Castine Patriot article
Selectmen take action following MMA’s purchase of Abbott House
Special meeting called to establish legal fund
By Jonathan Thomas

The Castine selectmen responded quickly to Maine Maritime Academy’s recent purchase of a 6.5-acre parcel with buildings known as the Abbott House. In a 3-0 vote October 1, they authorized their attorney to “immediately…initiate declaratory judgment or other appropriate legal actions” against the Maine Maritime Academy.

The 4 p.m. meeting began 15 minutes early to allow the board to hold an executive session in a nearby room for a telephone conference with the attorney. The board returned to a nearly filled meeting room at about 4:25.

Chairman Peter Vogell asked Selectman David Unger to speak for himself and fellow Selectman Gus Basile.

Unger said that from newspaper and other reports, the selectmen believe “the academy intends to proceed with uses of the Abbott House property in such a way that we believe would violate our zoning ordinance.” He then moved that “the selectmen authorize our attorney immediately to initiate declaratory judgment or other appropriate legal actions to stop those uses.”

The motion was immediately seconded and approved 3-0 without debate, as one of the nearly 50 people in the audience said, “Go for it.”

The Abbott House matter next came up when the board voted to approve a warrant for a special town meeting for Monday, October 15, at 7 p.m. to approve the transfer of $20,000 to the legal account from the town’s surplus “to fund anticipated legal fees required to enforce the municipal zoning ordinance.”

A companion warrant article proposes to transfer $20,000 to the Elm Tree Care account to cover damage from the September 26 storm.

The academy purchased the historic residence known as the Abbott House on Battle Avenue on Thursday, September 27, according to its president, Leonard Tyler.

When word of the MMA’s proposed purchase became public knowledge several weeks ago, many Castine residents, and the planning board and selectmen, expressed concern that the acquisition and proposed usage would be a violation of the town’s zoning ordinance. (See Castine Patriot, September 27.)

The selectmen received a written opinion from Christopher Vaniotis, of the Portland law firm Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, that the town’s ordinance would not prohibit the academy from buying and owning the property. However, the opinion said, because the property is in the Village III District, “any use of the property…in support of or in connection with [MMA’s] educational mission could be viewed as an institutional use” which is “not permitted” in that district.

Addressing the proposed use as the home for the president of the academy, the town’s attorney wrote, “I think the Town could conclude that a home maintained by the Academy for use by its chief administrator is an integral component of the post-secondary school, and is therefore an institutional rather than a residential use, and would not be permitted in the Village III District.”

Academy president Leonard Tyler said in a telephone interview October 2 that although he had a copy of the letter quoted above, “We feel a residence is a residence.” He said that the main floor of the current presidential residence would continue to be used for events such as anniversary class receptions, although the upstairs areas would become offices for alumni affairs.

He acknowledged that after the president and family move into Abbott House, the president may hold small dinner parties, for perhaps two couples, or have a private dinner for a major donor and spouse.

Tyler said at the time of the call that he was not ready to share the MMA attorney’s written opinion on the usage issue raised by the town and its attorney. He said also that he preferred to withhold the name of their attorney because he had just been re-hospitalized due to an earlier foot injury. The Abbott House was purchased for the asking price of $1.45 million, according to Tyler. It included 6.5 acres of land. Tyler said that “absolutely” there are no plans for the use of the land.

Another concern that town officials and others have expressed is that the academy’s ownership of additional land would provide space for additional structures, utility installations, or parking.

Attorney Vaniotis wrote that use of land “in the Village III District to enable or support development within the main campus in the Institutional Development District also would not be supported by the Zoning Ordinance.”

He added that the land also could not be used “to meet quantitative standards, such as lot area, lot coverage or impervious surface ratio, for development in the Institutional Development District.”

This statement was in response to Town Manager Dale Abernethy’s question about whether the purchase of undeveloped land would facilitate development on the main campus where density or other limits had been reached.

The town’s attorney emphasized that a stated purpose of the Institutional Development District, which contains the academy, is “to limit the further expansion of existing institutional development into adjacent high-density residential areas” (Section 4.2.6).

Tyler acknowledged that some persons critical of the academy’s action have cited a portion of the academy’s strategic plan, vision and mission statement which lists “investigat[ing] opportunities for expanding student housing” as an objective.

Tyler said that the academy has added a total of 75 on-campus beds through dormitory and apartment renovations that “took the pressure off. Right now we are not looking.”

He said that because some students commute from Blue Hill and Bangor, a future fund-raising campaign might lead to student housing on land the academy owns in nearby Penobscot.

In response to claims that the campus has been expanding, Tyler cited properties on Tarratine and Court streets that the academy has sold in recent years.

Tyler said that he regretted that there was not more time for an extended public discussion before the sale closed, but that a major time constraint was the previously scheduled trustees’ meeting.

Tyler said that he has lived in Castine long enough to “not be that surprised” about some of the negative comments. However, he said he was “embarrassed” for the town because of a recent incident in which a hammer was thrown through the window of the real estate agency handling the Abbott House sale, Saltmeadow Properties on Main Street.

Susan McNair said that the hammer, with an attached note, was thrown through the front window of her company’s office sometime after 11 p.m. on Thursday, September 27. She said she did not know the contents of the note.

State trooper David Barnard, who is investigating, described the hammer as a small sledge hammer, painted green, that weighs about two pounds with a handle about 18 inches long.

He declined to disclose the exact contents of the note, but said that its meaning was not clear. He said that he could not prove that the event was connected with the sale of the property, but that it was “definitely done with a purpose,” and not by someone just running down the street.

Barnard asked that anyone who has knowledge or information about the event to call him, anonymously if they wish, at the state police office in Ellsworth, 667-5697, or the Orono office at 800-432-7381.

Regarding the town’s impending legal action against the academy, attorney Geoffrey Hole of Bernstein Shur said on October 3 that it was too soon to say how soon the suit for a declarative judgment would be filed with the Superior Court, and how long the process would take.

Declarative judgments are defined in the online edition of the Thomson-Gale Law Encyclopedia as “…a type of preventive justice because, by informing parties of their rights, they help them to avoid violating specific laws or the terms of a contract.

“Individuals may seek a declaratory judgment after a legal controversy has arisen but before any damages have occurred or any laws have been violated. A declaratory judgment differs from other judicial rulings in that it does not require that any action be taken. Instead, the judge, after analyzing the controversy, simply issues an opinion declaring the rights of each of the parties involved.”
(© Castine Patriot)