NORRIDGEWOCK — The Planning Board on Thursday heard competing accounts of a tire burnout pit that the town shut down in August for lack of a proper permit.
Some neighbors say this summer’s events, during which drivers spin their tires while keeping their vehicles largely stationary, created unbearable noise and produced obnoxious smoke.
Supporters, including some other neighbors, say those concerns are unfounded. The pit provides a safe place for auto enthusiasts to participate in a rapidly growing motorsport, they say, and keep them from tearing up public roads.
It’s now up to the planning board to retroactively approve or deny the site plan application; the asphalt pad within a family compound off Ward Hill Road, known as Jeffrey’s Automotive Battleground, has already been built.
But applicant Jeffrey Daniels, who built the burnout pit on his grandmother’s property at 23 Family Circle Drive, and those on both sides of the issue walked away Thursday evening from a well-attended, hourlong public hearing and board deliberations without a final decision.
Instead, the board’s five elected members unanimously voted to proceed with a professional noise study to help them figure out whose side to believe.
“There is a controversy about whether or not there is a noise problem,” Chair Jean Lancaster said.
In a 4-1 vote, the board also required Daniels to post $1,000 to be held in escrow for hiring the consultant, which is allowed under Norridgewock’s Site Plan Review Ordinance.
Daniels, 23, said he has already bought a decibel meter and collected his own data showing the noise cannot be the major nuisance his neighbors describe. The board agreed he could hire his own consultant to do the study, provided the person is qualified.
“At this point, I feel like I’m really wasting my time with all this, honestly,” Daniels said. “I feel like I’m just being dragged along and being told ‘no’ at the end of the day.”
The study is not expected to be conducted during a burnout event, Town Manager Richard LaBelle said.
A licensed professional will be tasked to “determine the average decibel level generated by a vehicle under average conditions,” LaBelle said, “and then take a look at topography and any other potential sound barriers to determine what the decibel level would be at the property line or any other given location.”
Thursday’s meeting drew more than 100 people — more than typically attend the annual town meeting — who filled nearly every folding chair in the Mill Stream Elementary School gymnasium.
Some were there to comment on a separate project, a proposed gun shop and shooting range on Skowhegan Road. In that case, the Planning Board also ordered a noise study, while requesting additional information and setting a November public hearing.
Hovering in the background of both applications is a proposed 180-day moratorium on certain noise-intensive nonresidential developments. The pause is aimed at giving town officials time to develop proposed noise regulations before the annual town meeting in March.
Residents will vote on the moratorium at a special town meeting Oct. 21.
The planning board’s 18 review criteria for site plan applications include a provision that “the proposed activity will not have a significant detrimental effect on adjacent land uses or other properties, which might be affected by waste, noise, glare, fumes, smoke, dust, odors or their effects.”
That’s the biggest outstanding item for Daniels’ application that the planning board has yet to decide. It has already determined his application has met the other criteria and imposed some conditions, including requirements that Daniels water down the asphalt to limit smoke, hire a sheriff’s deputy for traffic detail during events and get a contractor in place for proper waste disposal.
Other compromises discussed include requiring participants use mufflers on their vehicles, increasing the tree buffer and limiting operating hours.
Daniels’ application, submitted Aug. 5, states the pit was paved in June in an existing sandpit in the woods. It includes a 60-foot diameter asphalt pad and a 10-foot wide, 30-foot long access road, which cost about $30,000.
The pit, on the farthest part of the property from the road, is surrounded by tree-lined embankments. Jeffrey Daniels’ grandmother, 78-year-old Josephine Daniels, owns the property and several family members live there.
Code Enforcement Officer Matt Everett issued a stop work order in August. Everett, also chairman of the Norridgewock Select Board, denied that had anything to do with his June purchase of two parcels off Ward Hill Road about a half mile downhill from the Daniels compound.
The town received complaints about the pit earlier in the summer, and, at some point, asked the Danielses to stop hosting events, LaBelle said previously. Officials then saw on social media in August that Jeffrey Daniels was planning another large event, which led to the stop work order that effectively shut it down, he said.
Events were generally on Sundays and averaged about 150 attendees, Daniels’ application says. Some fairs in Maine have put on similar meets, and Daniels said people travel hours to participate.
The events Daniels hosted were family-friendly, and some were fundraisers, he said. No drugs are allowed. Participants must sign waivers. Portable toilets are brought in. Vehicle radiators must be filled with water, to prevent hazardous radiator fluid from going into the ground.
“I thought the noise people were talking about is greatly exaggerated,” Daniels said Thursday. “I realize they probably do hear it, but, if anything, I’m saying it’s probably a slight annoyance versus this extreme nuisance that they’re talking about.”
Kevin Paluch, who lives in Madison just over the town line from the Daniels property, likened the noise to “water torture.”
“This has made me a nervous wreck,” Leslie Korhonen, whose home is also just over the town line, said of the noise.
Joy Caswell, also a neighbor in Madison, said she did not appreciate being called a liar for her complaints. She said it forces her inside, and every so often, tire smoke makes it way on to her property.
“I understand what they are trying to do for the area … however, what they’re also doing to the area is not kind,” Caswell said.
Those in support of the burnout pit said it has provided them or their children with a safe place to do the activity, and Daniels enforces his rules. It is also an economic boost, they said, bringing attendees to gas stations and convenience stores in town on event days. Two who live on Ward Hill Road said the noise does not bother them at their homes.
Cody Cyr, part of the burnout pit crew, said there is far worse environmental pollution from the Waste Management landfill, paper mills in the region and a local quarry. He called the noise and pollution complaints “a load of crap.”
“There’s needles and dopeheads and crackheads and drunks all over the town of Norridgewock,” he told the board. “A burnout pit is the least of everyone’s concerns.”