voters created a committee to review and settle the Starretts’ claim. The history says town records do not include the outcome.

Attentive readers will have noted that the China history dates this episode about four years before the genealogy in the same book says David and Sarah got married. Your writer can offer no explanation.

The on-line genealogy says David (and presumably Sarah) lived in Alna for about 10 years and in Chicago for about 20 years; another on-line source says Sarah was in Illinois in 1900.

Sarah Chadwick Starrett died Aug. 25, 1903, and David Starrett died either Jan. 13 or Aug. 13, 1907, both by then back in Maine, according to on-line sources. They are among the family members buried in Chadwick Hill cemetery.

The Wall Cemetery

Speaking of the frustrations of limited research:

A long Sibley genealogy found on line says Horace W. Sibley (perhaps Laroy Starrett’s brother-in-law) was born in Augusta in 1845, son of William H. Sibley (Oct. 29, 1818 – Dec. 8, 1901) and his first wife, Judith W. Lowell (Sept. 5, 1809 – Sept. 1, 1878). It says nothing about Horace’s wife.

The genealogy lists William as a farmer in Vassalboro in 1850 and an Albion resident in 1860. It says he and Judith are buried in the Wall cemetery, in Vassalboro.

The comprehensive section on cemeteries on the Vassalboro website does not list a Wall cemetery.

In the Wall cemetery on the west side of Riverside Drive, in Augusta, about three miles south of the Augusta-Vassalboro line, Find a Grave lists seven Sibleys, including William (1815 – Dec. 8, 1901) and Judith Lowell (1811 – Sept. 1, 1878), but no Horace.

Main sources

Grow, Mary M., China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).

Websites, miscellaneous.

CHINA: Two positions filled with write-ins

/0 Comments/in , /by
by Mary Grow

Two positions on China boards have been filled, after Nov. 7 write-in votes were counted and winners informed.

Town Clerk Angela Nelson reported incumbent Michael Brown received six votes for the District 1 planning board seat, and incumbent Michael Sullivan received five votes for the District 3 budget committee seat. Both have accepted re-election.

The town website, china.govoffice.com, says there is still an opening for a planning board member from District 4, the southwestern quarter of the town.

Appointed boards that need additional members include the comprehensive plan implementation committee, the board of appeals (two open positions) and the board of assessment review (an alternate member). These board members are not appointed by districts.

Residents interested in serving on any of these boards or committee are invited to call the town office at 445-2014.

China TIF committee hears reports

/0 Comments/in , /by
by Mary Grow

Members of China’s Tax Increment Finance (TIF) committee met Oct. 30 to receive progress reports on town projects funded with TIF money.

Representatives from the China Lake Association, China Region Lakes Alliance, Four Seasons Club, Thurston Park committee and China Broadband committee reported on expenditures and plans. Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood summarized town use of TIF money.

The Four Seasons Club uses TIF funds to rebuild recreational trails in China. Club president Tom Rumpf said the goal is trails so good they will need only routine maintenance in the future.

He told Hapgood the annual Ice Days fishing derby that the club coordinates is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024.

China Region Lakes Alliance executive director Scott Pierz and China Lake Association president Stephen Greene explained hold-ups in some of the work planned in the China Lake watershed to improve the lake’s water quality.

Earlier this fall, the lake association and the Kennebec County Soil and Water Conservation District received a federal Clean Water Act grant for about $100,000, to be spent in 2024 and 2025. Greene intends to use the TIF grant and other association money toward projects carried out under the grant.

Hapgood said once money is approved for a project, it carries forward if the planned work gets postponed.

Committee members decided to set Friday, Dec. 29, as the deadline for submitting applications for TIF funding for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

The TIF committee advises select board members on how to allocate TIF funds each year, after committee members review proposals and recommend expenditures. The money comes from taxes Central Maine Power Company pays on its north-south line through China and its substation in South China.

The TIF program was created by the Maine legislature and is overseen by the state Department of Economic and Community Development. Participating municipalities develop local plans for using TIF funds, which local voters approve.

