BANGOR, Maine — Penobscot County Superior Court Judge Patrick Larson issued a stop-work legal notice for the Maine Woods subdivision that was under construction in Bangor.
The judge ordered the stop work legal order on the basis of misclassification of the subdivision as a major one and not a minor one.
Attorney Charles Gilbert is representing a coalition of neighbors resisting the construction of the Maine Woods subdivision.
"I think it's important to remember that the land use permitting process is not an event. It's a process, and baked into that process is the right of an appeal," Gilbert said. "If the other side of this case had lost before the planning board they would have had the right to go take an appeal just as my clients did here."
"Whereas a major subdivision, and remember this was a 60-unit development that's proposed here, that's a pretty large and intense development," Gilbert added.
Jeff Grey, a Bangor resident living near the proposed subdivision, expressed his concerns.
"Go back to the drawing board. We deserve better than what's been proposed," Grey said.
He is at the helm of a group of neighbors who filed the initial lawsuit.
"They're going to be shoehorning 60 condos onto a sheet of ledge, on top of a hill, in the middle of a neighborhood with inadequate infrastructure for that many new units," Grey said.
Maine Woods developer Emily Ellis says she was been trying to work hand-in-hand with neighbors.
"One of the neighbor's concerns was the safety of having more people in the neighborhood," Ellis said. "So I added a crosswalk across Essex Street—an electronic crosswalk.