//////Robin Dahms and her family were hoping to move into their dream home on Beaver Pond by Christmas.
Built in memory of her daughter, Brittany, who died of cancer last year, the home was going to be beautiful. The white colonial was going to have a hard-wood deck that looked out over the pond and nearby woods. More detail about the house….
But, less than a week before Christmas, the home was no more than a frame and foundation. The scenic pond that had seemed so idyllic when the family bought the property had turned the project into a nightmare of bureaucratic red tape, which forced the family to completely alter the design of the house and held up construction for more than month.
The trouble all started when…///////
Robin Dahms and her family were hoping to move into the new home they’re building on Beaver Pond by Christmas, but a recent decision by the state has delayed that move.////Too straight forward, a little bland. I’d go with a longer lead in that wraps in Brittany Dahms./////
/////This is good scene setting but it should come a few paragraphs into the story. At the top of the lower half of the hourglass.////The Dahms family lives on Beaver Pond, which stretches from the end of East Valentine Street to Spring Street and has long been considered by the city as man-made. The ////Dahms////Should be Dahmses in the plural. I’d avoid it, though. Use Dahms family or something like that.///// got a building permit from the city of Westbrook in early November to demolish their home and build new.
However, as the family was going ahead with their plans, the state changed the status of the pond to natural, forcing the Dahms to alter their plans. The state has determined that Beaver Pond is a natural pond and, therefore, subject to stricter regulations regarding construction.
What was supposed to be a home facing the street with a front yard and back yard leading down to the pond, as well as a deck off the back of the house looking out over the pond, is now decidedly different. The house will now face perpendicular to the street and will be situated farther back from the pond with very little front yard and no back yard or deck.////This is difficult to imagine, unless one has a decidedly geometrical mind. Give us some telling details i.e. The backyard that was going to be big enough for the family barbecue and badminton is now about 5 feet wide. And the deck where Dahms had imagined she might eat meals in the summer with a view of the pond? Gone…anyway, something like that.////
The ////Dahms///// are disappointed because they had planned the new home in memory of their daughter, Brittany Dahms, who passed away in the beginning of the year after more than a year battling leukemia.
“We wanted to do this a couple years ago, but my daughter got sick and it ////was////was?//// feasible,” said Dahms. “This is in her memory, and it’s all screwed up.”
Dahms said not having the house that they had saved and planned for is a big disappointment and is taking the fun out of building a new home. She said she’d probably start getting excited about the project again once the walls go up. So far, contractors have laid the foundation and are beginning on the structure.
“I’ll be excited once it’s up and we can start painting and doing the things we want to do, but for now there’s no excitement,” said Dahms.
At the moment the family is staying at Robin Dahms’ parents’ and won’t be getting into their new home by Christmas. According to Dahms, that move would be delayed until as late as the end of January because construction was delayed.
The city of Westbrook has always considered Beaver Pond on East Valentine Street to be man-made. City Engineer Eric Dudley said the city assumed it was man-made because it was once incorporated into the Cumberland-Oxford Canal, which led city staff to believe it would be man-made.////why?/// When the Dahms applied for a building permit in mid October, however, the city asked the Maine Department of Environmental Protection whether any special regulations applied to it.
State Environmental Specialist Kara Moody visited and researched the pond and determined that the pond appeared naturally occurring and not man-made.
According to Moody, she couldn’t find any evidence that conclusively showed the pond was man-made, even though it might at one point have been included in the Cumberland-Oxford Canal.
After making a determination that the pond was natural, it was designated a wetland of special significance. With that designation, no construction can occur within a 75-foot setback.///This explanation needs to come sooner. It gives significance to the man-made vs. natural argument.///// However, the Dahms were planning to build as close as within 10 feet of the pond, and their property is only 95 feet wide in any case.
Since being informed, the family applied for and received a special permit to allow them to build to a 25-foot setback. They’ll still be getting their new home, but it’s not the same.
“The whole thing kind of took away from building a new house,” she said.
Dahms said she’s also concerned because the pond’s new designation will affect other homeowners in the area, who might now not be able to implement plans for new construction on their properties.
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