Developer Tony Casella’s plans for the former bagel shop property on Edgecomb’s Route 27 have changed. Instead of putting a restaurant there, he now plans to create four rental units for retail businesses, Casella said.

“It’ll be a nice plaza,” he said.

Earlier that night, Edgecomb voters made a move that led Casella to choose the plaza plan. Residents rejected selectmen’s proposal to spend more than $20,000 to design either a new sewer pump station or an upgrade of one that belongs to a homeowners’ association. 

Afterward, Selectmen’s Chairman Jessica Chubbuck said the board will likely bring the question back to voters at the annual town meeting next May, but in the meantime will hold informational meetings that will include the engineers on the proposed design work. The board had asked Woodard & Curran to be on hand for the special town meeting, but the firm did not send anyone, she said.

Casella’s restaurant would need public water and sewer access. But the plaza would have only a few bathrooms, which the site’s existing well and septic system can handle along with a condominium rental office he has planned for the site, Casella said. He wasn’t at the special town meeting, choosing instead to attend his son’s basketball game. But he said if he had been there, he would have supported the majority vote, against funding the design work.

Like some who spoke at the meeting, Casella, a partner in the company known as View Development, thought the town could have based its pump station decisions on earlier work the same engineering firm did.

However, as a businessman, he can’t leave the site idle until the annual town meeting, he said. He still hopes to open a restaurant in that part of town, but it won’t replace the retail space he creates, he said. He has already heard from people interested in renting space there.

At the special town meeting, residents pressed selectmen to explain why the pump station issue had reemerged now. Selectman Stuart Smith cited two factors, potential new development and the fact the special town meeting was being planned anyway, for ordinance changes that have since been put off until the annual town meeting.

Planning Board Chairman Jack French and former planning board member Jarryl Larson told fellow residents that the town’s actions years ago in connection with a condominium resort committed the town to a pump station.

“If you want to vote it down, you sure and hell ought to hire an attorney to review all that’s been done … because it’ll be a breach of that agreement,” said French, who’s a lawyer.

Resident Bob Zak argued for waiting until the annual town meeting to make any decisions. “That way, we can all understand what’s going to be done and not be done, and we won’t all be suspicious and feel like we’re being railroaded, because most of the time that’s what special town meetings do,” he said.

Town to hire lawyer over property issues

At a selectmen’s meeting before the special town meeting, the board agreed to hire attorney John Cunningham to pursue possible legal action regarding junk on two properties. French will be the “point man” in communicating with Cunningham, Smith said.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com.