Developer presents 170-unit Bath Road housing plan at Wiscasset forum

[0:36] Speaker A (unidentified): Regarding the proposed used housing development located at 257 Bath Road or Route One, this is located in that field right across the street from the intersection of Birch Point Road. This project right now, as it stands, it proposes 170 residential units, one commercial rental space, and have offered some other recreational amenities. Before we get started, let's welcome the Wood Hall Assetto Kimball development team to Wiscasset. They requested this meeting because they understand this project is unique to Wiscasset, and before they get started on this project further, they wanted to give the public an opportunity to provide feedback. Nothing here is finalized. Before they begin, they'll need to get planning board approval, so let's show them some of our hospitality by offering constructive feedback on the project. Let me quickly explain this project, what it is and what it is not. It is an opportunity to help address the significant affordable housing shortage in both the region and the state. According to Lincoln County housing needs assessment that was completed in 2023, Lincoln County has a potential for 879 units. Wiscasset alone has a potential for 110 units. This is not a low income project. It is not meant for migrant housing or it's not elderly housing. This is an opportunity to bring new residents and families to the community, hopefully fill our schools. This is an opportunity to help support major employers like Bath Ironworks in the region and our local businesses attract and retain new employees. This is an opportunity to increase the tax base. I'd like to point out this conforms to our comprehensive plan. A lot of comprehensive plans his states one of the stated goals is to encourage and promote affordable decent housing, an opportunity to other residents, but also states provide for orderly growth and development in appropriate areas of the community. This project is located in the town's growth district and is key transit orientated, so it's located on the Route One corridor and it has access to public sewer water. We've already done some tentative analysis with the wastewater and it the wastewater system will be able to handle this development. This project aligns with the state housing goals and recently enacted legislation With cramped and local zoning provisions that restrict residential density, the town is updating ordinances to comply with law. I'd like to introduce you to the woodpile team over here. My left, we have project Patrick Booth and oh somewhere in the fence, and we have Seth from a set of gimbal, and then we have the landowner's rep Andrew Sturgeon over here on my right. Thank you, thank [4:02] Chair/presiding officer: give me taking a little bit. Yeah, thank you, appreciate it. We do have a question. [4:08] Speaker C (unidentified): This particular land on of this product, the land with this project. Oh, okay, I was confused. Thank [4:25] Chair/presiding officer: you 're welcome. Thank you all for being here, I appreciate it. Here instead we are very early in this process. The this is an opportunity to do a lot of goals when it comes to our needs of housing in Maine, and this wouldn't be possible without legislation that is that is that was put forward quite a bit a couple years ago, and towns had the opportunity to enact these mandate, and so this is not something that is allowed by right and current boards, so we're very early in this process. We were just doing an opportunity to show to the landlord what could be possible as property that we think is provides a vibrant music for the community of this gas, and so before we get started I would just like to show the agenda, so we're just gonna you know welcome ourselves, talk a little bit more about like why we got here, what Aaron said, then we're going to go through just the slides that we put together for the landowner part of our design work, and then try to leave as much time as possible for Q A because I know that's probably what's most important to all of you. We're happy to answer any questions you might have as best we can on the service stage, so I'm just looking forward, so thank you. Yeah, so this is a lot of text, but just to summarize the portions that he talked about that Aaron talked about getting here, huge deficit in an amount of housing, we united states hasn't built enough housing since the since the recession's designated, we've been under built for over two decades and we're Really hitting the ramifications of that through our prices of affordable housing, and so like part of the things we have to do about doing that, and specifically to Maine and Lincoln County, we still need over 76,000 homes by 2030 to help meet the deficit that we have. So as part of that effort to help with that deficit was that there was a lot, and that was passed by the state a couple years ago to help allow for more density to occur, essentially to allow for products to become financially viable. The northeast is the most expensive part of the country to build, and so it is, if you can just the math how it works out, if it's really expensive to build a home, then in order to build it quarterly you have to be, you have to work as many financial levers as you can to make that possible. And so density is one of those levers that is crucial or allowed for it to happen, and but still want to do it sensibly in a way that doesn't, you know, negatively affect a community, and we think that's part of what. Our efforts here today is to share this with you and share what we have moving forward now. So the specific law is called LD 1829, one rules that you can have up to one unit per five thousand square feet. So this is a really large property, it's 38.2 acres, I think through 2.8 one there's two, so there's a lot of a lot of units that can be allowed on the property necessarily. That was the study that was done by the Newton contribution of 166 if they're all market rated, up to 415 if it was affordable. But you know it doesn't mean just because they can calculate that much doesn't mean that's exactly anything. So we want to put together what we think of a sensible plan that is both walkable as a nice community and has good amenities, a nice place to be at. So that's exactly what we did, we worked together kind of in a quick design charrette is what we do. So Seth is a really talented planner and landscape architect, we worked with a lot of larger community design developments together in the past. And so this is just another great opportunity for us to collaborate and think of something they think it would work well. And so with that we'll just move into what we have put together for the landowner, again just to reiterate that like this is, this is called kind of just visionary, like this is something we think, this is a great idea for profit as, but for the nipper nothing is set in stone, nothing's been submitted for approvals, and that we want to make sure that what we do going forward is part. of a public discussion and also that is going through all direct panels for it to have a speed well vetted. I'm going