VASSALBORO: Routine application turns into review of requirements

by Mary Grow

What started as a simple application to the Vassalboro Planning Board at the July 12 meeting turned into a review of application requirements, a topic board members intend to pursue.

They also approved the application, for Ashley Breau to open a Med Spa, at 909 Main Street, in North Vassalboro, in one of the two single-story buildings Ray Breton owns on the east side of the street.

Breton, representing Breau at the July 12 meeting, said she has a similar business in Topsham and plans to open another in southern Maine. A web search found Breau’s name as owner of CosMEDIX & Cryo MedSpa, at 127 Topsham Fair Mall Road. Services offered include “Face and body makeup, permanent makeup, dysport, Botox, Dysport injections.”

Breau’s business will be next door to Amber French’s eyelash extension business, approved by board members at their May 3 meeting. Breton said it is busy.

“Two businesses that I’ve never heard of before,” board chairman Virginia Brackett commented.

Because Breau’s business is moving into an existing building and she plans no construction or exterior changes, she had answered most questions about environmental and neighborhood effects on the application form with “N/A” (not applicable).

Board member and former codes officer Paul Mitnik objected that the answers were not adequate – the applicant should give explanatory information, and planning board members should use her information, not their own knowledge.

For example, the building now has no buffers – bushes or trees to control water run-off and screen the building from neighbors. Breau plans no change. Breton said there is no space for a buffer, because of the street in front, properties on both sides and the soccer field he has provided in back.

After discussion, the other members present agreed Mitnik was correct. They also agreed, and persuaded him, that Breau’s application should be approved based on their knowledge and Breton’s information.

Brackett and Codes Officer Ryan Paul then added a statement about the lack of space for buffers at 909 Main Street. Board members added other information.

In the future, Paul will give applicants more guidance on what information to provide. For example, board members said, the application should include a description of the nature of the business, proposed hours of operation and copies of any required state or other licenses.

Board members also talked about evidence of right to use the property (Breton said he does not sign leases with his tenants, and satisfied the requirement by writing a note saying he is letting Breau open her business in his building), parking plans and other information, partly in relation to a pending application that was not on the July 12 agenda.

That application, from Rosalind Waldron to open a medical office at 991 Main Street, was originally on the board’s June 7 agenda. Paul said it is now on the board’s Aug. 2 agenda. Brackett and other board members listed information that should be added to Waldron’s current draft.

Attending the July 12 meeting were new select board member Rick Denico, Jr., and Waterville codes enforcement officer Daniel Bradstreet, son of state Representative Richard Bradstreet, of Vassalboro. Denico participated in reappointing planning board members at his first select board meeting June 23. He said select board members would appoint Bradstreet the new alternate planning board member at their July 14 meeting; they did.

Denico said Vassalboro voters created the planning board at a March 7, 1957, town meeting. No one was aware of any charter, ordinance or other regulation, then or since. The state’s manual for planning board members is “very legalistic,” Denico commented.