SALEM — Residents who won a battle in 2003 over a $7,500 betterment fee had to fight paying it again. They won.
Town officials and the selectmen decided to waive the fee for about a dozen residents on Stanwood Road after watching a videotape of a selectmen's meeting from nearly five years ago.
"When you watch that tape, it was clear they had an agreement with that Board of Selectmen," Selectman Michael Lyons said.
Neighbors returned to the selectmen to fight that bill again once road work for a 28-house subdivision next to their neighborhood began this year.
The homes are being built by Crest Realty on the last developable parcel on the New Hampshire side of Spicket Hill. The developer is running a town sewer line through Stanwood Road for the new homes.
In 2003, the selectmen wanted the Planning Board to have the developer pay the betterment fee so neighbors wouldn't get hit with the bill. The request was supposed to go before the Planning Board at the time, but apparently didn't make it there, according to Town Planner Ross Moldoff.
"Nothing happened and the applicant didn't bring their plan back until about six months later," Moldoff said. "But they never reviewed the issue of sewer connections, so it wasn't until this year when the work started — 41âÑ2 years after — that the neighbors said, 'Hey, what about us?'"
Moldoff said the new homes are supposed to span Spicket Hill to Hitching Post Lane, but haven't been built.
The neighbors contended the selectmen pledged in 2003 that the fee would be waived, but written records from the 2003 meeting did not specifically say that, selectmen Chairman Elizabeth Roth said. She asked fellow board members to review the video of the 2003 meeting to see what the board intended.
"Based on additional information, we came to a more clear understanding of what the previous Board of Selectmen was trying to accomplish," Roth said.
The Planning Board approved the development in 2005, but the town has seen little activity since then, Moldoff said.
Roth said even though the neighbors have been spared the $7,500 betterment fee, they will have to pay for the cost of hooking to the town sewer system.
Another reason why the fee was waived was because it was filed under the previous betterment fee structure, which asked for a lower fee and had more legal history allowing for exemptions, according to Lyons. He said the developer was left to pass along the selectmen's desire to have the project pay for the betterment fees, something that should have never happened.
"While that message never got to the Planning Board, it's just as well it didn't, because the Planning Board should only be extracting money when it has an ordinance to do so, like with impact fees," Lyons said. "Saying to a developer that you should give money because you want an approval for this is not right."