to turn it over to Seth now and check in some of the work we did to kind of analyze the site and then to talk about the design is your facilities. Thank you. Yeah, hello everyone, so I'm Kimball with the seat of Kimball Landscape [8:57] Architect/project presenter: architecture this fact convention we've worked quite a bit on several projects similar to this one of the first things that we typically do when we are introduced to a project is go through an analysis of the site inventory understanding the site's capacity as Patrick mentions is a fairly large lot and it can hold a lot of units but doesn't mean it should be so one of the first things to go through we had a site visit with a team public works the planning department walked around on site reviewed it in person so we understand it. Currently it's been recently logged. The character is mostly it has a lot of ledge and exposed rock, it's a significant amount of weapons, and there's one area off in the road that has been flattened out at one point and it's like lifespan, right? So next slide. One of the first things we do in particular for this project with the airport course housing is proximity. So looking at the site here, with short distance to downtown, was Cascade, which was wonderful. People that want to walk and bike can get to downtown. The other benefit of the proximity, it was only 15 minutes to Bath and then another 10 minutes to Brunswick. So in terms of, you know, job availability and accessibility for vehicles, multimodal, it's really a great location. The next thing we did was kind of look at the local context. So our site is in here. We're looking at architectural character. So in generalities of how the area has been developed, and this particular area is kind of a mixed bag. There are some residents, but a lot of the sites have large parking lots and pretty large box buildings. Buildings from the dollar store to Wisconsin Ford and mostly been developed in I don't say an older fashion way of urban design that are given lots in the front and buildings way to the back. So unfortunately the experience for people walking biking driving is looking at these massive parking lots, which the new urbanism is really not the right approach. So ever jump to the next slide, we took a look at the site, we overlaid the aerial with the existing product views or whatever contours just to Again, start to understand what the site is and what, if you're all standing around the develop areas and selecting the areas, in the darker green are significant weapons, so half of the site, close to half the site is covered by important weapons. And these wetlands are important because they connect to a larger area of tributary. So first step is seeing the areas that we want to see out of the lighted green or insignificant wetlands. Those are sometimes manmade where water is just collecting a ditch or a low point, not necessarily tied to a broader tributary system. So again, look at the two different types of wetlands and see what their significance are, what opportunities we have to develop or not develop in those areas. Then we then started to look at the slope analysis. This is important, particularly after walking the site and seeing all the ledge. One is buildability, also areas that are flat and easier to develop. The magenta are the steep slopes, so we looked at 20% plus, 10-20%, 5-10% slope, and 0-5. You can see off of Route 1, this kind of each color is zero to five percent so absolutely ideal for building then they're transitioning to five percent so runway if you overlay the wetlands and green and then the steeper slopes and the other colors you start you start to see what where are the where the correct areas into the developed site and that being mostly here inside the grass this is an overlay of that you can see our proposed plan and we're respecting kind of the broader weapon that Connects to the larger tributaries that then lead into the ocean area so building in the front in this in the less steeper slopes and out of the wetlands so respecting what the site is trying to tell us and I'll switch over to Patrick here in a minute but overall the site plan one thing we try to do is bring the buildings as close to the street as possible but it gives a certain scale it one protects pedestrians and then public space in the back we will see in a few minutes here we look at the Architecture and respecting the local vernacular carrying that through parking we put in the back behind the buildings you're not seeing it from over the one we're creating a commercial space here which could be many anything's going to be a coffee shop, a bakery. The idea is activating this corner, making this a bit more public. In the back, we have playground and outdoor space for the people that live in this particular building, space in between. And one thing that we did is, and we'll get into the architecture in a few minutes, is the taller building, we pushed to the back of the site. That in scale, instead of bringing that to the front of the site, it starts to tip back into the, into the site were more so less interesting to your views from group one again respecting the wetlands the weather's kind of straight through here and one piece that we're adding is kind of public trail system again you know developing a site in a white way allows more sites to be used for recreation and preserving the wetlands and the ecological aspect of it okay thanks [14:53] Chair/presiding officer: Sure thanks dad yeah so as an architect it's practiced in being quite a bit i think that thankfully with the with we have we've done a lot of projects in maine that we can build buildings that we feel are comfortable in with using kind of familiar materials and forms and scale to the to the context but having to be sensible and it's surrounding so all buildings in the front like I said there's three stories or less the three gable buildings here face the road that create that kind of more Narrow sense of scale it's actually a two-and-a-half story building with door first quarter groups so that's why they're they're showing this manner of that again like the it's important that for urbanism about how they can be built close to the road traffic calming allowing for this community behind it to feel much more safer to walk around to walk from this apartment out to the trail system than that or to walk from the apartment across the sidewalk to the playground so there's this area That's much more live and suitable for families to be at or just basically anyone to enjoy this as it is its own kind of insular community that can be by run to itself and so then as set mentioned that as part of as mentioned before in this earlier slides that it's It is expensive to build homes in the country, but especially in the Northeast. And one of the ways to overcome that is that if you're able to build more economies of scale per unit cost, per unit goes down a bit as you do that. So it's beneficial to have the opportunity to build a four-story building in Nevada just to help offset the infrastructure costs of the roads, the parking, the sewer connections, and all these other things so that it can be spread out