Carrie Jones

Sep 27, 2025

SOUTHWEST HARBOR—The town’s planning board determined that the Acadia View subdivision plan at 234 Main Street has not met the conditional approval as presented at the moment.

The board determined that the plan didn’t meet the request for the engineer’s description as for why the swale was removed from the stormwater management plan.

“The plan is no good,” Southwest Harbor Code Enforcement Officer John Larson said near the end of the meeting.

The decision came last week after the board discussed two outstanding items on the application: the state DEP stormwater management plan approval and the stormwater engineer’s report.

There was some discussion around the changes made to the stormwater plan, including the removal of a swale, and the need for further explanation from the engineer.

Back in January, the town’s appeals board had ruled that in the planning board’s November 2024 approval of the subdivision and granting of a stormwater management plan waiver, the board did not “follow the requirements of the land use ordinance, specifically the stormwater management design standards.” That board also found that abutters to the subdivision failed to receive proper notification of the public hearing.

Rosanne and Michael Guerette of 240 Main Street had brought that appeal.

The project was proposed to be a six-unit subdivision on 4.63 acres. Originally, in 2022, the project was for two rental cabins. The next year, Joey Feliciano, applied to add an additional four cabins, which would have made the project a subdivision.

A subdivision application for seven rental cabins occurred in 2023 and the subdivision was originally approved in November 2024 after being considered complete, October 17, 2024.

At the September planning board meeting, Feliciano, proposed changing the approved buffering plan from a fence to an all-tree buffering solution. This lead to further discussion and some confusion around the details of the approved plan versus the new proposal and if the board should focus on the original plan and then have Feliciano come back and amend it.

“The deal is this, gentlemen,” Feliciano said. “They wanted trees. So we went back and forth, then the fence, then all that. So after careful thinking, and after Mr. Wooster said, ‘You know, Joey, you come back with the plan, whether the trees or the fence, you propose it to us, and that’ll be it.’”

Feliciano said the changes are so that there was nicer buffering between properties and that it was not a new proposal, but the same proposal just with trees for buffering.

He explained the thought process behind the change, saying, “As time progressed, I said, well, I want to put all trees in, because they wanted natural, you know, buffering and stuff like that. So I said, well, let’s put all trees and be done with it. And so, you know, the plan didn’t change much. We’re doing is putting the trees, you know, all the way across.”

The planning board members debated whether they could approve what they believed was a new plan or if it would require a new public hearing and approval process.

There were also concerns that the new plan does not adequately address the stormwater management conditions.

Approximately 40 minutes into the meeting, one board member said that the planning board wanted to work with Feliciano and get the plan done.

“Tell me what I need to do?” Feliciano asked.

The board said there was plenty to approve and move forward or he could go over and start from scratch. Feliciano said, “I’ve been accommodating everybody except myself, and I’ve been going through this headache for a year. And, you know, I got rid of three cabins or three homes. I mean, the whole nine. And now you guys are questioning an engineer.”

Code Enforcement Officer John Larson said that the state statute requires board review of changes to subdivision plans.

“No matter how minor?” board member Michael Levesque asked.

“Even minor,” Larson said.

Some planning board members said that the swale elimination should be addressed.

The planning board ultimately voted to deny the new plan submitted, citing the lack of an adequate explanation for the removal of the swale from the stormwater management plan, which was a condition of the original approval.

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The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Rick Osann Art.

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