PARIS — Selectmen will consider how to address a committee recommendation that future minimum lot sizes in rural parts of town be reduced from two acres to half an acre at their board meeting Monday night.

Selectmen will also consider bids on foreclosed property and review jobs descriptions for the highway and police departments. They convene at 7 p.m. in the town office. 

Town Manager Amy Bernard has urged the board to reject the recommendation because it does not reflect the will of residents who attended a recent public hearing on the issue, according to agenda documents.

Two months ago, selectmen created and tasked the committee with determining what size new lots created through subdivision and sale should be in rural parts of town.

Their recommendation — 20,000 square feet with 100 feet of road frontage — are state-required minimums, which committee members said is an intentional philosophical move predicated on the premise that government shouldn’t tell private citizens what to do with their land.

At a public hearing to scrutinize the committee’s recommendation, some twenty residents told the committee they instead supported one-acre lots, at which point members agreed to readdress the issue. 

Both the recommendation and the eventual decision to uphold it came as a surprise to town officials.

Residents favoring a one-acre minimum stress that anything less would detract from the rural, rustic aesthetic of the community. Committee members, in contrast, have said that it’s practically unlikely for a developer to divide a parcel unto anything as small as half an acre. 

The eventual decision must be ratified by voters before the amendment to the town’s comprehensive plan can go through. Though any amendment to the plan must be approved at a town-wide vote, selectmen are not bound to forward the committee’s recommendation if they disagree with it, according to Bernard.  

Finding a size everyone can agree upon is viewed as a crucial first step toward passing a zone law which would require town employees to enforce the decision.