over the course of more units, essentially. Once you have those in less units, your unit costs go up and they are. It's not feasible for them to be within range of essentially for the area median income. So that's part of the reason why it's important to us to provide something that has a density to it that is still in order to achieve that goal. And then, so if we go to the next slide, but now we're starting to try to flying down here at more human eye levels so driving by feeling the kind of harmful scale of these buildings are presenting so this is actually specifically driving northbound on ground one something that is not an oppressive tower on the street or something that is that has recess to it and allows for people to be on porches looking out there's a sense of you know we might you know I know there's not much sidewalk on gravel right now but you gotta start somewhere. And so this is a forceful property that doesn't actually have a solid one that way you can start that over the course of time building a more connected multimodal network of activity in a community which will be just very healthy for community. Then you go to the next slide of these variants. So this is kind of turning a camera around going kind of south down on route one, but this is the kind of feel a Stonie Cooper- A nice traditional main type of building style with plastic kind of detail around windows very comfortable in place, but it might break. Stonie Cooper- Lastly, storefront see like this might be a retail space and coffee shop that you can see around one but also they come in here and have a. Stonie Cooper- and have a coffee their office padded with her from the other board and part of the member of the community here. And I think the, and then the last slide we have just kind of all these slides just kind of showing how the feeling the neighborhood would be. This is after you turn to the site and you can kind of see, I mean, I hope the intention is that you come to the site and things start quieting down. It feels comfortable, you're not, you're, you're all right, one, you're slowing down, the roads are narrower so you're not driving fast by this like intuitiveness. You can pull it to your, you know, coffee shop, pull to your parking spaces to go to your department and again let's just try to just establish like you're a couple of us to live to be that. So that is, that's the last of our slides and it's really just again thank you for everything being here. I'd love to hear questions and comments and answer any questions that you might have for us. Oh yeah, perfect, yeah, thanks for pointing it out. Leave the rest of the questions please, question to that. All right, hi David Flynn, live on the old bath [19:29] Speaker E (unidentified): road here in this casa just down the road from this proposed project. Have you looked at any traffic studies and basic fluid, we all know one U.S. group one from May through October 15th it's basically being prettiest little parking lot and adding 170 units on this proposed spot is going to bottleneck traffic during the summer months even more which then dumps the traffic onto the old bathrobe which is currently where I live and my wife and I live and it's it turned it to a superhighway. Does Wisconsin really need 170 more units for living space when there's no work in this area? Yes, we have BIW down the road, and I also know that Woodhull is involved in some major projects in the Brunswick area, and BIW is also having housing built in that is with is brute one was cast at the right place to do it when we already have a major traffic problem nine months out of the year you know is it is it money well work well [21:01] Chair/presiding officer: spent yes I would say that of all the places to do with housing ground ones are a really great spot for it because of the existing infrastructure that's there already. We would of course go to through all the traffic analysis requirements of development and do traffic memos and so forth just as just as what I said before like this is this is very so preliminary that it's we're just being very prudent with our hours of time because our intention would be that once the legislation is passed in November then this, then this project can be in ordinance that it can actually be worthwhile for us to go explore further. We'd go to the DOT talk about that if there's needs for traffic lights, we look at that. If there's what other pressures that might be presented from the development itself, we would, we would respond to that in a way that is positive and a balanced approach that, you know, we shouldn't have traffic always prevent us from doing something that is necessary for the, a great issue for us is that's building housing, and so what we do is work to mitigate that in a way that's responsible and still build housing is [22:16] Speaker E (unidentified): what our hope would be. The only thing I would add to that is it's a whole permanent process with Main Department of Transportation, and one of their goals is to make sure that we don't make a problem a bigger problem. So if we want to build this development here, they're probably going to have some what they call off-site improvements as part of the project where we might have to build another lane or we might have to have an intersection right, or like there might be other measures that we don't even know of yet, but working with Maine DOT they'll try to find a solution. They won't just give us a permit and say, you know, 170 units that don't change the infrastructure as it says today. It'll be a, it'll be an effort or we won't get a government from traffic of this is if we add another lane out here where your proposed area is. The Daniel Davy Bridge is only two lanes in Wisconsin, traffic is 25 miles an hour through the town, we're going to be dumping more traffic onto the old bathrobe, which is already a nightmare. And one of the things I'm saying though is it doesn't mean that we're out of lane. I'm just saying that might be one of the things. The other thing that they'll make us do is a lot of studies. Where are the people that live here going to go? Are they going to go south or are they going to go north? I think that the traffic study will throw some metrics in front of us that will play into this. It might even turn out to be a better situation, but why this piece of property where there are other pieces of property within in the Saginaw Hawk Lincoln County area that might be more beneficial? There's no work here from up well [24:12] Speaker A (unidentified): In space of that, I mean, one of the benefits of this product is to attract employers, you know, employers right now have difficult time finding people to do to do work here. And so one of the more desirable things about this is where they have housing, this could have like a spin-off effect that people employers will be able to reopen it. So if you were going to say something [24:40] Architect/project presenter: Yeah, I just want to respond to the question about traffic. As we go through the NDOT traffic analysis, there will be, you mentioned a lane. They may require us to have just a turning lane so it's not slowing