LIVERMORE FALLS – Selectmen supported their code enforcement officer Monday night, agreeing to revoke the permit she issued to John and Sherian Judd.
Code Enforcement Officer Brenda Medcoff explained that she had given the Judds a permit to replace a trailer that had burned because she was unaware of previous Planning Board restrictions on the lot.
Medcoff said she initially could find no history file on the Route 17 property so issued the permit on incomplete information.
What she later learned was that the second trailer was allowed only if the Judds lived in the first one and if the second was occupied by a relative with no rent charged.
Without those conditions being met, the lot is non-conforming as, at 51,000 square feet, it has only enough land for one dwelling. They would need 80,000 square feet for two residences, she explained.
Sherian Judd of Livermore, speaking for the couple, admitted they had not lived on the property for two years.
She saw no reason they could not rent both units and provided her side of the story in a four page letter, detailing the history of the lot and the investment they have in the unit that replaced the one that burned.
She said the couple bought the lot, with a 1966 trailer on it in June 1986, and moved their own 1971 unit onto it the following year, allegedly by permission from then Selectman Joe Riordan.
Reportedly, Plumbing Inspector Kent Mitchell approved adding the hook-up onto the existing one and then Code Enforcement Officer Gary Kelley issued a permit.
The validity of that permit was questioned by Planning Board members who allowed the two units but only with the lived-in-by-family-member-no-rent condition (what Medcoff referred to as an “echo unit”).
When the burned unit was replaced, Medcoff began getting comments from former board members, alerting her to the conditions. After rebuilding a file on the case, she sought board support to revoke it as being in error.
“I never would have given that permit had I seen this information,” she said. “I would have sought a legal opinion.”
In making the decision against the Judds, selectmen noted they did not live on the property as required, were not renting to a relative, had not been inspected for plumbing and septic, and had not returned to the Planning Board as required.
Medcoff asked that, to resolve the situation, the second trailer be removed. Selectmen voted 3-1 to order it removed but agreed to give the Judds until May 6, 2004, to do so.
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