ROME — A planning board review of a controversial summer camp on Long Pond will be postponed while the applicant completes a required noise study.
David Porter, of Sudbury, Massachusetts, plans to build a boys camp, Camp Caruso, at the north end of the pond straddled between Rome, Belgrade and Mount Vernon, but the proposal has sparked outrage from nearby residents who are concerned about noise, disturbance and water pollution.
At a meeting in July, the planning board agreed to give Porter until September to submit additional application materials, including a noise study.
Board Chairman Dick Greenan said Friday that Porter has not completed the study, and the board will push its review of the application back to its October meeting.
“It has taken a little bit longer than they expected” to get the noise study completed, Greenan said.
Reached at her Portland office on Friday, Sarah McDaniel, an attorney representing Porter, declined to comment specifically on the pending application because she had not talked with her client about the issue.
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that at this point,” McDaniel said. “Our plan is to submit more information in October.”
Porter submitted initial paperwork to the board last November.
In July, board members asked for more application materials, including details on erosion plans, a construction schedule and waterfront designs among other details.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection approved a stormwater management permit for the project last month.
Porter’s application is now largely complete aside from the noise study, Greenan said Friday.
The noise study will have to go through a peer review from a specialist hired by the town at Porter’s expense. That means a planning board vote on the application could wait until the board’s November meeting, Greenan said.
Porter plans to build the camp on 15 acres of a 68-acre parcel off Watson Pond Road. The camp would include cabins, storage buildings, a dining hall, playing fields, docks and an amphitheater.
The intent of the camp is to bring together siblings separated through foster families for a few weeks during the summer. Porter has said that it will host 48 boys during four 10-day sessions.
But the proposal has raised the ire of seasonal and year-round residents of Beaver Cove, the small tongue of water at the northwest end of Long Pond. Concerned abutters and residents have packed planning board meetings to oppose the project, and board members have been inundated with letters from people against Porter’s plan.
Greenan said that since the meeting in July, the number of people contacting him about the project has fallen off, but he is still receiving letters from opponents of the camp.
So far, he hasn’t received any messages in support of the proposal, Greenan said.
“Not one,” he said.
Peter McGuire — 861-9239
Twitter: PeteL_McGuire
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