The Bay Pointe development once again hit snags at the Planning Board meeting Monday night.

The proposed 90-unit golf-course development has been the subject of several long, acrimonious hearings since first brought before the board last spring. With final approvals still pending, the developer has already taken a preliminary ruling to court.

In fact, it was the expectation of further court action that had the board opting to delay final approval of the "site plan review" and a "special permit" until the town's attorney could review legal language – or, as John Cronan put it, “make sure we dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s.”

Cronan said he expected voting on approving the items would simply be an exercise in futility, because developer Stonestreet will appeal the board’s decision, no matter what.

Stonestreet bought Bay Pointe in 2012 for $1.4 million, made improvements to the existing facilities and has been operating the golf course since the purchase. Last April, Stonestreet filed plans to construct a housing development centered around the golf course. The original plan called for 90 units on 18 acres.

The plans immediately ran into a barrage of questions from the Planning Board about lot sizes, setbacks from the road and how sewage would be handled before being fed into the town's system.

When it became clear that none of those issues was going to be resolved quickly, the developer granted the Planning Board a waiver from a deadline for ruling, up or down, on the proposal. As hearings and discussions continued into the fall, however, Stonestreet rescinded the waiver, due to the lengthiness of the process.

Chairman George Barrett said in a later interview that the site plan review consists of the smaller details of the project, such as the landscaping and architecture. The special permit, in this case, “gives the board more say in the project.” It also allows the board not only to insert its own changes into the project, but also to ask Stonestreet for more information, such as the financial aspect of the project, which the developer would not otherwise be required to provide.

The board had authorized Stonestreet for the roadway and subdivision at its last meeting on Nov. 23, but decided to delay its decision regarding the special permit and the site plan review, because it had only eived the final copies of them that evening. Despite appearing to have gone over them several times in the past, Barrett said the board did not want to vote on either the special permit, or the site plan review, without Bowen looking at them, because the court could alter the two items, if the legalese isn’t airtight.

Barrett said the board has already received an appeal from Stonestreet with regards to the subdivision, which means it will be appearing before the court. Because Bowen will be representing the board, Barrett said it is important Bowen gets to see the the site plan review and special permit, as any changes to the subdivision plans the court renders could affect the review and permit.

“If the court were to say, ‘We don’t like what the Planning board did here, and they should have accepted the applicant’s plan,’ then any decision we use to refer to the plan would be inaccurate,” Barrett said. “If any of those conditions are now dismissed by the court, then that would cancel out what we have done with the [review and permit]. While applicant has asked that all aspects of the project be viewed as one, they are not one.”

The board rendered its decision regarding the roadway and definitive subdivision plans early, because of the timetable imposed on them by Stonestreet at their Nov. 10 meeting. Though Stonestreet representatives in April had given the town a waiver on requirements that a decision be made within a certain time frame, it rescinded the waiver at the Nov. 10 meeting in order to force a decision by Nov. 29. However, the board’s decision on the site plan review and the special permit do not have to be issued until early February.

Barrett said he sees what has become a tiresome, drawn-out process of approving Bay Pointe as a fault of both the board and Stonestreet.

“They made some missteps along the way, and all I can attribute that to is lack of knowledge of [Wareham’s] zoning bylaws, and I think the board has probably not been as vocal as it could have been along the way,” Barrett said. “A lot of people don’t realize you are talking 80 homes on 18 acres. That requires a little more scrutiny than your normal subdivision.”

The board also heard and approved the building of a deck on private property, and breezed over the discussion adding three greenhouses for growing hydroponic vegetables for wholesale at 81 Charlotte Furnace Road.

Stonestreet founder Timothy Fay did not return request for comment. The board will meet again Jan. 11.