WILTON – The Board of Selectpersons met following Tuesday’s special town meeting; they responded to a petition from residents and a request to consider placing a moratorium on a marijuana ordinance.
The petition, which was signed by a number of homeowners from a section of neighborhoods off the East Wilton Road, expressed concern over potential mobile and modular homes moving into the area. If that were to happen, the petition stated, it would most likely decrease the value of their homes.
“We want to know what we can do. A lot of us have been there 30 years. It’s a real concern,” Webb Avenue resident Tracy Brooks said.
Earlier this year the town received a bid on a half-acre parcel on Webb Ave. that had been acquired through a foreclosure process. The property had a house on it that was demolished by the town for safety reasons. Though the bid did not go through, the prospective buyer had planned to put a mobile home on the lot.
“This is a friendly petition. It’s just a place to start and be heard. We’re worried about property value, that’s what this is about,” Brooks said.
Selectman Tom Saviello said the group basically has two options: they could purchase the lot from the town or they could work to get the Residential 1 zoning laws changed so that mobile and modular homes are forbidden. In the meantime, the board voted to look into getting the property off the realty listings and agreed to look at the next best step.
A special town meeting will be scheduled next month to vote on an Adult Use Marijuana Moratorium. The moratorium would not make any changes for businesses already in operation but would allow the town time to fine tune regulations.
“The town needs to come up with some rules. The state hasn’t so the town needs to,” resident Keith French said.
Code Enforcement Officer Charlie Lavin said the Planning Board has gotten a number of applications for marijuana businesses and that there isn’t enough criteria for licensing. The board will schedule a special town meeting and decide on a warrant at their next scheduled meeting on Oct. 15.
Wilton should keep mobile homes in Mobile Home Parks only…Keep the established Residential streets
free from incoming mobile homes new or old.
To the neighbors in Wilton who signed this so called “friendly petition”:
Who are you kidding? Some of the mobile homes and modulars made out there are nicer than some of the homes in that neighborhood! What are you really afraid of? I am glad we chose a neighborhood to place our modular/mobile home where people don’t “look down” on us. And the property values have not decreased, infact they have gained over the years. Didn’t realize people could be so biased, especially in the friendly town of Wilton!
A modular home, however, is not a mobile home. Something more is silently being said in this petition….
Ribersnibbet, by gum!!
Ayuh here we go. People living in a traditional built house looking down on those who live in a “mobile home”.
Nothing like a little gentrification in Wilton Maine. Translation “We don’t want poor people living next to us.” If there was a house on the lot, it’s obviously zoned for residential, people do not get to choose what other people can afford or where they can and can’t buy land to put what they can afford on. This sort of thing makes me sick.
The high dollar suburbs don’t feature double wides or Mod housing. Towns that manage development wisely, have an eye on the future. Understanding the up-side of high property values and the cost in services of local support of population density. If you don’t do it right, particularly in regard zoning and architectural standards, towns start looking shabby pretty fast, the property values tank and taxes rise.
I’m with H.B.. Snobbery is out of place in rural Maine.
lol have you seen webb ave,,fenderson hill it aint! lol
Shame on Wilton, How can you slam mobile homes ,saying they lower taxes, when your main street has traditional homes and apartment buildings that are in shambles. Snobbery is showing it’s ugly face in this situation.
There’s nothing wrong with a nice mobile home or modular. It’s very disgraceful to even get a “friendly petition”
It’s just too bad to see this.
What next banning clothes lines? Raised my family in a mobile. It was dry, warm, paid for, and it was our home.
Looked better than most the stick built houses in the neighborhood.
You have got to be kidding!! Wilton, the suburb of Liberal Farmington.
HB is right. Just a little more Massachusetts-like every day…geez, pretty soon you’ll have gated communities, and covenants from the HOA restricting what you can or cannot do with your OWN property…what color you can paint your house, what kind of bushes…
Mayflower- great point!
In my opinion, nothing lowers a property’s value faster than a neighborhood with a reputation for being unwelcoming.
