ROCKPORT — A neighbor’s appeal of a building permit granted to the town to construct a new library in Rockport Village will be heard Sept. 11 by the Rockport Zoning Board of Appeals.

Because the appeal is of a municipality allowing its own entity to construct a new building, there will be two sets of attorneys on deck. William Kelly, of the Belfast firm Kelly and Collins, LLC, is advising the ZBA on its proceedings while the attorney representing the town, Planner Bill Najpauer and Rockport Code Enforcement Officer Scott Bickford is Bill Saucier, of the firm Bernstein Schur.

Stephen Earle, who purchased the house next door to the 1 Limerock Street library site, said the application for the new library, which is currently under construction in Rockport Village and which was filed by the town of Rockport, was not subject to a meaningful review before receiving a May 22 building permit by the Rockport Code Enforcement Office.

Earle, a New York City resident, has retained Patrick Mellor, of the Rockland firm Strout and Payson, as his attorney.

The ZBA hearing will begin at 5:30 p.m.,  at the Rockport Opera House at 6 Central Street.

The public is invited to attend the public hearing and may offer testimony. Written testimony may be sent to the Town of Rockport, 101 Main Street. Rockport Maine 04856, attention Code Enforcement Officer. 

The administrative appeal may be viewed at the Rockport Town Office during normal business hours. 

The appeal process entails submitting a claim to the Rockport Zoning Board of Appeals. That board will review the appeal, and if so decides, it can commence a de novo review of the entire permit application process.

Meanwhile, construction at the library site has not halted, and according to the latest newsletter circulated by consultant (and former town manager) Rick Bates, reported:

This report is for the period ending August 27, 2019

There is not a lot to report this week as the foundation pour, originally scheduled for Monday August 26m was postponed untilFriday, August 30, 2019.

This is a slow and time consuming part o fthe construction project, but where it is the “foundation” it is probably one of the most important part of the process. If you don’t have a good foundation ........

The foundation contractor stated that they were nearly complete setting the forms and all of the related rebar that needs to be installed, however there was still some final work to be done and he wanted the extra time to be sure that it was all done correctly.

The curved wall section under the Marine Room is a very complex section of the wall and extra care needs to go into that section. They worked on it on Saturday in an attempt to get everything ready. In the end they decided that it was better to delay that to rush.

Phi, stated that the delay in this pour, will not delay the delivery and starting construction of decking and the pour of the concrete deck that is planned for mid-October. As stated previously, the decking and beams need to be installed before the backfilling can really start as the newly poured concrete walls need the support before the backfill and compaction takes place.

A lot of discussion has gone into the waterproofing of the foundation and the drainage to collect any water around the building, the condensate drains and the elevator sump drain