2009-03-25 - Land Use Planning Committee - Public Hearing Minutes
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Land Use Planning Committee
Public Hearing Meeting Minutes
3/25/09
6:30pm Bowdoinham Town Office
LUPC members in attendance: Todd Woofenden, Ellen Baum, Brent Zachau, Richard Morin, Paul Beltramini, Paul Baines, Billie Oakes
Members not present- Brian Smith, Bill Shippen, Brant Miller
Staff in Attendance- Nicole Briand- CEO/Planner, Tony Cox – Community and Economic Development
Todd: intro to committee and its work, starting in June 2007 (the 2012 project)... 2 components for upcoming town meeting: first, consolidated land ordinance (puts existing ordinances into one document, to clean up language and make a more useable structure); second is a districting plan. Todd lists various purposes of a districting plan: to try to preserve the things about Bowdoinham that make it a nice place to live. Start with focus on forestry. And sets rules.
Ken Canfield, District Forester, Maine Forest Service. Licensed forester for
Todd: currently in place is treecutting language in shoreland zoning that’s applied to the whole town.
Ken: questioned about his satisfaction with harvesting locally. He acknowledged the controversy over current conversion to a field in Bowdoinham, but said that since this is development, not forest management, it appears to meet forestry regulations. The owners are required to fence it and put animals in it within two years. He’ll be looking for their compliance.
Bob Lenna: are there standards established in proposed document that are more restrictive than federal and state statutes, and if so what are they and why?
Ellen Baum: At this point, there aren’t. There is some consideration to figure out whether we can have something that would allow code enforcement for the most egregious acts. Lots of the land in Bowdoinham will not fall under the forest practices Act because that act deals with parcels of 100 acres or more.
Nicole Briand: There is something in the law requiring a bond to post road, and also limiting hours so it won’t interfere with neighbors.
Pete Galle: comment on bond regulation: he’d have to have a bond posted from the time he harvests in winter to the time he delivers in the next fall. That would tie up a lot of money and might induce him not to bother selling firewood.
Todd: Road Commissioner has discretion over how much the bond is going to be. The intention of the regulation is to be concerned with big trucks and lots of weight.
Stehle: Could the regulation be limited to certain weights?
Brent Zachau: Do we have to study further where you can legitimately ask somebody to post a bond. He posted a bond in connection with building a driveway because he didn’t want the town to pay if there was road damage.
Russ Dyer: Does the bond apply to state roads or just town roads? Second question: logging on Pork Pt. where there is also agriculture: how do you determine what damaged the road... logging or agriculture? Very cloudy area.
Forester: Agrees that it might be confusing if there was damage, who caused it? Would like to know what’s the decision process when determining who caused the damage?
Stu Burrill: Can I go ahead start cutting once I’ve filed the intent to harvest with the state?
Forester: I would encourage you to wait until state gets it and enters it into their computer.
Stu Burrill: Hours of operation: a lot of times in Spring want to get in and out of there before 6 a.m. when road is frozen.
Forester: Agrees that harvesting is best in time of year when ground is frozen. Maybe trucking should be separate from timber harvesting.
Stehle: Hours of operation should be totally eliminated. It interferes with people making a living. Loggers work early in the morning and that’s what’s fair to the working man.
Tom Foote: which of the 3 options provided by state have we taken?
Nicole: to adopt the state’s regulation as is. The state is working on drafting an agreement that wuld apply to state’s working in partnership with town.
Forester: It’s been proposed that every town enact the same shoreland zoning laws for timber harvesting, and that enforcement of these laws be turned over to Maine Forest Service. Trying to standardize it and let the people who have the expertise enforce it. But in Maine, we are giving every town a choice: repeal ordinances and hand it over to state; keep ordinances; repeal ordinances and share with state. State is waiting for a critical mass of towns to sign on before this can happen.
Tom Foote: sounds like towns would pass the buck and let the MFS deal with it.
Forester: different towns feel differently about it.
Bob Kane: wants to support comments about bond... a slippery slope that wouldn’t be enforceable. Example, while highway is being constructed, who can say what vehicles would have caused the damage to the road. Agrees that 6-9 is a bad set of hours to limit forest work.
Bob Lenna: Question on article 2, administrative appeal: wants to make sure standards for administrative appeal are consistent throughout the proposal. He says there are inconsistencies. Nicole says she knows where they are because they are working with an attorney.
