Singh: pier for family use

by Laurie Schreiber Bar Harbor Times

TREMONT - Pritam Singh called for civil conversation rather than personal attack as the application for a pier in Seal Cove moves forward.

Mr. Singh was present at a hearing on the pier with his wife, Anne Johnston, his adult children, Charnan Kaur and Tyler Reynolds, soon-to-be son-in-law Rob Egbert, and Ms. Johnston's parents, as well as the family's representatives on the pier project.

Making a move toward calming neighborhood fears about the future of the land, Mr. Singh promised he would build only for the family.

He said he was meeting later in the week with Maine Coast Heritage Trust to work out an agreement to put a conservation easement on the land with an allowance for a maximum of six houses - one main house plus five smaller cottages for the children.

"That's what we're going to do," he said. "I am going on record with that. I'm doing that because it's the right thing to do."

Mr. Singh said he would submit plans and an application for the first house before the next hearing on the pier.

Planning Board chairman George Urbanneck said he appreciated Mr. Singh's forthrightness, but added, "May I say, 'finally.'"

"I didn't tell you because I didn't know," Mr. Singh responded.

As to the pier project, Mr. Singh asked for a continuance of the hearing in order to give his representatives a chance to respond to a couple hundred pages of documents that were submitted to the Planning Board on the day and within days of the hearing.

"We're here, all of us together, because this is an important matter to us," Mr. Singh told the Planning Board and a packed room of about 30 people. "Not an important financial matter, but an important personal matter."

Mr. Singh said a pier is needed in order to shorten travel time from their home on Tinker Island to the mainland, in light of a medical emergency last summer, when his wife almost died and had to take the longer way around to Bass Harbor to meet an ambulance.

He and his wife, their families going back in Maine for generations, are devoted to the coast, he said; on Tinker Island, they put a conservation easement on the northern half, now owned by Maine Coast Heritage Trust.

"We intend to do the same sort of thing here," he said of the Seal Cove property. "I don't understand why this has turned into what it has. If the issue is lobsters or something else, let's talk about it. It's not right to call me and my family names."

Mr. Singh said he is eager to talk with anyone who has concerns about the pier.

"Let's be friends, let's be neighbors," he said. "Tremont, Maine, is not a place where, over a dock, we should be creating hate and anger."

Peter Butler, who has strongly objected to the pier, said he would gladly talk with Mr. Singh, but that he remained opposed to the "ungodly pier."

"Everybody else uses a dinghy," Mr. Butler told Mr. Singh.

Mr. Butler, in a June 6 affidavit taken by the abutters' attorney Doug Chapman, said his family has lived in the Seal Cove area for 150 years and his family at one point owned all of the property where the pier is proposed. Mr. Butler has a mooring in Seal Cove.

"I am in the Seal Cove area almost daily," he said, "and have used the beaches there along Seal Cove all my life. I have harvested clams and mussels there in Seal Cove throughout my life, and as recently as last fall."

Mr. Butler said the area has many osprey, eagles and loons; lobster traps are set close to the proposed pier; and the pier will substantially interfere with the area's scenery. He said the town's boat ramp is accessible except at the lowest one-third of the tide, at which time boaters reach the ramp by dinghy.

"It is remarkably easy to get access to that town float, even at the lowest tide, with a dinghy or a pram," Mr. Butler said.

Mr. Butler later said he was satisfied with Mr. Singh's plans for a family compound, but remained unhappy with the pier.

"I had my first slice of watermelon on that beach," he said. "Am I going to drive down there with my fiancée and my mother and not be able to see the sunset? The older I get, the more concerned I get about our coastline, about runoff, about development. I don't want to see future generations pushed off the coast."

New documents before the Planning Board included filings from Mr. Chapman that question the timeliness of the application, Mr. Egbert's interest in the property, and the town of Tremont's jurisdiction on the matter; articles plucked from the internet about prior Singh dealings; and pro and con letters from residents.

They received two petitions made to the board of selectmen, asking them to place articles before voters to deny the pier "on the basis of irreparable change to the Seal Cove shoreline Š." and to deny the "proposed subdivisionŠon the basis of excessive traffic, which will be generated by such a subdivision that cannot be handled by the existing Cape Road Š." Each petition had more than 60 signatures.

And they received two commissioned studies of the shoreline and subtidal environment in the area of the pier. University of Maine marine ecology professor Brian Beal's June 3 report on benthic fauna and macroalgae, surveyed on June 2 by a diver who was instructed to dive within the footprint of the proposed pier, provides a site description and list of species in the area. Woodlot Alternatives, environmental consultants, provided a June 3 field assessment to Mr. Chapman with a general description of the shoreline environment and wildlife. Both reports find the area important for supporting and protecting many species; neither discusses potential pier impacts. However, Woodlot Alternatives says much of the Seal Cove coastline is considered significant wildlife habitat under the Maine Natural Resource Protection Act.

In a June 3 memo, town attorney James Collier told the board that, in considering the pier application, they must decide whether there is sufficient evidence that the pier is no larger than it needs to be to fulfill its intended purpose; and that is not so large that it will interfere with the existing conditions, use, and character of the area.

Egbert attorney Michael Ross said he wanted time to review the documents.

Mr. Urbanneck said the board had accepted the late documents as a courtesy, but put all parties on notice that, in the future, documents must be submitted at least seven days before a hearing.

"At this point," said Mr. Urbanneck, "I feel the waters are so muddied that we have to step back to take a deep breath in the next couple of weeks."

The board agreed to grant the continuance, within the original 35-day timeframe allowed by the application process. The hearing was set for Tuesday, June 21, 6:30 p.m., in the gym.

The Singhs themselves will not be present at that meeting because their daughter's wedding is that weekend. n