Homeowner’s Toolkit

Conservation Practices for Homeowners

Lakeshore Homeowner Critical Communication

The two-page flyer, Let’s Protect & Preserve Our Lakes,  provides all lakeshore homeowners, renters, and guests with essential information about how we all can protect and preserve our fragile lakes. It includes key information all boaters must understand when using our lakes. You can print it and put it where people in your home can easily refer to it. Ideally, it would be visible to guests as it presents some lake-saving tips they might not be aware of. Two-sided copies on durable card stock are or will be available to pick up at the Town Hall, the Library, White’s Marina, and community events.

Controlling Erosion

The easy-to-read: Erosion: Causes and Solutions presentation summarizes and visualizes methods to reduce water runoff (water bars, culverts, rubber razors, mulch, and many more).

Here is a series of various erosion control techniques for your home, driveway, and roads: Erosion Control Methods.

Maine Lakes is a thorough web page with many useful resources. The home page includes installation videos for open top culverts, infiltration pathways, drip line trenches, rain gardens, vegetative buffers, rubber razors, and infiltration steps. The video for the open top culvert calls for a slope of 0.5% – 1%. Experience shows that 2% is preferred to ensure the water flow clears debris. The video also uses 2½” spacers between the side boards. 3½” spacing is easier to construct (simply cut 2x4s into 3”-6” blocks for spacers) and provides more room for cleaning.

Maine DEP’s Shorefront Property Owner Information webpage is another site with links to valuable information.

The Gravel Road Maintenance Manual (contained in the above DEP webpage) provides guidelines for maintaining and improving gravel roads while protecting the quality of water in lakes and streams.

Plants and Gardening

Rules and Regulations

What are the restrictions on clearing of vegetation in the shoreland zone?

It can be a little complicated. The Maine DEP Mandatory Shoreland Zoning page contains links to detailed information on several related topics, including Clearing Vegetation in the Shoreland Zone, which includes restrictions on removing trees.

The Town of Norway Shoreland Zoning Ordinance implements the state requirements. From the Town’s Documents Page, expand the “Land Use and Zoning” sub-heading to find the downloadable documents “Homeowners Guide to Tree Cutting in the Shoreland Zone”, “Shoreland Zoning Ordinance 2025” and “Shoreline Zoning Ordinance Map 2025.”

Building Codes

In Maine, municipalities with a population of 4,000 or more are required by state law to strictly enforce the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code (MUBEC). For one and two-family dwellings, this means all new construction and major renovations must comply with the adopted code, heavily standardizing what can be built. A home qualifies as a ‘seasonal dwelling’ if is not occupied for more than 180 days a year and lacks both year-round pressurized water and central heating systems. Seasonal dwellings are exempt from the strict energy efficiency requirements of the MUBEC.

On the Town of Norway’s Documents page, linked above, expand the “Ordinances and Policies” tab to download the “Building Code Ordinance 2025” document that implements the MUBEC.