Excavation and land clearing in Yarmouth, Maine.
Digging in Yarmouth can mean very different ground from one lot to the next. The comprehensive plan, drawing on Maine Geological Survey well records, reports depth to bedrock ranging from zero to 180 feet across 274 recorded wells, most of them drilled into bedrock. Add silt and clay soils formed in old marine sediment, plus steep ravines and river banks in a few parts of town, and site work here starts with finding out what is actually under the surface. Our own excavation equipment handles clearing, foundation and site excavation and drainage trenching.
Town thresholds for fill and digging
Yarmouth Public Works publishes simple fill thresholds. Bringing in less than 100 cubic yards needs no town review; 101 to 1,000 cubic yards requires a minor site plan application; more than 1,000 requires a major site plan. Chapter 701 separately allows excavation, removal and filling of less than 1,000 cubic yards in all zones subject to site plan standards, and exempts normal excavation for a building with an issued permit.
Larger clearing jobs pick up a further layer: Chapter 330, the post-construction stormwater ordinance, defines construction activity as one acre or more of disturbed area.
Any digging inside the town right-of-way, such as a new driveway culvert or a utility trench to the street, needs a street opening permit under the fees and permits ordinance, and changes to a driveway entrance need an entrance permit.
Clearing near water, slopes and bluffs
Within Yarmouth's Shoreland Overlay District, clearing is tightly limited. The 75-foot buffer allows no canopy opening over 250 square feet, and across the shoreland part of a lot the cleared total may not exceed 25 percent of that area or 10,000 square feet, whichever is greater. State law, quoted in the zoning ordinance, requires a person certified in erosion control by the Maine DEP to be present each day an excavation contractor disturbs more than one cubic yard of soil in the shoreland overlay.
Slopes deserve the same caution. The comprehensive plan places Yarmouth's steepest ground in ravines near Route 88 west of I-295, around Pratt's Brook and along the Cousins and Royal river estuaries. Where those slopes fall in the shoreland overlay, exposed soil must be stabilized within a week of being worked, and the ordinance calls for keeping trees and ground cover on steep or erodible ground, which is how we plan clearing on those lots.
Land Clearing · Site Work · Trenching
How we handle excavation & land clearing
We run our own excavation equipment, which means one crew takes your project from raw ground to ready: land clearing, foundation and site excavation, drainage trenching, and retention pond mowing and trenching for commercial properties.
See the full excavation & land clearing service page or everything we do in Yarmouth, Maine.
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Free Estimates
Excavation & Land Clearing in Yarmouth? Let's talk.
Tell us about your property and we will walk it with you — free estimates, straight answers, stonework guaranteed to hold its lines.
Mon–Sat 7:00am – 5:00pm · Based in Cumberland, Maine