KINGFIELD — After nearly three hours of debate Monday, the Kingfield Board of Selectmen took no action on a petition seeking a 180‑day moratorium on Bowdoin College’s proposed campsite at the Finnegan McCoul Woodruff Mountain Center.
The board said it plans to continue the discussion at a special meeting next week.
Last year, the liberal arts college in Brunswick bought almost 21 acres for the mountain center.
Its plan calls for year‑round access to seven gravel campsites that could hold up to 28 tents — enough for 84 students plus staff members at full capacity.
The campsites would cover 1.8 acres of the 20.7‑acre property and include a 950‑square‑foot picnic area and a 600‑square‑foot sanitary building with a vault toilet and septic system.
The plan also calls for staggering vehicle departures to reduce traffic on the road.
Abutters have raised several concerns about the campsite and earlier this month submitted a moratorium petition to the Planning Board.
They argue the project could overburden public facilities — including water, roads and fire protection — create safety risks from increased traffic and congestion on Route 27 and the privately owned Iron Bridge Road and one‑lane bridge leading to the property, and interfere with the quality of life, health and safety of Kingfield residents.
Bowdoin officials said students would use the campsites most often from August until snowfall, with the heaviest use expected on weekends from August through October. Peak weekends could bring as many as seven vans and up to four support vehicles, totaling 84 to 90 people.
Alex Drew Weatherbee, the lawyer representing the petitioners, and the town’s attorney, Amanda Meader, attended Monday’s meeting via Zoom. A packed room of residents, four of the five selectmen, and Planning Board Chair Richard Hawkes were also present.
Meader has served as the town’s attorney for several years but joined this project about a month ago during what officials described as a “very accelerated process.” She said she will take leave next week, and a fill‑in lawyer is scheduled to attend the board’s June 2 meeting.
The town has accepted the moratorium petition as submitted, but it has not yet approved sending it to a public vote under the subdivision ordinance.
John Simoneau, Bowdoin’s director of capital projects, noted that the town’s subdivision ordinance dates to 1989 and requires a 50‑foot right of way, two 9‑foot travel lanes and 7‑foot shoulders for any road serving more than eight dwellings across eight to 15 lots. The ordinance allows waivers if a road association maintains the gravel surface.
Although Bowdoin’s use is classified as institutional, Simoneau said the college is following the campground standards in the ordinance “to protect the other adjacent properties from the impacts of operation.”
Previous subdivision plans for the area reference an “existing road” but do not define it or outline any specifications. That omission suggests earlier Planning Boards likely visited the site and determined the gravel road met subdivision standards at the time. Over the past 30 years, however, the road has deteriorated significantly, including during periods of logging.
Bowdoin has committed to helping repair and maintain the road and bridge, including clearing brush, restoring the gravel surface and reestablishing drainage ditches. College officials said they are willing to work with the town on how to move that work forward.
They also stressed that long‑standing safety issues with the bridge were already known in town and are not solely the responsibility of, or caused by, the Bowdoin project.
Documents reviewed by the Board of Selectmen indicate the Ira Mountain Bridge, which connects Route 27 to Iron Bridge Road, is privately maintained and not the responsibility of the Pleasant River Partners LLC road association. Maintenance obligations may instead fall to property owners or trustees through deed restrictions requiring proportional cost‑sharing.
Pleasant River Partners includes Christopher and Jason Brochu, children of original bridge owner Adrian Brochu, along with Stephanie Voter and Tabatha Andrews. The bridge functions as a shared private access point maintained by the abutting bridge and road associations.
In summarizing the Planning Board’s concerns, Hawkes noted that previous developers had been required to complete both a traffic study and a bridge study, and that each applicant should be treated the same. In this case, he said, Bowdoin would be considered a “developer” seeking project approval.
“We want to do a thorough review and treat them like the previous developers,” Hawkes said.
Selectman Wade Browne questioned how the campground lots should be counted under the ordinance compared to a single‑family home. For example, he asked whether one tent should be considered the equivalent of one home for the purposes of a traffic study.
Hawkes agreed the comparison raised valid questions, saying, “There should be a discussion of how a campground with so many campers equates to so many homes.”
Arguments often went in circles as the parties struggled to agree on how the subdivision ordinance defines “transient overnight recreational developments,” whether Bowdoin fits that category and whether a previous traffic study must be reassessed to determine when a public facility “overburdens” Route 27.
Representing Bowdoin College, Juliet T. Browne of Verrill Dana argued that the moratorium “applies to things that are similar to but different from campgrounds,” and that the community cannot know whether the definition applies to this project.
“You can’t answer that question if you just read the definition,” she said. “That is the fatal flaw of that petition because it is too vague of a definition in the ordinance.”
John Gause, a Claybrook Road homeowner and road association member who signed and helped circulate the petition for a 180‑day moratorium, told attendees that under Title 30‑A, Section 2522, the criteria for this issue to be taken to a public vote have been met, and the town has the right to consider and debate the moratorium.
He also noted that the issue of overburdening public facilities includes not only current conditions but the “reasonably foreseeable” burden created by any proposed or anticipated development.
Gause emphasized that the group of Bowdoin Outing Club members would not resemble a typical campground population where visitors do not know one another. The group, he said, is “basically a fraternity where everybody does know each other and they’re there at the same time — they’re eating together, singing together, hanging around the campfire together, 90 people at a time.”
Gause added that the proposed campsite is the type of project that would make more sense in an R2 zone rather than the R1 zone where it is now plotted.
Speaking in support of the moratorium, Weatherbee and others reminded attendees several times that the purpose of the Board of Selectmen meeting was to evaluate the moratorium as written.
“This moratorium is not to outright say no or yes to the Bowdoin project. It is to ensure that the town is properly equipped to evaluate and review and site these sorts of projects,” Weatherbee said. “It is to allow everyone to go back to the drawing board, ensure the ordinance is tightened up and ready to evaluate these types of projects and then move forward” with approval, disapproval or conditional approval for the Bowdoin campsite.
Weatherbee argued that the moratorium should be viewed as an opportunity to refine and strengthen the subdivision ordinance by addressing identified gaps and clarifying requirements. She emphasized that, now that these weaknesses have been exposed, future projects similar to Bowdoin’s could take advantage of the same loopholes for other summer camps or organizational uses if the ordinance is not updated.
Meader and Hawkes agreed that hiring an independent traffic engineer should remain under consideration as part of the project and ordinance reassessment. The suggestion stemmed from discrepancies in the traffic data and projections used to determine whether the proposed Bowdoin campsite would meet the threshold requiring a two‑way road.
Gause noted that the figures appeared inconsistent with numbers discussed during previous Board of Selectmen and Planning Board meetings and at the public hearing.
Some residents noted that widening the road may be difficult or impossible because it sits between a river and a cliff.
By the conclusion of the nearly three‑hour meeting, municipal officials determined that the most appropriate course of action was to take additional time to review and consider the information and perspectives presented by all parties.
The board agreed to reconvene at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 26, for a special meeting focused exclusively on the proposed moratorium before sending it to voters.
The town report and warrant for the annual town meeting Saturday, June 13, have already been printed and distributed, so any moratorium would go to voters through a special warrant and meeting.
