By Cliff White
Staff Writer
The property on Northeast Road purchased by the town of Standish last year for $375,000 as the future location of a community center was found to have two vernal pools that have complicated building plans due to recent federal wetlands protection legislation.
The Standish Community Building Development Committee asked the town council to consider another location behind the Standish Municipal Center, which would have required a change of contract to switch  site designations, but an Oct. 30 council vote to authorize funding for an evaluation of the location was rejected 6-1, with Councilor Maggie Spencer – a council representative on the community building committee – voting in favor.
“I’m not against a community center, the only thing I’m against is the cost,” said Councilor Wayne Newbegin, the other council representative on the building committee. “We’re a small town, and $9 million for the center and $3 million in interest is a lot for a town our size to bite off.”
Under the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps of Engineers enforces a ban on development within 750 feet of a vernal pool. An expert with the Department of Environmental Protection declared there were two vernal pools on the Northeast Road property, and not enough space remained after the measurement to allow room for the community center, Spencer said. Spencer said if the vernal pools had not been found, construction on the project would have begun this year.
Spencer said a community center with resources for all ages including meeting rooms, a walking track, and a swimming pool, is needed in Standish.
Newbegin said he is frustrated the town purchased land that is now unusable for its purposes.
“I think the purchase was handled poorly,” Newbegin said. “‘Buyer beware’ comes into play here. I’m sorry, but when you’re going out and buying a piece of property, and you know what you’re going to use it for, you have to look to make sure you can do what you want to do there. I don’t think any testing was done before the land was purchased. Now we’ve got this issue with the vernal pools.”
Town Manager Gordon Billington said the town could have made the purchase contingent on a study, but did not.
Larry Simpson, a resident who has served on the community building committee since its formation in the early 1990s, said the town was caught in a pinch, as regulations protecting the vernal pools and making the site unsuitable came into effect after the 8.5-acre property was purchased.
“When the D.E.P. looked at the site last spring, they recognized the two wetlands but said they were no problem,” Simpson said. “At the time, vernal pools were not an issue legally. The bill – which was intended only to protect coastal zones, and we didn’t know would affect inland areas – came into effect on Sept. 7 of this year, and it didn’t grandfather any municipality that had something in the process of being developed at the time. We just got stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Newbegin refuted the validity of that argument.
“Maybe the law didn’t come into effect until 90 days after it was passed, but the state doesn’t do things in a blind,” Newbegin said. “There should have been someone on top of this. Someone should have known what the effects of this bill were going to be on the property.”
Spencer said there was no way for the committee to test for vernal pools.
“There was no way of testing for vernal pools before the spring, because they don’t show up before then,” Spencer said.  
Simpson, a former real estate agent, said the land did not lose any value with the discovery of the vernal pools because while the vernal pools disallow the building of a large building, there is still ample space to build smaller structures on the property.
Newbegin said he was in favor of selling the property as soon as the real estate market becomes favorable.
Simpson said he was disappointed by the council’s vote against the exploration of the site near the municipal center, and said he did not want the town to sell the land it had purchased for the project.
“If they sold the land immediately, it would effectively kill the project,” Simpson said.
Simpson said the committee would continue to host meetings and would look at all available options.
“As far as the committee goes, we’re 100 percent alive,” Simpson said. “We will keep going to the people – who have approved spending for a community center multiple times, because it’s clear the majority of the council is against the idea of the project.”
Spencer said the committee has looked at every possible site in town, and had exhausted those options.
“Unless somebody comes forward willing to make an arrangement, the possibility of buying more land is slim,” she said.
Newbegin said the issue of the community center was important to him.
“I just got elected this year, and I was not on the council when the purchase of this land came about. I ran for the council because of the way some of the community center business was being handled,” he said. “Is the council against it now? Well, there’s not too many happy councilors with the piece of land the way is.”