The public way to the Standish boat launch remains intact even as a Feb. 1 Portland Water District-imposed deadline for moving it has passed.
On Dec. 2, 2005, Standish was ordered by the water district to move access to the launch back into the town’s established 99-foot right-of-way by Feb. 1. Currently, the public way (Northeast Road Extension) leads from Route 35 to the town’s boat ramp on Sebago Lake. Over the years, part of the roadway has meandered outside the established right-of-way.
As part of that Dec. 2 order, the district instructed the town to stop maintaining the boat launch parking lot, suggesting instead that it apply to the district for a lease or license of the land for parking.
The action followed a lower court’s ruling in which the judge sided with the district that Standish could not take the district’s land adjacent to the boat launch and Northeast Road Extension by prescriptive rights. Standish has appealed the verdict to the Maine Supreme Court.
Although the town has not met the Feb. 1 deadline, according to Town Manager Gordon Billington, it has initiated the process of moving the access by surveying the property.
Billington says the town is researching what the cost would be to taxpayers to lay out what the town believes is a 132-foot – not a 99-foot – right-of-way to the water’s edge. The discrepancy in width has to do with the old range roads, which a committee in Standish has been researching for the last few years. The town says the range road in question is eight rods wide, the equivalent of 132 feet. The water district believes it is six rods, or 99 feet.
Standish Town Councilor and PWD Steering Committee Chair Jeff Richardson thinks the town can prove the right-of-way is 132 feet.
“I believe it is a 132 feet if you go back and research it,” he said. “It will have to go through legal channels.”
The Standish Town Council has yet to vote on whether to pursue the matter legally but Richardson expects the vote to happen within the next month or two.
According to Richardson, members of the steering committee will meet Friday afternoon with a representative from the Department of Conservation to get the state’s input and to talk about the town’s options.
Richardson says the cost to lay gravel along the right-of-way will be at least $75,000. Expenditures of this magnitude require the town to vote to allocate the funds.
Billington said the town has not heard from the district lately about moving the public way.
After repeated attempts, representatives from the Portland Water District were not available for comment.
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