Neighbors and Buxton Planning Board members revisited Monday the site of a former puppy mill proposed for a cluster subdivision after an abutter raised drainage concerns last week.
Norman Berube Builders, Inc., a Scarborough-based company, is seeking permission to build seven homes in the Pleasant Ridge subdivision. Berube bought the 24-acre property in a bank foreclosure auction last year for $217,500.
It was previously the site of J’Aime Kennels, owned by John and Heidi Frasca at 35 Paucek Road. Police and state animal welfare workers seized 250 dogs there in a 2007 puppy mill raid.
In a public hearing about the Pleasant Ridge subdivision last week, an abutter, Bob Marshall, worried about runoff water from the development impacting his property. Marshall attended Monday’s site walk with the town’s Planning Board and engineers representing Berube.
“I don’t think it will impact it any more than it does now,” Marshall said about runoff water after reviewing plans and eyeing the site.
The project’s engineer, Bill Thompson of BH2M in Gorham, displayed plans for the project before the group walked the property, “We’re not going to add any more water to this,” Thompson said.
Thompson said each of the seven lots would be one acre, leaving 15 acres as open space forever.
The former kennel building has been razed and has been reduced to a pile of rubble. A trailer home has already been removed from the property, but the home where the Frascas lived remained Monday.
Paucek Road is now a private road into the proposed site. Buxton Code Enforcement Officer Fred Farnham said in last week’s meeting that a road into the development would have to meet town specifications.
Keith Emery, a planning board member whose family owns abutting properties, stepped down from the panel during last week’s meeting. Speaking from the public podium, Emery said the existing road was built in the 1970s and would need to be widened.
Emery’s brother, Larry Emery, and their father, Bruce Emery, both spoke last week at the hearing. Larry Emery said he’s not opposed to the subdivision but he was worried new residents moving from the city would try to run people out. He said the rights of new neighbors would stop at their property line.
Larry Emery’s property falls in a rural zone, and he said his family enjoys rural activities. “We have stock cars, critters and guns,” he said.
Dave Savage, a Planning Board member, said the panel’s first site walk had been during the winter when the property was covered with snow.
Last week, the Planning Board continued the public hearing on the subdivision proposal. It is expected to be on the Planning Board agenda at 7 p.m. on Monday, June 1, at Buxton Town Hall, 185 Portland Road.
Cutline (BUX subdivision) 
(kennel rubble)
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