China’s 60-page “Second Amended TIF Program,” approved in 2021, is on the website china.govoffice.com, under the TIF Committee in the category Officials, Board & Committees.

Committee members scheduled their next meeting for Monday evening, Jan. 22, 2024.

China committee re-explains fees at transfer station

/0 Comments/in , /by
by Mary Grow

At their Nov. 14 meeting, China transfer station committee members re-explained that facility users should expect to be charged for many items they donate to the free-for-the-taking building.

Not everything that someone donates is picked up by someone else, and rejects end up being thrown out. If the item can be disposed of without cost, like metal, glass that is crushed and used for road mix or clothing that goes to the separate donation box down the hill, there is no fee.

If getting rid of the item will end up costing taxpayers money, there is a fee.

Sometimes, as committee chairman Paul Lucas illustrated, the fee is reimbursed. Lucas remembers paying $2 to leave something and, when it was picked up before he left the premises, getting his money back.

He and Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood both suggested an alternative disposal method for things that seem too good to throw away: put them by the road with a “Free” sign and watch them go.

The other major topic Nov. 14 was the China-Palermo contract under which Palermo residents use China’s transfer station. Palermo select board member and transfer station committee member Robert Kurek said Palermo had just received notice of China’s intention to terminate the contract, effective Nov. 13, 2024.

Kurek expects Palermo officials will ask their town attorney for advice.

Committee members have discussed at length complains about some Palermo residents – “Always just a few,” Lucas commented – who evade rules and when challenged react rudely.

Transfer station stickers now available

New China transfer station stickers are now available at the China town office, for a $2 annual fee. They will be required for China residents to enter the transfer station beginning Jan. 1, 2024.

Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood said the stickers are “cling, not sticky,” so they won’t mess up the vehicle to which they are affixed. They show the vehicle’s license plate number, but not the name of the town, as a privacy protection.

In other business, station Manager Thomas Maraggio reported on pending equipment upgrades and on satisfactory relations with Albion, whose residents are now allowed to dispose of some items not covered by their curbside pick-up program.

Maraggio recommended increasing the budget for equipment maintenance next year.

Director of Public Services Shawn Reed added that his department needs money to fix the leaking roof of the sand shed.

Reed said he is waiting for recommendations from the state Department of Environmental Protection for dealing with PFAS-contaminated water at the transfer station (see the Oct. 19 issue of The Town Line, p. 3).

Committee members scheduled their next meeting for 9 a.m., Tuesday, Dec. 19. Lucas indicated he might not be there: after six or seven years on the committee, he is ready to resign and let someone else take his place.

Hapgood reminded him of the shortage of volunteers for town positions.

Construction Updates China Road Construction – Winslow Ongoing Work

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Eastwood Contractors will continue a $2.4 million stormwater contract on the China Road.

Work will continue in front of Cumberland Farms, tying into a large box culvert with a 48-inch storm drain that will proceed east on the China Road to the Cushman Road and continue down the Cushman Road.

Because of the depth and size of the pipe, work continues on this project. Contractors will occupy both eastbound lanes with two-way traffic maintained in the westbound lane.

Every effort will be made to minimize disruption to the affected businesses. This work is to eliminate a flooding problem that has existed in this area for a long time.

China election results (November 2023)

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

The unofficial returns from the November 7, 2023, municipal election for the town of China are as follows:

For select board: Chadwick = 931, Marquis = 810.

Planning board: District 3/ Mather = 996, Alternate At Large/Tripodi = 978

Budget Committee: Chairman/Rumpf = 1,037, District 1/Maroon = 1,062.

All races were uncontested.

All write in positions will be determined later in the week.

The China election saw a turnout of 1,303 voters.

China select board to continue looking at South China boat landing

/0 Comments/in , /by
by Mary Grow

After another 70 minutes’ discussion of the South China boat landing at their Nov. 6 meeting, China select board members again kicked the issue down the road (see The Town Line, May 25, p. 3; Aug. 3, p. 3; Oct 26, p. 2). This time, they added a road map.

