TOPSHAM

Selectmen will hold a public hearing on the posting of several roads in town. The board will meet today at 7 p.m. at the Municipal Building.

The roads, to be posted effective Friday and sooner if needed, include Winter Street and River Road from Main Street to Whitehouse Crossing Road; Whitehouse Crossing, Meadow Cross, Ward, West Merrill and Robert’s Hill roads; as well as Foreside Road from Townsend Way to Middlesex Road. Postings will expire April 30.

The board also will consider placing a number of ordinance changes on the draft warrant for Town Meeting in May, which selectmen will hold a public hearing on before finalizing the warrant.

The town’s parks and recreation department has requested changes to the General Department Facility Ordinance that would add Head of Tide Park to the ordinance.

The department wants to change the hours of operation at Head of Tide Park and ponds area at the town’s solid waste facility — from seasonal, varying weekday hours, to “dawn to dusk,” unless the user has a written agreement. Draft language states that vehicles are permitted at the ponds only during solid waste facility hours.

Selectmen are also scheduled to consider:

— A zoning amendment for the west side of U.S. Route 201 that would change five lots — from the Cathance River north to Central Maine Power Co. lines — from a Residential 3 zone to a Rural Commercial Uses zone.

The change was requested by a property owner. Rural Commercial Uses zones allow limited and lowintensity commercial uses while still allowing residential units.

— Clarifying the town’s appeals process for Planning Board decisions. The amendments would be to the site plan ordinance, cost recovery ordinance, and to the conditional use section and board of appeals section of the zoning ordinance.

Selectmen also are scheduled to consider adjusting the building permit fee schedule as allowed by town code. Additional fee changes the planning and codes enforcement office staff are recommending will go before selectmen at a later date for consideration as an ordinance amendment to go to Town Meeting.

“We’re looking at adding or raising fees to address the time that is put into reviewing them, inspecting them and in some ways to make them more equitable,” Town Planner Rich Roedner told selectmen March 7.

The board will also consider placing on a draft Town Meeting warrant acceptance of Serenity Lane — a subdivision on West Merrill Road — as a public road, as recommended by the Planning Board.

dmoore@timesrecord.com