A letter from Alna Code Enforcement Officer Stan Waltz to a local property owner calls for a tree house to come down and for Lisa Packard to acknowledge that no one can live in a cabin also on the property.

Waltz’s Jan. 7 letter formalizes points that he and Alna Planning Board members discussed with Packard on Jan. 5. At that board meeting, Packard said she had been unaware that the tree house and removal of some trees without the town’s knowledge went against the town’s shoreland zoning. Nor did she know that a court order pre-dating her 2014 purchase of the Dock Road property bars the cabin from being lived in.

“There are six new stumps from trees that were cut late this fall,” Waltz’s letter states. “Although the stumps appear to be from dead trees, any time trees are harvested in the Shoreland Zone or in a Resource Protection District, approval and permission is needed from the town to remove even hazard trees.”

The letter asks Packard when the tree house and its materials will be removed; and seeks a timeline and site plan for plantings to replace the trees. It also seeks a formal acknowledgment that the cabin can only be used for sitting and reading.

The board on Jan. 5 asked Waltz to write the letter, and asked Packard to respond to it. Board members said they may have a special meeting after both letters are done. As of Tuesday, Town Clerk Amy Warner said Waltz’ letter was the only correspondence she had received.

Packard told the board that a Somerville man had been living part-time at the cabin, to be nearer his children. He was building the tree house for his daughters for Christmas, Packard said. Work on the tree house stopped and the man was no longer staying at the cabin, she said.

Planning board members have said Packard could be fined for the alleged violations.