Lenna: page 9, alteration: He says the generic definition of alteration here is broader than some of the language that shows up later in other sections. Page 14, critical rural area.. There is a definition, but not referred to later in the document. Should eliminate definition.. page 15, Dimensional requirements... why is “including but not limited to” in there... it is too suggestive, better to define it specifically.
Todd: There are other reasonable exceptions.
Lenna: Page 16, elevated building: there’s a typo “a”. Page 17 farming: Is this a narrow definition of farming? Page 25, “minor development” -- does this mean that somebody having a substantial renovation will have to get an appraisal done to determine that the renovation doesn’t exceed 50% of the value. Page 28: “recreation and conservation”-- not clear that horse trails and walking trails are included. Page 34: “Substantial damage” also contains the problem of how to determine 50% damage.
Tom Foote: spelling error on page 19: forest tract; also it’s a narrow definition of forestry, but I guess it works.
Lenna: 37, C, subparagraph A:
Baines: the regulation is not to increase its nonconformance.
Nicole: shoreland zoning has its own nonconformance regulations
Jeff Giampi: owns a backlot accessed by 50 foot right of way. Section 3E(1): noncomforming lot. I understand that there is nothing in the law that we preclude me from building a barn or house on this lot.
Nicole: True. Also there is a provision in the ordinance that allows for backlots. Right now we don’t have a provision for backlots. A change in ordinance that changes the lot area, doesn’t affect an existing lot.
Ellen: We have had a conversation about back lots but not in this iteration of the ordinances. There’s a placeholder for backlots that hasn’t been written yet.
Peter Hinds: Question about how to make frontage so that you can make right of way to property?
Lenna: Article 4, pages 13-14. Commercial uses: long list of commercial activities that are allowed in agricultural/open space districts. How did you come up with such an extensive list?
Todd: We don’t feel like we have enough information, feedback from the town, so we’re leaving it as is and taking up as separate segment of the project.
Baines: The approach is we didn’t want to say no to anybody, until we work out performance standards.
Lenna: Appreciate performance standards, but he thinks generically allowing the presumption that these things can be done and then later putting them through performance standards is going to be a legal minefield.
Baines: It can work in both directions. Through performance standards we have the ability to see that we have as little negative impact on each other as possible.
Stehle: He’s redistricted into open-space agricultural area. Is it mandated by the state that we have this much open space?
Nicole: No, not required by the state. Bowdoinham’s doing?
Tom Foote: Are boundaries set now?
Todd: No, not until it gets on the warrant. We’ll know when the warrant is adopted by the selectboard. The purpose of these hearings is to solicit feedback from towns people.
Tom Foote: Noticed change in village 2 from one month to the next.
Todd: actually, after a discussion we reverted to a prior version of the map.
Tom Foot: You’re aiming for house lots on the Post Road fields past the fire station.
David Meehan: page 49: question about adult businesses -- allowable outside the village?
Pat Fenimore: our farm is listed as residential, but we’re a farm.
Todd: There’s no restriction on agricultural use.
Elaine Diaz: I don’t find that there is favoritism in the zoning. But how many people whose properties have been rezoned been consulted?
Todd: We’ve had lots of meeting on drawing the map, two sets of subcommittees, an RA subcommittee, a Village committee, and lots of input from different people. We started out sending people to drive around the town and inventory what was there. Looked at soil maps. terrain. Looked at comprehensive plan. We’ve taken input from farmers on where farming is happening now.
Tony Cox: Last May issue of Bowdoinham news, this map was mailed to everybody with a 4-page article explaining the process.
Diaz: wondering whether there has been less consulting with people who live in blue and green areas?
Unidentified lady: Concern that there are many lots that will be nonconforming once the new map is in regulation. Understands that they are grandfathered, but concerned that the new setback regulations might end up limiting their ability to use the land. How can we calculate how many lots are going to become nonconforming. Agrees with minimum acreage and setback from the stream, but wants to know how much we are impacting people when we make the lot nonconforming, and how will this affect our taxbase.
Galle: Are the regulations regarding setbacks for new residential development in agricultural district? Point is that to protect agricultural uses, it’s important that new residential abutters are not able to locate so close to a farm that they might be offended by farm activities.
Nicole: It will be in the new updated version.