traffic down. So we'll go through the analysis with NDOT. They'll provide the appropriate adjustments that are needed. It's something that we do on any urban project. I just want to respond to like the benefits. I'm from Maine, I grew up in a small town, I understand like the growth that it's challenging, but it's also like as a young professional I moved back to Maine is having housing being a young professional being able to have affordability and to come back to my communities and these types of apartments and houses allow that and allows towns to evolve and grow and young families the school system and taxes so there's always there's always balance and That's why we're here to hear listen guys and yeah [25:42] Speaker F (unidentified): I just want to say I just really love like the way the buildings look. I just really appreciate the design aspect to it. I think it's aesthetically really pleasing. I love the design and how you worked with the lands to, you know, kind of preserve most of the levels that are there. But that's not really smart. I think it was I think it was something else. [26:08] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for a great presentation. Mentioned how roughly speaking permitting would take two or three years do you think [26:22] Chair/presiding officer: What before 15 months 15 months just like a year and a half or so the construction would be another two years it would yeah it would depend upon like that's like something that's part of the market studies about absorption and so forth I mean we'd want to make sure that it's this it would take about two years yeah but roughly speaking but you know it could probably [26:45] Speaker E (unidentified): Be quicker it would probably be phased into in other words you wouldn't just build low fiber buildings and that all right you would probably have one or two starting and then make sure that [26:58] Architect/project presenter: Those were occupied and then start the bank just to try to get the project that's a whole separate [27:03] Chair/presiding officer: exercise in itself to determine all that we would get to as we get prolonged into through a process as it is more viable. On the back there, I [27:13] Speaker F (unidentified): think so many, how many 123 bedroom apartments? [27:19] Chair/presiding officer: Yeah, we haven't fully determined that yet. The size of the building suggests a pretty straight mix of most people who live in apartment styles are favoring towards the one bedroom. And so there might be more one bedrooms, but there'll be certainly like a portion of two bedrooms, a portion of studios maybe in like a couple like three bedrooms but for the most part one and two bedrooms [27:41] Architect/project presenter: yeah the key to get is diverse in a group so you're not just getting you know single [27:48] Chair/presiding officer: just out of school coming but you get young families and it'd be a bit of a study of the needs of the global market for that anymore and then whatever right sometimes yeah but yeah that's to be determined but it's it's intended to be a mix it seems like 172 parking spots wouldn't be [28:12] Speaker F (unidentified): enough or if all 170 apartments were occupied they wouldn't have any room for company yeah [28:21] Chair/presiding officer: we're we've heard that before and we agree that this is pretty it's closer to one unit per one spot per unit ratio right now and granted that's meant to be part of a greater random thing about holding some infrastructure costs a lot of ours data has just shown that like not everyone needs a parking spot at this at the same time in this in an area but that's something that we look to further just that if we might want to Target like a 1.25 ratio there's also a component that there might be a portion of this that is has some help of some federal and not federal i mean state funding for like rural rental housing programs for example which historically have even less needs for parking spaces actually like they require only 0.66 parking space per unit but we would do something that responds to the market well but the idea is that we can't just provide over parking it would mean that there's there's less area to build housing and there's more disruption of natural resources and more costing per unit when that kind of happens, so we want to strike a balance. But we do agree that we're probably on the kind of kind of aggressive end on that side of this location. So our, when we as we make further iterations of this, we're looking to provide some either additional parking or like areas that are overflow that semi, so like in that 172 number, for example, doesn't include the like 20 spots that are show over the trail area. So there's some like overflow naturally built in there, but we might expand it a bit to allow that to happen because we'll be providing leads. [30:07] Cassie Rose: Hi Cassie Rose and on this left board, but speaking on my own behalf, I really appreciated all the information and the proposal. I think it seemed really well thought out, and I appreciated the attention to detail about providing multimodal access, walkability to the downtown. I think this does meet a real need for more affordable and smaller housing and meeting that need where a lot of folks looking for entry-level housing, younger folks just cannot find it, which I hear consistently, and moved to what Aaron said about a lot of our local businesses not able to find housing for people that want to hire that 's a critical need I also appreciate that this will have users to our wastewater system which doesn't have a lot of users if you're about to we're trying to relocate it and so adding more users would be very welcome I had a question I also really liked the attention to just try to preserve nature and the wetlands and the property were you thinking that the entire property would include a sort of a contained trail system that any members of the public could access? Yeah, I mean, that's [31:25] Chair/presiding officer: that's part of the trailhead up there. We didn't define how it goes, but essentially that we think that a part of a successful community is amenities, and unfortunately like we love to put in like dog parks or like or like game rooms and stuff like that, but it's just it's the market can't support that. And so like trail systems, for example, are kind of low-cost, lovely, many a lot of people would love, and that's something that we could provide through the property because we have the land and it has and so it's that's something that we have included in the plans with things really things to help prop the neighborhood's success up. We're going to make that public. That's that's that was our intention with that trailhead too, so [32:07] Architect/project presenter: And then that potentially could connect the trail system over to old bathrooms. I was looking at ways to connect out there throughout the broader community if you want to go to that coffee. [32:25] Speaker H (unidentified): Just to go back to the parking again, just how set in stone is this whole setup right now? Because there's a little bit of a contradiction it looks like. So if you're going to