On a 4-1 vote, with Janet Preston dissenting, board members approved a motion saying they, in cooperation with the China Lake Association, will continue investigating the town landing and will maintain it as a public boat launch, with improvements; if parking along the road contributes to erosion, they will ban parking; and they will adopt an advisory size limit on boats to be launched there.

The main issue with the landing is erosion into China Lake from Town Landing Road that leads to the lake. The road is gravel, the town-owned strip of land is not very wide and there has been inadequate ditching and other run-off diversion for many years.

Discussions have covered the value of a minimizing run-off into China Lake, which is a major contributor to area recreation and to China’s economy; neighbors’ concerns about traffic; the lack of room to park on the town property and of convenient other parking spaces; maintaining lake access for residents who do not own lakefront property and have used the South China landing for years; and providing access to a water source for volunteer firefighters and to the warden service for ice rescues.

Preston started the Nov. 6 discussion by presenting a summary of reasons to limit the landing to carry-in only, meaning people could launch only kayaks and canoes and vehicle traffic would be lessened.

Board chairman Wayne Chadwick and members Brent Chesley and Blane Casey disagreed with Preston, citing reasons to continue to keep the landing open to motorboats. Jeanne Marquis sided with Preston.

Chadwick invited audience members, present in person or virtually, to join the discussion, and several did.

The two sides disagreed over how large the boats are that currently use the South China landing and how congested China Lake’s other two landings are (that is, how much people currently using the South China landing would be inconvenienced by longer drives and longer waits).

There was agreement that run-off controls are needed, bolstered by opinions from two engineers. Town manager Rebecca Hapgood said the town had paid for a boundary survey of the town property, but the engineers had not cost taxpayers money.

There was also agreement that the landing should continue to be unpublicized. Opinion leaned toward paving the road, with appropriate slopes and diversions to prevent water from shooting down the pavement into the lake. A paved road would need less maintenance, several people said.

Select board members and China Lake Association representatives praised the past cooperation between the two groups and expressed willingness to continue to work together. After the vote, Hapgood said she will help organize their cooperation.

The Nov. 6 meeting began with two executive sessions with town attorney Amanda Meader. After the first one, select board members voted unanimously to direct her to draft a notice to Palermo town officials of China’s intention to end the two towns’ agreement letting Palermo residents use China’s transfer station (see The Town Line, Aug. 17, p. 3; Sept. 21, p. 3; and Oct. 26, p. 2).

After the second executive session, board members voted unanimously to reduce the fine for land use ordinance violations by Farmingdale construction company BHS, Inc., from $5,000 to $500.

In other business Nov. 6:

  • Emergency management committee chairman Ronald Morrell and emergency management director Stephen Nichols presented copies of a 47-page emergency management plan the committee has worked on for years. They requested a discussion after board members have reviewed it.
  • Board members unanimously approved three equipment requests for the public works department and the transfer station, authorizing $2,114 for plow equipment, $11,930 for a new waste oil burner and $12,895 for a new demo (demolition debris) can (50-yard metal container). Hapgood said money will come from the respective capital reserve accounts.

Because the meeting ran longer than usual, two agenda items were postponed, a report from Delta Ambulance and Chadwick’s recommended discussion of town-owned Bradley Island in China Lake’s west basin.

The next regular China select board meeting is scheduled for Monday evening, Nov. 20, probably at 6 p.m.

So. China American Legion plans expansion of Veterans monument

/0 Comments/in , /by

South China Post commander Neil Farrington at the Veterans Monument.

by Eric W. Austin

The Boynton-Webber American Legion Post #179 has recently announced plans to expand the veterans memorial at the four corners in South China Village. The plan entails adding a brick pathway leading up to the monument, with the names of veterans engraved on each brick.

The GAR Hall which used to be at the location of the South China veterans monument.

