Vassalboro planners approve three applications

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro Planning Board members unanimously approved three applications on their Feb. 1 agenda, none intended to create environmental changes.

Robert Parise and his brother-in-law are buying the Riverside Drive (Route 202) business called RAPS. Parise told board members the new business, named Platinum & Core LLC, will continue the junkyard/scrapyard part of RAPS and discontinue used car sales on the premises, at least for now.

The other change planned is adding a fence about 225 feet long, running from the present building to the tree line, to better screen the property from drivers on the road.

Proposed business hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, with possibly occasional Saturday hours. Noisy work will be done inside the existing building.

If Parise and his partner decide later to change the type of business, add another building or make other significant changes, they know they need to come back to the codes officer and probably the planning board.

Planning board members reviewed Parise’s application and approved it without conditions.

The second application was to change the name of the owner of the solar farm on Cemetery Street, in North Vassalboro. The license approved in June 2021 was issued to New England Solar Gardens (NESG); Owens McCullough of Sebago Technics, who made most of the 2021 presentation, explained that it should now belong to a wholly-owned new partner named Maine 1 Vassalboro Cemetery.

NESG has taken parallel actions with two other Maine projects, in Lewiston and Berwick, he said.

Board members were satisfied that the ownership would be the same, just with a new name; nothing would change on the land; and nothing had changed in local ordinances since June 2021 that would require them to review a new application.

The third applicant was Bryan Moore, looking for a renewal of his October 2019 permit to expand a non-conforming structure at 152 Park Lane, in the Three Mile Pond shoreland zone.

Moore presented a new building plan he said an architect had prepared. Although the appearance has changed, he said the new building still would be no closer to the water and would not exceed size limits for a shoreland expansion.

Planning board members approved a permit good for one year.

The next Vassalboro Planning Board meeting should be Tuesday evening, March 1.