have public trails, that's going to run into the parking. If you have a commercial space, that's going to run into the parking. So what's going to be the proposal if there is over full park? We don't know for [32:46] Chair/presiding officer: sure yet. I think that we, I think that as we move forward with this, with our client, that we would probably be looking at here. I think that could be more, how many more parking space [32:59] Speaker E (unidentified): essentially? No, this is, this is not a set in stone. Yeah, still it's still a working model and it [33:05] Chair/presiding officer: it turns out that we just, we just don't want it to be a, I just, I think, I think that one of the things that, just to recognize that it takes 330 square feet of asphalt to give one parking space, and so, and so that's 332 street, but 330 square feet of impervious areas added that has the stormwater, that has still all facts, but also subtract 330 square feet of like potential land that could otherwise be used for open space, for playgrounds. And so we just are going to be very careful about not over building. We recognize even the out of the months for that item, so we might want to, we just want to be very careful essentially to not over build this so that you eliminate this open yard that's used by all the children of the apartment building right here. Doesn't place it on play for more parking, that would be a safety hazard. It might be, and or maybe we would identify areas that if there was pressure over time that they can expand parking, for example. So like maybe like give us, give us a shot like a 1.2 ratio and if it's, if it's such a burden to that, then we can stay by having 30 pots in a certain predetermined [34:16] Speaker E (unidentified): area. But like the last thing we want is to not have enough space because yeah, right now [34:20] Chair/presiding officer: you still want, you still want to, we still need people that want to live here and you know pay the rents of living, you know, so like we need parking for it. On the flip side is you don't [34:31] Architect/project presenter: want to overbuild it right from the deck over there, right, as you mentioned there's, you know, I'm planning to say this is expanded parking if needed, you can add another 20 spaces, but not to stare at parking lots like you do all the way down through route one if [34:47] Speaker C (unidentified): You were phasing it. Also, you could have considerably more parking spaces from yours. [34:53] Chair/presiding officer: Three or four buildings, you can see how, you can kind of see how it's working out, so you can get a sense of it. But yeah, that's, I mean, like I said, we want to be mindful that party always sacrifices something else, and by not having a space like immediately when you move the space into the parking area, it might be worth it in order to maintain having an open yard here. [35:23] Speaker I (unidentified): Maybe my name is terrorist. Maybe what would be helpful, you guys talk about the other communities who've done this, and if you guys could come back with a few examples, sure, size, infrastructure, resources, and show us how that worked and how it bettered those. [35:42] Chair/presiding officer: Communities, it's not obvious to me right now. Yeah, happy to, I mean, we do a lot of. So, there's a program in Maine called the Maine Rural Rental Housing Subsidy, and so it allows for building workforce housing at 80% EMI through basically every community in Maine except for, like, Livingston and Portland. And our clients developed from that, like I alluded to earlier, that most of their tenants are people downsizing, like elderly, and they don't have a car, and so they don't need a space. She usually has her building thumbs are more like 8 to 15, and so she generally finds it that less than half of the rest is actually have cars, and they're usually built places that are I mean grant. This is a little further away from my walk into work, for example. But I think the reality of that necessary every unit needs to have a parking like a parking lot might not be as true as it used to be. [36:36] Speaker I (unidentified): Oh sorry, my question might, it wasn't about the parking. Oh sorry, this is in general as we look at development, I'm looking for parody examples of communities either in Maine or maybe even other places like in Oregon where I'm from, there's a place called Government Camp, they have apartment buildings but they fit into the environment, and I actually don't think this is a good design, I don't think it matches the aesthetic, it's not just superficial, but I am saying if you could show us examples of town. With the population size, the infrastructure same as here, where this was built and not just like it provided housing for these many people, how did it make the community better, how did it fit into the holistic picture of the community. [37:22] Chair/presiding officer: That's what I'm asking for, yeah, sure. I mean, I guess I'd give a specific example that Warren walked the look at. So you might be familiar with the former Downs in Scarborough where it was the horse racing track that went out of business and got purchased and now it's turning into a housing community, a mixed-use community. So we did the work for the housing for that. So it's a mix of single-family homes, duplexes, different types of housing, apartment buildings. And now that we're in the urban downtown, I know Scarborough is a little larger than Wisconsin, passive but in the sense of like having an open field of blank canvas that you can actually be thoughtful about the design that creates a community feel and so it's been it's been mature for four or five years now and so you can see how the trees are planted four years ago are setting in and people are there it's getting that kind of like kind of interconnected fuel now I think that I think that's just I think it's successful and I you know if you know everyone has their own opinion on it but like we think that's the sort of thing that allows for a piece of land that doesn't do anything for the community doesn't produce tax revenue but can actually do something really special for the community provide housing by tax revenue all these things are meaningful to the to the next generation well that's the next question what's [38:43] Speaker I (unidentified): our what are we on for tax wise like what's with that is there a TIF thing or like it's [38:50] Chair/presiding officer: nothing discussed or anything so will it be it would just depend upon what the city goals are you know if it's it's just challenging about it's like I mentioned before it is not easy to build housing that is affordable and by affordable I should clarify what that means that like at even at a 100 am I looking down it is this is like razor thin in terms of making me at work so like a lot of towns like might have a conversation about how like how can we like help support so that this so that this it would be like an open book discussion and like helping this support so that the building this can be built to have more rents that can be lower to support this private to the U.S. so it's nothing that we've