Whoa Wait A Second Folks,,
There is nothing wrong with protecting your investment like these home owners are trying to do.
Back Off cause we all do similar and we are all not snobs and devil’s.
This reaction is completely defensive and not based on reality.
Reality is that mobile homes are “valued” less.
Many reasons for that, but it doesn’t matter.
It just is.
I guess you’d have no problem as a mobile home owner if folks built a bunch of high end houses around you, which would increase the value of the land in which your mobile sat…. (Except they would all (of course) be snobs)..lol
Who’s the snobs??
So quit acting like trailer trash and calm down folks.
Btw,, I grew up in a trailer in a trailer park,,, and liked it just fine. TYVM.
It seems that if your neighboring property was once an decrepit old home that no longer is then any new structure would be a vast improvement. When my wife an I looked at how our house it was not valued by looking the two neighboring homes with yards of trash and vehicles, homes that didn’t look kept. These homes were left off auditors comparison property lists in order to increase the value of sale and taxes. The auditors only looked at homes of similar condition up and down the street even thought the two neighbors were not. We bought it and love all of our neighbors just the same.
HB: It would seem that we agree but I wish you would learn the true definition of gentrification. It’s an unfortunate condition of the current real estate development market, investors over people, and gross separation of wealth and poverty that is our current economy. I think this situation is rooted neighbors concerned about their retirement investment (30 years of home ownership). For real examples of gentrification in ME look at Portland, Waterville, any coastal town especially Camden and Arcadia… These once affordable places that are now so overdeveloped by investors looking to make big profits that the people who have lived there can no longer. I’m sure you are familiar with that in Mass.
Snobs and Devil’s,,, Oh My !!
Proving everyones’ points I see.
Sounds like the Hillbillies in Wilton, of which I am one, have been offended by a neighborhood that has established homes that were built back in the 1960s and do not want a mobile home stuck right in the middle. This issue has nothing to do with being a snob…Mobile homes are fine and do not demean anyone but now that Mary Jane is legalized watch the mobile homes start popping up all over the area. Pot dealers and growers will arrive…make a ton of money and hit the road…There is nothing wrong with clear cut zoning laws. Something Maine should have embraced many years ago and will do in the future whether anyone likes it or not. Does Wilton have a ‘Master Plan’? The thinking at the town office is twenty years behind (No credit card payments, etc.) and that lack of planning leads to a community without a positive future direction…The future has arrived. Did anyone here have anything to say about the new CMP Substation going in ? Things are already out of control from Augusta to Weld Ave. Some regulations serve the ‘common good’.
Say what, I know the definition of gentrification, that’s why I used it. It is purely a social construct, an us from them sort of thing, you can try to justify it as simply as a real estate ploy, but it isn’t, it’s a separation of the classes. I remember a few years ago in Wilton, a guy was replacing windows and siding on his house, when he ran out of money before the job was done, in the middle of the winter, his neighbors complained to the town, as they thought his house was an eyesore, the town told him he had 30 days to finish the job, it was January, they wanted him to make a hole in the wall of his house in January. Wilton hates down on their luck people and people who don’t earn $60,000 a year.
So some of the people on Webb Ave don’t want a mobile home on their street. But one of them is running a treet business from his/her home.
We all have to live SOMEWHERE!
I grew up on Eastern Avenue which is next to Webb Avenue. They loop around. My dad’s house was one of the first built in that area. It has been a residential area. I was born and raised in this neighborhood. I would say that most houses in the area are 45 to 55 years of age. I remember some places being abandoned and some places changing hands several times. For whatever reason this seemed to be over on Webb Avenue. I personally believe that it would be the most appropriate thing to put in a house fixture that is similar to the existing houses around. I wouldn’t guess that most of the lots are not more than half of an acre. Anyways I suppose it’s up to the town and the overtaxed taxpayers of Wilton to decide what to do next.
Seriously? When I was growing up, a home was a home, no matter mobile, modular, or stick! I hate the fact that people look down on others because of a mobile. Some of the mobile/modular homes are actually better than some of the homes that are out there