Stehle: Do I get a tax incentive for becoming a green wildlife corridor? Why is one area of the Carding Machine Road so penalized?
Todd: Taxation piece is not anything that this committee has jurisdiction to talk about. We’re not proposing any changes to tax regulations. As far as why the corridor is there, in trying to draw district lines, our goal is to create districts that make sense with existing uses and with soil maps.
Stehle: how is it right that my land is being compromised?
David Meehan: I’m in the blue section, and jealous of people in the yellow section. Why not make it equal once you get out of the village
Todd: There have been a number of different opinions as to how this should be diced up among the committee members.
Oakes: is chimney height part of building height? What’s the baseline for building height?
Nicole: No. Nor antennas. Reads page 21 definition section of height of building, a definition from shoreland zoning.
Tom Foote: Thanks you for using the term wildlife corridor -- necessary if we are to have wildlife in town. Generally that’s along brook beds, and sometimes heights of land. But there’s really only 1 in town that I can see. In residential districts, there’s no aim to protect that. The way districts are designed is smoothing the way for development. I regret that there is not more of a sense of the rural town that is here today in the proposed zoning ordinance.
Bob Kane would draw districts to make more land in open space and agriculture. He thinks rural residential will break up more of the land in Bowdoinham. He says let the habitat be. What’s going to happen to the deer population if you keep on slicing this up. Opposed to disrespect for this beautiful town. We don’t want suburbia here. In 40’s, people created the Wildes Preserve.
Todd: What we have now is no zoning in town and small lot sizes everywhere. The charge of this committee is to propose something that has some hope of passing in town meeting. What we have heard tonight is that some people are opposed to bigger lot sizes and others want much more of the town in protected zoning.
Diaz: looking at the green corridor area, it puzzles her that it doesn’t continue right down to the Kennebec, that the other side of 24 is an agricultural/residential area.
Todd: has to do with existing land uses.
Dick Morin: maybe they should connect. That area along the Kennebec is mostly open land.
Galle: what you’re hearing is irregardless of lot size, it comes back to whether the subdivision ordinance will be the most effective way to prevent the town from changing its character, rather than the rezoning. At this point the map lacks an area that will encourage nonresidential commerical growth, which needs to be provided for to defray the burden of the residential taxpayer.
Morin: Doesn’t like the fact that his land has some residential and some that is more protected.
Tabatha: Buying a farm on River Road. Likes the idea of high density in village and even less density beyond.
Todd: That’s what the districting plan is designed to do. To me, it’s not as simple as just drawing a straight line across.
Baines: The majority of the village is in nonconforming status, so we can’t allow population to grow within the village under present regulations. One of the major focuses of the village committee was to unencumber the village... smaller lots, more businesses... to free up the village part for development.
Lenna: For Shoreland zoning: does this reflect state standards without additional, more restrictive, or different standards?
Nicole: We did follow the state guidelines, except the committee has proposed to expand the number of streams that fall under shoreland zoning. The language comes from state guidelines, but with some changes: town committee struck through some state language and added others (represented by underline)
Lenna: question about building in the 100-year floodplain if the building incorporates features that protect it from the floodplain. He thinks there’s a contradiction between the definition of “unsuitable area for development” and the ability to build on a floodplain, with approaved protections. Is it possible to build a residential subdivision in any of the lots along the river and the bay that are in the 100 year flood plain. He thinks the answer to that is no. He thinks the nexus definition of flood plain, shoreland zone, and subdivision effectively would prevent development in those areas.
Nicole: if subdivider is asking to put houses in the flood plain, then that would be very difficult, yes. So it’s on a case by case basis.
Jeff Piampiano: question about back lot
Nicole: standard for backlot is 50 right of way access to your property, and be able to fit a circle with certain diameter within the property. The idea is that people would be able to have backlots by just having 50 foot right of way, without having to construct 150 feet of frontage on their own constructed roads. Keeps you from having to build extra road, which is what the current regulation does.
Diaz: what’s the difference between front yard and side yard?
Nicole: front faces the road.
Tom Foote: 58D: Home occupations vs. businesses. Why the distinction?
Nicole: both are currently existing. Difference is occupation doesn’t need permit. Business does.
Tom Foote: why was sanitary standards changed in language? why are privies eliminated.