discussed immediately yet but I just want to say that like it's not something to be frightened of it's something that should is designed to be negotiated so it's a mutually beneficial thing so that so that while during like appearance and the state doesn't allow for it to extend for more Than 30 years so it's negotiated, for example, so like the building, the land would be turned over so that it will produce significantly more property tax revenue for the community, and then at the same time also have some subsidy and to allow for the rents to be lowered at some, you know, you know, agreement too. So like it's something that maybe I think, like I said, to be discussed. We haven't discussed it, and but like it's something that I think is valuable to consider [40:24] Cassie Rose: Because it does have mutual benefit theory question. Hi, my name is Kim Anderson. So I just wanted to confirm these would all be rental units. That's what that's what we're, yeah, we haven't [40:38] Chair/presiding officer: Talked about needing condos and he was marked rental rates. Are you guys, you're the landowner [40:45] Cassie Rose: Are you guys the builders and then you would sell this to somebody else who would manage it, or would [40:49] Chair/presiding officer: You be the managers of the, we're just the designers now. We are a construction company, but we're not like the best way, far in the future we would love to build it if it worked out, but you know right now we're just in that very early stage. It's like just getting kind of public consensus around it being a good idea, and that and that and getting it, you know, through a [41:11] Cassie Rose: Proper process of permanent. Well, I would just like to say that I'm the superintendent of schools here, and I hear from employees and families all the time that housing is a real challenge, so this looks really welcome to the community. Thank you. Thank you, I [41:33] Speaker F (unidentified): Would say that I definitely recognize the need for affordable housing and more housing and condensed housing. I am concerned from just looking at sort of like the way to the previous village, it was tacit that the massing on these and their proximity to the streets creates an impression question that's not really in hooping with the historic village. It seems very close to the road, and I wouldn't agree that I like the design. I don't think it really fits in with the vernacular, so I think and the Fact that there's a four story apartment building is concerning to me because that seems to be not including anything in the region. It would seem to make more sense to put this in a location where it has less visibility to proximity to the sight lines coming into the catholic [42:43] Chair/presiding officer: No, I guess I'll just say that we I think that was casted like the place you like to be is like right? It's like what we consider was casted all those all those buildings are built close to road and close together with 2 stories with 2 and a half and 3 stories. I think that it's it's it's a bit of I think it's a bit of a jarring thing. The fact that this is an open field that has the links on it. Very close to road but I just want to just kind of remind us all that like part of the things that we love about Wiscasset are some things you kind of just said too that I think is important to just kind of remember that like that like people like communities in small towns that have sidewalks and you can walk from store to store and they're like close the road and it slows down traffic and you can say hi to your neighbors so it's like I just want to like not have I just think that like it's Something to be aware of but like it's it's jarring maybe because it's the first trying to do this here but I think that it's it's done for a good reason and it's meant to be the self-standings of community with respect to how other strong communities have been doing it [43:53] Architect/project presenter: In the past yeah I just like add to the season in the proximity to the site and what's currently there I always say this as I drive through Brunswick come here a lot that's where housing should be so people can walk into town and Brunswick downtown is beautiful but that part of town is parking lots and big buildings are pushed back I think there's a certain vernacular that you're speaking of and it's a nostalgia that we all have I appreciate it but as townsborough it evolved and we're thinking About the next generation and proximity group one corridor in particular this is within walking distance of that historical downtown I think I think it is an event location [44:41] Rob Lolly, Superintendent: I'm Rob Lolly the superintendent of the super department and I just wanted to say thank you so much because I think that property over there is a stinking eyesore it's nothing but crapsville when you're coming up and you've got a pass and there's guys selling scallops or blueberries it's just a dumpy piece of land and I'm so thrilled that something great can come you know could come [45:03] Speaker C (unidentified): From that and it could benefit the public so I just want to thank you for that thank you one of [45:09] Speaker E (unidentified): The problems that piece of property is, it does, it does border the power lines, and you're talking about trail heads and all this, but it is still U.S. for one. Do we really need to put 170 units on U.S. for one in this town that doesn't have a workforce for it? This is in a middle between [45:36] Speaker A (unidentified): Wow, a couple things that, can you speak up? Yes, can I just pick up? Yes, just gather my thoughts again. This is a method of new urbanism, as a type of new urbanism, is a type of plan that's very thoughtful, and one of the things that's been around for about two, get dates, who do you get dates, and it creates a sense of place and community, and so one of the things that they've been talking about is besides this being located in Wisconsin, this is also creating a community within a community, right, and so That's why it's designed partially like this, okay? The other part is that it also takes a hint towards, like you mentioned, our downtown, right? So it looks at sort of what is already here and sort of mirrors it. And what works is that this does have a trapping common effect, which I think is a really positive thing on group one, right? I think we would all agree that people need to slow down. When people see this, they'll see this and slow down and look at it. The other thing is to answer some of your questions about the scale and size. This is the type of project, this is the development, this is the ideal location for this type of development. You wouldn't want to see this on an old bathroom, you wouldn't want to see this on a virtual room, right? You'd want to see this close to our infrastructure where we have access, easy access to our transportation systems like group one. This is the quarter that gets major east west border and leading capitol in the mid coast region, so people that will live here won't just work here, they will go to work maybe in Rockland or Damaskada or Bath or Brunswick, right? But the other side effect is that it