“My idea for the brick walkway at the South China memorial is to honor our local veterans,” says Post #179 Commander Neil Farrington. “It really doesn’t matter if you served during a time of war or in peacetime. This project is meant to honor all area veterans.”

The site of the South China memorial has historical significance to the town of China. Originally, it was the location of a GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) Hall dedicated to a local hero of the Civil War, Captain James Parnell Jones, who was known as the “Fighting Quaker” for his bravery in that conflict. Later, in 1949, the spot became the site of the first American Legion Hall, in South China, before the current building on Legion Memorial Drive was erected in 1968.

A sample of the engraved bricks.

There is already a memorial at the town office for veterans who served in World War II, but Commander Farrington hopes this project will be an opportunity to honor those who served in other conflicts, including the Civil War, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan, as well as veterans who served during peacetime between 1953-1963, a period of service that often goes unrecognized.

The new pathway will be built using 180 bricks purchased by the public and engraved with the names and service dates of local veterans. The cost for a brick is $100, with twenty-percent covering the cost of the engraving and the rest going toward the cost of a new heating and cooling system for the Legion Hall. (The American Legion is a registered nonprofit and donations for the project are tax-deductible.)

Anyone in the area towns around South China is invited to purchase a brick to remember a friend or relative who served in active duty or the National Guard. There will be room for up to three lines of 20 characters per line on each brick.

Bricks can be ordered by mailing a check payable to American Legion Post #179, PO Box 401, South China, ME 04358. Interested parties can request an order form by email at peachclassof68@gmail.com (or download it here), or by phone at 462-4321.

Orders should be submitted as soon as possible, with construction expected to commence in the spring.

The lights here at the monument show the location of the planned brick expansion.

China resident presents new plan for property development

/0 Comments/in , /by
by Mary Grow

China resident Chris Harris presented a new proposal for his land on Route 3 to town planning board members at their Oct. 24 meeting. Board members advised on next steps, planning continued review in November.

At their June 27 meeting, board members unanimously approved Harris’s proposed self-storage units at 623 Route 3. Since then, Harris said, enough other self-storage businesses have opened to lead him to reconsider.

At the Oct. 24 meeting, he presented a preliminary plan to subdivide his property into four house lots. He already lives on one, plans a house on another and will postpone development on the remaining two.

Board co-chairman Toni Wall summarized some of the requirements in China’s subdivision ordinance, calling the application process “pretty extensive.” She and co-chairman James Wilkens agreed the area of the existing access driveway across Lot D to the Harris house needs to be deducted from Lot D’s lot area as the driveway becomes a right-of-way.

They also discussed the need to locate wells, septic system and probably house sites on each lot in a final plan. After the final plan is presented, board members will decide whether it is complete, and if it is, will decide whether to hold a public hearing.

The other major agenda item Oct. 24 was the draft revised Planning Board Ordinance, prepared by town attorney Amanda Meader.

Board members found much to like in Meader’s draft, but also had disagreements and questions.

  • They do not support her recommendation that planning board members be appointed by the select board, instead of elected as they are now. Using phrases like “an arm of the select board” and “dependent on the select board,” they recommended continuing with an elected planning board.
  • They also prefer to continue to have board members elected from four districts in town, rather than from the town at large. Wilkens, especially, praised a system that lets neighbors know who represents them on the planning board.
  • They approved the suggestion that terms be longer than the current two years, but recommended three years rather than the five Meader suggested.
  • Elaine Mather, the newest board member (who has a legal background), asked if phrases like “sufficient evidence” and “adequate notice” need additional definition.

Wall intends to redraft the ordinance to incorporate suggestions.

The next regular China planning board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday evening, Nov. 14. The agenda is likely to include a public hearing on Novel Energy’s application for a community solar garden on Parmenter Hill Road (see the Oct. 5 issue of The Town Line, p. 2). The hearing was originally scheduled for Oct. 10, but was postponed because the planning board had no quorum that evening.