Conditioned on the applicant providing a financial letter, Wiscasset’s planning board on Monday night nodded a Maryland couple’s request to build a recreational dock on Back River off Cushman Point Road. According to Tim Forrester of Woolwich-based Atlantic Environmental, representing Mark and Melissa Myers of Annapolis, Maryland, the proposal already had U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Maine Department of Environmental Protection approval.

In the meeting and a letter, Forrester said the plan was for a series of landings and steps that would connect to a six-foot wide by 30-foot long pier, a three-foot wide by 36-foot long ramp, and a 12-foot wide by 30-foot long float. Off-season, the ramp would be stored on the pier; the float, off-site, Forrester said. 

The traverse from the upland to the shoreline is somewhat steep, he said. “Hence the configuration of stairs, which was probably the harder part to figure out than the dock itself.” 

Forrester estimated a $60,000 cost. No lighting was proposed for the dock, and the builder, Sheepscot River Marine Service, will access the site by both land and water, he said. Mark and Melissa Myers are also building a home on the nearly three-acre property, which they bought in 2022, according to materials the applicant gave the town. “Currently, there is no formal access to the river ...,” Forrester wrote. 

Also Monday, Chair Karl Olson told the board the ordinance review committee (ORC) hopes to have the draft ordinance changes on recreational vehicles ready in time for the planning board to hold a public hearing Feb. 26.

In the night’s ORC meeting and in a memo emailed earlier Monday, Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Emily Rabbe said, based on replies from state staff about the town’s attempt to get consistent on what is considered temporary, the proposal could be to amend the flood plain ordinance to read “120 consecutive days” to match what is defined in the shoreland zoning ordinance; and, to the RV ordinance, add “120 consecutive days,” for properties in neither the shoreland zone nor a flood zone.

Rabbe also shared with the ORC a resident’s request that Wiscasset create more housing by letting homeowners host up to one occupied RV. In the memo and in an email response to questions Tuesday from Wiscasset Newspaper, Rabbe explained the suggestion was outside the directive the ORC was given. “For the ORC to look more broadly at the recreational vehicle ordinance the request to do so would need to come from the Town Manager and/or the Select Board,” Rabbe wrote.