hopefully will serve other development involving later with people deciding maybe now young couples that might buy an apartment, but you know rent an apartment, but now they've made it, but it was casted, so they might go buy a home, and then that would have their sorry family and put their kids in the school. This has a potential of a positive effect, it has a really good potential for a positive effect on the community, and also achieve some of our goals here about being where affordable housing and trying to meet our housing to help fill the housing gap, but that's very one [49:07] Cassie Rose: Yeah, I think I might add to that. In talking with members of the community over the spring, I met multiple young people who rented in Wiscasset and are moving out of Wiscasset. They really love to stay here, but they can't find housing here that they can afford. And I remember one young couple, they work in Boothbay, they're buying in Gardiner and they're continuing to work in Boothbay because they can't find anything near here. They really would love to live here. They can't. and i really one thing i liked about the lincoln county housing assessment is it really going out that wisconsin is very unique in that we have enough infrastructure with our wastewater and our water to accommodate growth so we have this unique opportunity here i'm sorry i don't [50:01] Speaker H (unidentified): want me to cut you off but again we have to also understand i get what you're saying but he said he's a resident so this is still not for buying housing and in wisconsin so you're going to have people that are going to rent and there's still going to be a housing for it right just to match [50:15] Architect/project presenter: That when I came home from college I read it and then I met my wife, we bought apps. I think that's the transition that happens with young professionals that want to come and live back [50:25] Chair/presiding officer: And maybe they don't want to talk to you either, or people were downsizing. Yeah, exactly, creating [50:30] Cassie Rose: That ecosystem, people who downsize or have that ability. So I like that, it's like just catalysts [50:40] Speaker A (unidentified): So the housing shortage isn't just like single-family homes, I totally care about that, the housing shortage is really all types of housing that's affordable. If you read the study though, you know there's a need for multi-family housing, there's a need like this, there's a need for single-family homes. So and then with other colors, but this is just one piece of a puzzle at all. I'll be able to back out in [51:14] Speaker C (unidentified): That person. Oh yeah, thank you. I, it seems to me I remember something about a possibility of a four-way intersection between the first point a little bit in group one in some D.O.T. studies a few years ago. Is that, is that redeveloped, Eric? [51:32] Speaker A (unidentified): so we had made ut about two years ago doing a traffic safety study on route one from the intersection out here to or which can online we looked at a variety of factors including in that intersection and at the time they didn't warrant a stoplight but the other end of it the old ferry road warranted a stoplight and then the intersection between shaw's and yes those were approved they're slated for 2028 in a couple years but at least they made of their three-year work plan this hasn't but i suspect you know the development like this comes in that as I think Andy and Concert both mentioned you know there will be additional study required as part of the permanent process. Yeah D.O.T. would look at that intersection. Yeah there's [52:37] Chair/presiding officer: been comments about why don't you access the property through Reverse Point Road which we can certainly study. The reason why we put up there was this was with a bit of efficiency because you 're able to access like both sides of parking without having to drive through parking or get to the other half of property. It just makes a safer neighborhood but also just like the you can see what the property line is it doesn't actually like we don't own the property that would complete the intersection there to build like a road and so it's a little it's a little tricky there that might be needed by like portion of the land. So just in our very first iteration of this we put it there for reasons of safety but again like this is all meant to be once it gets to the point where the ordinances are placed that this can be a product that could be permanent that we would go through the process and work with UT and say like we would we would want to present why we think that is a more suitable luxury point but we would balance that by getting the trip counts from a traffic engineer to talk about it's loading on the ground one and then how people turn in and out of space and if now that works out it needs to be relocated to Vertical Relative Wind and that's what we would do. So it's it's like you know it's a process we of course gearing towards a process we're gearing before we go to the detail of working with like a long process dirty just saying what we what we like to what we think is a good solution for this to present them well basically there's [54:07] Speaker E (unidentified): a good possibility that u.s route one was casted and become a lot like u.s route one in belgium which they've added a lot of housing to recently along with the walmart the shaw's and all of that it's it's a freaking bottleneck people moved here because they wanted to live here or they lived here all their lives and now we just want to add more things that we really need [54:41] Speaker A (unidentified): Didn't the idea mentioned a little while ago is one that I agree with. He's trying to get in and out of First Point growing as a nightmare. I can't imagine what it would be like with that third lane from First Point Road all the way back to the entrance to that this division. I'd really suggest you consider between the engine where the engines align with First Point Road, that way MDOT might be they're averse to the traffic lights on Room One, they don't like that at all, but they may be more willing to do that and help with the traffic. The problem is the last time I was a part of this traffic study here in Wisconsin, there were 25,000 cars that went up and down Room One in the day. I couldn't believe that number, but that's the way it turned out. But with an intersection section there, you might find MDOT willing to put up a traffic light, and then I help with that, but during the summer traffic like traffic, in fact I'm well past Third Point, it's not unusual at [55:45] Speaker C (unidentified): all. So I think that was a good thought. I'll just add to that the traffic movement permanent [55:51] Speaker E (unidentified): is probably the longest it takes a minute for a project like this. It's going to be vetted you Yeah, publicly, especially with Nate, me and their engineers, and I traffic engineers and the public, and it will probably take the longest of all the different permits that you have to get to something like that. [56:12] Speaker A (unidentified): And the future of the unit they everybody's not