NEW SCOTLAND — The New Scotland Planning Board at its monthly meeting renewed for the third time the building permit for Grove At Maple Point, LLC, the company developing a 3.2-acre property between Fred the Butcher and Stonewell Plaza. 

“The code calls for any time after three years that ... the applicant needs to apply to the planning board for additional renewals,” Building Inspector Jeremy Cramer explained during the Sept. 14 meeting.

The project was given conditional approval by the planning board in September 2017. The original permit was issued Sept. 5, 2018 — it’s good for one year from the date it’s issued. 

The board extended the permit until Sept. 14, 2022, and said that any future requests for extensions had to come back before it. 

Originally proposed in 2o16 as a mixed-use development with 30 apartment units and 16,000 square feet of retail space, the project was scaled back, leaving the retail intact. The original design would have required a substantial and expensive sewer-district extension; the approved plan uses a septic system.

Construction has started at the site.

The land has been cleared and the footings for the first building were poured on Sept. 14. 

Project partner and architect Dan Sanders said to the board, “There were delays on the project with financing, primarily, and just COVID-related activities in terms of the market for retail. And now we’re underway.”

Sanders said the second building’s construction would follow the first, but “both buildings would be complete by less than a year from now.”