HAMPDEN, Maine — An aging bridge that provides the only lifeline for a half-dozen homes needs roughly $1 million in repairs, but local officials aren’t convinced that’s the best option.
The Manning Mill Bridge spans a short distance over the Souadabscook Stream in Hampden, and is the only access to six homes on the dead-end Manning Mill Road. A state inspection in 2019 caused the weight limit to drop to 15 tons. That limit restricts residents from moving large trash loads and getting heating oil or home repair equipment delivered.
The Hampden Town Council is considering two main options. Resurfacing the bridge carries an estimated cost of up to $1 million. The town could also pay $2 million to connect the road to a portion of Emerson Mill Road north of the stream and potentially opening land for more homes.
Both are costly fixes for such a small number of residents. Officials have balked at putting the expense on everybody in town. The protracted debate is frustrating residents whose lives have been disrupted by the weight limit and want the town to make a final decision.
“I’m starting to feel like we don’t matter,” Kim Williams, who lives at the home second closest to the bridge, said.
There’s no imminent threat of the bridge collapsing, Hampden Town Manager Paula Scott said. But the weight limit won’t change without repairs. Williams said she hasn’t been able to remodel her home for years because of the weight limit. This week, a contractor said he would charge $12,000 more to work on her home because of the small loads required.
Hampden officials have worked with residents. For example, the council approved buying a dump trailer at Tuesday’s meeting for Williams and other residents to use that will fit the weight limit. Williams and her neighbors plan to use the trailer but see it as a Band-Aid.
Voters approved a budget referendum in 2018 that covered expenses for road repairs including the Manning Mill Bridge, Scott said. But the cost to repair the bridge was “grossly underestimated” and no work was done. The last major repairs were done in the 1990s, although soil work was done last year around one of the piers to stabilize it.
The town’s budget crunch is weighing on the situation. Hampden is known as an affluent Bangor bedroom community, but officials have said rising costs have led to people moving out of town. The council is trying to keep its budget largely flat going forward.
It makes the bridge an inconvenient expense. A million-dollar repair would cost each of the six houses roughly $160,000. Spread across the whole town, residents would pay approximately $125 each, Hampden Town Councilor Walter Jakubas at a meeting earlier this month.
“It’s really a conundrum because there’s only six households on the other side benefiting from this,” he said.
The new road would also be more but could benefit more residents, Scott noted. Property owners along the path possibly build houses or more easily harvest lumber. The path of the road has not been explicitly laid out, but councilors said there’s a route that would only cut through three different properties.
Town staff and councilors are still going over every option. Added costs like buying land for the road or paying for residents of the six homes to be moved during bridge repairs make the options and prices not as clearcut as they seem, she said.
“We’re just looking at some other options on how to sort of make those six homes whole without having to tax all the taxpayers with a million-dollar bridge repair,” Scott said. “Does it make sense to try to look at a road, or is there some sort of a tax abatement that could be given?”
The residents have preferences. Four of them said they’d rather see the bridge updated than a new route added. Three of them, Williams, Caleb Philbrick and Georgie Freedman, said they didn’t want their now-quiet road to be disturbed by people traveling a new through road.
No matter the price, the six homeowners are taxpayers like everyone else in town and deserve to have their road repaired, Williams said.
“We’re part of the town,” she said.