thrilled. [56:18] Architect/project presenter: They don't want to paint their traffic lights anywhere, and to be clear this plan may change, like this is early stages, this is character, this is there's certain goals that we're trying to achieve, public space, mixed years activity to trails. I think those components will remain in the project, whether the intersection is there or there, but we just need to go through that across this, the integrity of the design would likely stick [56:50] Speaker H (unidentified): I noticed the designation wetland. What is it, wetland of significance? Is that like is that an EPA designation? I mean it cannot be [56:59] Architect/project presenter: No, there's several different stages of categorizing through the Department of Environmental Protection, VP, and wetland delineations to be done, so someone would have to come and work with that during the spring to look for emergence for different species that breed in the wetlands. But DEP has determined that the area that's categorically of importance is that usually means it's connected to a broader wetland or a broader waterway, and that there's certain species and plant material that's significant to the environment, like filtering or whatever there may be the second as i mentioned earlier a lot of times if you dig a hole in the ground with an excavator you'll leave it there it fills with water it becomes insignificant which means there isn't anything that it doesn't have the value that the first category does and there's certain you can fill you have to go through the department a dp and our performance from yours there's a certain amount you can film and beyond that so there's a whole process you have to go [58:03] Chair/presiding officer: through, and it's a very, then there's offsetting fees that you pay for any time you like have to like, there's like the portions of weapons that we, the incident ones that we need to kind of kind of fill the report, make this develop work, we'll pay a fee to the to the main department from protection for that, the hell offset, you're probably in charge of that, so it's it's it's part of that balance, so it could be building weapons, yes, we could if we wanted to, and [58:31] Architect/project presenter: in, but it would cost a significant amount of money, it's not writing to do question. [58:42] Speaker A (unidentified): I don't remember how many acres they were there, but just for reference, how much of that land that the owner has is prevented from being using because of woodland, what percentage of that angus you based on [58:56] Speaker H (unidentified): fifty percent, it's pretty close to about fifty percent, yeah, it's thirty two and a [59:01] Chair/presiding officer: half thirty two point eight acres believe we're probably developing we're trying to focus it on down what's for those six acres or so maybe less yeah so I mean the idea is that we're trying to I mean by consolidating the efforts you can just see the reduction of infrastructure costs like long utility pipes into a different portion of property so it's beneficial that effect that front as well yeah in addition to just preserving like open space which is you [59:26] Architect/project presenter: Know, good to have it. Yeah, you see this all the time where developers go in and start a plastic ledge and filling wetlands, and this particular property would be all that. It'd be so staying closer to the road was beneficial for many people, I think. [59:44] Speaker E (unidentified): It'd be safe to say we were going to fill those wetlands, it would be cost prohibitive to that. I'm saying any [59:56] Chair/presiding officer: other questions after that? When do we get together again? I guess sometime in the future after the town meeting. You had your town meeting in during the election, is that 's all right? So the town meeting will have the ordinances that on the discussion to allow for this sort of thing to happen, which falls the mandated state laws, and then we would reconvene and put together the plan of plan of our of our client to see if they want to go forward with this. You would like to, and then so we would start that process. Okay, that I would take a while, first of the years. Yeah, of course it would be a while, but yeah, you would be well informed in advance before you see any kind of construction on that side, because it's the perfect for us to want to take over your design permitting process. [1:00:54] Speaker C (unidentified): If the proposed density portions of the ordinance changes don't pass in November, town has to adopt 5 000 square foot density July 1st, so next year, so it will be right. So we would we would we would continue [1:01:20] Chair/presiding officer: to just kind of pause until the orders in place, because it's not, it's not pretty for us to continue spending our clients money for something that we don't know easily yet. So if he, if it doesn't, if it gets deferred until the absolute deadline in july for it, we would probably just be cool, but we would encourage everyone to recognize that these are good things to have for a community. It helps to solve a much bigger issue for the state, and we all need to kind of recognize that something that we need as a state to help that house purpose. Yeah. [1:01:55] Speaker C (unidentified): In the way back you kind of conducted. Yeah, I just wanted to thank you for putting together [1:02:00] Speaker A (unidentified): it's a clear presentation in your five years. It's great to think that there are going to be improvements made in the town, and I think you probably get a sense that people are very concerned about what's happening here, and I think some of those concerns need to be addressed to the town office and not necessarily the stone, and I think there is more only for us and some of the root problems that are already existing. So thank you. I thank you 're happy to do it. I'm hearing that there's an ordinance change on the ballot in november that deals with this subject i printed a sample ballot just monday and i didn't see any such ordinance on it you're responding not a surprise no there's no surprise it 's still being worked on by the orc and planning board and it's being worked through that process special town okay but it's not on the ballot from november no i wasn't so guys you have a town [1:03:13] Chair/presiding officer: meeting government set up right where you pass it at a town meeting, not a town vote [1:03:21] Speaker C (unidentified): not on election day, but I tell you it hasn't completed enough with the process to be able to determine when it's going to be voted on. Thank you. The question [1:03:34] Chair/presiding officer: appreciate everyone coming out tonight to go turn out and we appreciate everything. We have a lot of good notes from and great, you know, we like the positive comments too and we will be working with science to address the other kind of kind of concerns of in the continuation of this process. And so just wanted to thank you for coming out tonight, which was great. Thank you. Thank you if [1:04:00] Architect/project presenter: If you haven't signed in, sign in, then you can get updates on the webinar.