LEYDEN — A group interested in opening a short-term vacation rental space in town has withdrawn its special permit application to address concerns raised by the Planning Board but plans to file a new submission that more accurately reflects its purpose and operations.

The Bent Birch Retreat Center plans to revisit this process and those involved anticipate submitting a new application in early 2025.

“We are eager to collaborate with the town to address any outstanding questions and respect the needs of our neighbors,” Eli Feghali, the project’s launch steward, wrote in an email to the Greenfield Recorder.

The Bent Birch team is interested in setting up shop on a 19-acre lot at 63 North County Road. The hope had been to open this summer. The three-house property requires a special permit to host up to 18 guests — or the number of guests the site’s septic tank can accommodate under health safety regulations — for no more than 220 days in a year. Health code noncompliance prompted the project to cease operating as a retreat center, even though those stewarding the project bought the lot in 2022 and began hosting events soon thereafter.

The Planning Board toured the property in October.

“Our mission is to provide a healing sanctuary for people working to make the world a better place, offering a space to reconnect with nature, each other and themselves,” Bent Birch stewardship team member Jen Kiok said in October. “We had sort of gotten a false start before we realized all the things that we need to back up and do in order to bring the building up to code and to come into compliance.”

The Planning Board requested the property be professionally managed and maintained, and Miriam Gee, co-founder of the project development company CoEverything, explained property owners were seeking a property manager to work 10 to 20 hours per week to greet guests, ensure health code compliance and make routine repairs.

“Our intention would be that we have someone who’s greeting the people who are coming, orienting them to the space, to the rules of the space, how to use it well, how to live healthily there, how to take care of the buildings and the land while they’re there,” Gee previously explained. “Someone to check in throughout their stay and then to help them clean up.”

More information about Bent Birch’s plans is available at tinyurl.com/BentBirch.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.