ROCKPORT — Developers of a subdivision project that includes cottages and condominiums on Commercial Street (Route 1) in Rockport have filed a $250,000 complaint against the former owner of property there, alleging he cut 17 old oak and maple trees after he sold the land.

Village at Rockport LLC has been developing land, and building and selling housing units — cottages and multi-family dwellings — for the past several years in a four-phase, 48-unit project on 40 acres on a hill that overlooks Penobscot Bay. Rockport's planning board approved Phase IV of the project late last summer.

To complete Phase IV, Village At Rockport purchased several more acres from neighbor Theodore Skowronski, as well as his house, in July. According to the complaint filed in Knox County Superior Court last week, the Village at Rockport and Skowronski entered a construction agreement, by which the developers would build a cottage for Skowronski. The agreement allowed Skowronski to remain in his house until a new cottage was completed.

The house was then to be demolished.

The parties further agreed to extend the cottage construction time, provided that Skowronski would move out of the house and into a condominium at the development, the complaint said.

Toward the end of November, while living there, attorney John Richardson said Skowronski cut down a number of trees on the premises.  Richardson is a principal of the Village at Rockport LLC and is with the Brunswick firm Moncure and Barnicle.

The trees were to remain standing, said Richardson, and had been marked as so on the plan that was approved by Rockport, as well as the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

Richardson said Skowronski was warned to stop cutting the trees. The trees, according to the complaint, "had great aesthetic, shade and vegetative buffer value for property."

"The defendant agreed to cease cutting the trees, but resumed cutting once the plaintiff or its agents left the site," the complaint said. "The defendant returned to the premises five days later and intentionally and knowingly cut more trees, in clear violation of plaintiff's lawful demand that he cease trespassing against plaintiff's property."

Richardson said in the complaint that the business has been damaged as a result of the tree-cutting, and asks the court to order Skowronski to pay restitution of the value of the lost trees or the diminution in value of the real estate, as well as the costs for regeneration of the vegetation. Richardson estimated the damages at $250,000.

Attempts to reach Ted Skowronski for comment were unsuccessful.

Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 706-6657.