If you want a building permit in Eliot, Maine, plan on showing up at Town Hall early.
In what looked like Black Friday shoppers camping out for the best pre-Christmas deals on wide-screen TVs, those hoping to snag one of the few building permits available for 2015 showed up two days early to wait in line.
A local ordinance designed to limit building growth allowed only eight single-family permits and two affordable-housing permits, according to an account in Foster’s Daily Democrat. The first three people in line grabbed all the permits available, said Town Manger Dana Lee.
A total of 10 people were in line when the doors opened at 6:30 a.m. on Jan. 2, but some of them had showed up two days before that to make sure they’d be allowed to build houses this year.
One of them, Jane McDonnell of nearby Kittery, took four-hour shifts with her husband and their builder in their round-the-clock vigil.
“We got our growth permits,” she told the newspaper. “The guy in line after us got one. The third guy in line was another building who got the remainder.”
For anyone else in Eliot with a building lot, tough luck.
Under the town ordinance, what’s handed out are growth permits, which must be replaced by building permits within 90 days. If not, it will expire, and the permit goes to the next person on a waiting list.
Voters rejected an attempt to loosen restrictions in November.
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Eliot, Maine, a town of about 6200, strictly limits growth by restricting the number of building permits it issues each year. This year's lucky recipients showed up at Town Hall two days early to claim a place in line.
