Southwest Harbor Appeals Board Could Potentially Reconsider Failed Appeal of Guest House
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SOUTHWEST HARBOR—A failed appeal of a guest house being built on Southwest Harbor’s Clark Point Road could potentially be reconsidered by the town’s appeals board next week.
After a meeting last week where it denied the appeal of a guest house, the Southwest Harbor Appeals Board, June 17, approved the minutes of that meeting, but also expressed that if board members who initially denied the appeal made a motion to, they could reconsider that appeal.
The 3-2 denial of the appeal of the building in downtown Southwest Harbor at 72 Clark Point Road occurred because the board found that the appeal itself did not meet the town’s guideline of 30 days.
William and Martha MacIntosh (who own 76 Clark Point Road) had appealed their neighbor’s guest house, which is under construction. The couple said the house impacted the privacy of a guest room at their own property.
The appeals board determined on June 4 that the MacIntoshes did not appeal the project within the 30 days required by the town. The building permit was issued in December 18, 2024. Abutters were notified on December 9. The appeal was filed May 6.
Justin Podjasek’s project is to build a $750,000 guest house where a greenhouse once stood. In 2012 the property, which was a larger lot owned by one property owner then, was granted a building code variance from a 15-foot-setback requirement. Setbacks in town zoning rules determine how close structures can be built to property lines.
The MacIntoshes argue that the building permit should not have been issued because it will be close to a window in their guest room which will impact any privacy of guests in that room. The greenhouse foundation was approximately two feet away from the Macintoshes’ property line. The couple says that the new structure is one foot away from that line.
The MacIntoshes believe that the structure violates that setback and the variance granted doesn’t stand for this project. That would make it a project that would have to be approved (or not) by the town’s planning board instead of the town’s code enforcement officer.
The denial of the appeal occurred during the board’s June 4 meeting.
The minutes and finding of fact for that June 4 meeting show that Chair John Izenour, and board members, Adam Babbitt, James Geary, Alyson Meiselman, and Scott Preston attended. Board Secretary Theodore G. Fletcher was recused. Izenour, Geary, and Preston voted to not hear the appeal because of it was “time barred and untimely.” Babbitt and Meiselman had voted to hear the appeal.
At its June 17 meeting, the board members attending approved the minutes of that June 4 meeting unanimously with no discussion.
Afterward, Izenour said that the original appellants have asked for a reconsideration of the appeal. Discussion of a reconsideration could happen at the June 25.
“The three parties voted that the appeal was untimely, and we didn't move forward with it. Well, my thought is, and I'd like to have all voting members … that is that all members that were voting at that hearing present for us to take up reconsideration. So, I'm gonna have the issue of reconsideration added to the agenda for next Wednesday's meeting following the other hearing appeal,” he said.
Board member Alyson Meiselman asked that it be taken up prior to the appeal by George T. Swetz and Gigi N. Girgis about the same property.
The Bangor Daily News’ Bill Trotter wrote that Southwest Harbor Code Enforcement Officer Jon Larson told him Monday that “he granted the building permit in December, at least in part, because of a new state law that went into effect in 2023 that allows accessory dwelling units to be built on residential lots that already have homes on them — which was passed to address Maine’s statewide shortage of year-round housing.”
“Larson said that the new guesthouse is under the neighborhood’s 25-foot height limit — which the MacIntoshes dispute — and, because it is being built on the pre-existing footprint of the former greenhouse, it does not have more nonconformity than the greenhouse did,” Trotter wrote.
Lincoln Millstein’s Quietside Journal first discussed the issues involved. During the meeting’s board members’ discussion about the upcoming June 25 agenda, Millstein expressed concern about Podjasek and his attorney watching the June 17 meeting via Zoom when neither the MacIntoshes nor their representative were present. The board expressed that it wasn’t discussing the reconsideration or its merits, but the process that reconsiderations must go through to be heard.
All meetings of all town boards are open to the public except for the portions which are in executive session. This meeting had no parts in executive session. Southwest Harbor Appeals Board meetings are both in person and on Zoom.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Board of Appeals Ordinance
Application for Appeal
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