Nicole: we crossed out our standards and are just going with the state standard, which does allow for privies and so forth. So that our site evaluators are following the same standards in every town they go to, and Bowdoinham doesn’t have its own different codes.
Tom Foote: wishes we kept the timber harvesting ordinance.
Lenna: Home occupation: shall not have any employees. Can’t have a part-time bookkeeper?
Nicole: is there a difference between hiring out a service and having an employee.
Cox: home-based business: application is $25 and gets processed within 10 days.
Lenna: concerned that many occupations include clients (ex: picking up the furniture that was built for them)
Nicole: this is the same as the current ordinance.
Todd: issue is whether having a business is creating a traffic impact from customers and employees. Designed to be as simple as possible.
Diaz: what about perpetual yard sales.
Todd: he proposed limiting number of yard sales or else you’d be called a retail business.
Nicole: agriculture doesn’t fall into this category of occupation or business.
Lenna: is vernal pools 500 feet the state statute?
Todd: intention was to reflect state standard so we need to check it.
Tom Foote: addition of windmills, is that new?
Todd: yes it’s new.
Nicole: we looked at several other towns’ ordinances regarding windmills and the only thing we adopted is setback of the windmill. Other factors we didn’t adopt included noise, color.
Tom Foote: are we prepared with this ordinance to handle institutional windmill farms.
Beltramini: if it was a commercial operation, it would come under site plan review anyway.
Tom Foote: concern that we might be inviting commercial wind operations.
Baum: intention is to make it easier to an individual to have wind power at a home or farm. Wind for generation would require power distribution lines and immediately trigger site plan review.
David Meehan: we can get together as a town anytime to change that ordinance.
Baines: re: height question. Height is crucial for installing windmill, so it can be as high as it needs to be as long as there is enough property so that if it falls down it doesn’t go into a neighbor’s property.
Lenna: Shoreland zoning, page 54 fees for technical review; sounds like there’s a recovery of all technical costs fee not a $500 fee. Thinks language is confusing and should be clarified. page 68, criteria 13 and 14: how are visual corridor and conservation access defined.
Baines: by what is reasonable.
Nicole: advice from state shoreland coordinator says can’t take that out of the guidelines. so we kept them in.
Beltramini: hard to objectify, but nonetheless important.
Lenna: page 80: what’s a conservation plan?
Nicole; prepared by NRCS. It’s part of state guidelines and our existing ordinances.
Lenna concerned that the restriction on cutting of vegetation within 100 feet from significant freshwater wetland will affect existing cutting of vegetables growers along the bay and the river, which he says is currently being done closer to the wetland than that.
Tom Fooet: page 83 option 1. His question is about 75 feet standard for forestry operations along the purple streams (added locally) added to shoreland zoning. Do you need a licensed forester to do this?
Nicole: no
Ellen: we added that in, because we thought we should protect vernal pools.
Stehle: concerned that there’s a new stream in purple running from the Carding Machine Road to the Abby.
Brent: that’s true, that’s not a stream, it’s a gully.
Todd: need to check to see if we have the wrong stream marked.
Lenna: suggests that we make the flood insurance study and flood maps available to people (via web?) before town meeting
Unidentified Lady: are town standards different from state standards for creating a pond?
Answer: just state standards. But it might become a vernal pool if it’s not year round and attracts amphibians.
Lenna: there is no generic prohibition against building single family non-subdivision residential houses in a flood plain providing the builder mitigates against flood problems.
Answer: correct.
Lenna: why did the committee decide not to keep the subdivision ordinance as a separate ordinance.
Todd: we thought it would be better to have one document.
Oakes: does subdivision make provisions to encourage town to accept roads in subdivision as public roads?
Answer: No. Town has to accept road at town meeting.
Lenna: 169, visual impact again. Also #8 buildings: questions the harmony to existing terrain and buildings. 175: buildings shall be consistent with New England vernacular. Suggests we shouldn’t limit commercial building structures to New England vernacular.
Cox: this is current.
Lenna: that’s too narrow.
Baines: being less explicit gives both sides more room to work.
Lenna: one of the benefits of living in a smaller community is that you can get planning boards and appeals boards to deal with things on a case by case basis, rather than having to spell things out. This is a substantial restriction on what can be built if you say it must be built within New England style.
Stu Burrill: where does board-and-batten or metal siding on a garage fit into that?
Lenna: 190, 194: second (contradictory?) definition of enforcement.