Rockport Planning Board approves two sets of minutes, reviews comp plan tasks

[0:01] Chair (Planning Board Chair): All right. Good evening. This is the September, 2026 meeting of the Rockport planning board. It was September 24th. It's 5 32. And seeing we have a quorum, we'll call this meeting to order. This board consists of up to seven Rockport resident volunteers appointed by the select board to review land use applications, changes to zoning and conduct other duties is prescribed in the ordinances of the town and laws of the state related to town planning. So as I said, 532, call this meeting to order. We have a relatively light agenda tonight. We have some minutes from our previous meeting and post site walk meeting to approve and business to check in on our comp plan, work plan, and adjourn to workshop thereafter. So first item is, are there any public comments on non-agenda items tonight? I don't see any from the audience. So I'll close public comments. The next item is to approve the minutes from August 27's meeting. I saw that people had a chance to look at it. Does anyone want to look at anything in addition to what was posted on the SharePoint? Hearing no interest, is there a motion to approve the August 27, 2026 minutes as amended on the website? [1:42] Speaker B (unidentified): I'll make a motion to approve. August 20. Sorry. [1:46] Chair (Planning Board Chair): I'll second that. Okay. Motion. I'll second by Tom. There are enough members in here that were at that meeting that can approve it. So any further discussion on those minutes? All those in favor? Unanimous, 4-0. Okay, the September meeting, Carter, you weren't at, right? And we need a plurality or a majority of those that were there, and both Rob and Tom and myself were at that meeting, so we could possibly approve that one. Are there any changes that anyone wants to discuss on the September 10 meeting minutes? [2:27] Speaker C (unidentified): I don't know how, like, how much we want to edit these things, but it just referenced the MRC. Yeah, I noticed you. And there was no... What is MRC? Yeah. I mean, that said, we have a video of the entire thing, so I don't know if we're, like, Orion, does it matter? [2:50] Speaker D (unidentified): No, but it's up to you if you wanted to reference. If you want, we can put MRC, we can put what it stands for. [2:58] Speaker C (unidentified): Work with that. I think if you put it in Google. Yeah, no, I just didn't know if we were if we [3:03] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Wanted to be a little more, I think it's a good suggestion, and we could change it to what was your proposal in there, that's a midcoast rec, midcoast rec, yeah, we can just make that change to it. Any other items to discuss in those minutes? Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the September 10 meeting, Tom? Thank you. A second, Rob? Second. Any further discussion? All those that were there in favor, Carter, obscene, I assume, okay, so three zero one. All right, follow up to our comp plan work plan and this is a document you can see in the link in our agenda that tells us what we should be working on in terms of the comp plan strategies. These are just the items, the goals or strategies that were tasked to the planning board for review. So it's a little based on code there as to what those are, but in the comprehensive plan it says in the one-to-five-year timeline, there are two combined tasks, T4 and HIST II. T4 is? Anyone else have this at the ready? [4:34] Speaker D (unidentified): It's T4. [4:35] Speaker C (unidentified): I think that has the, it's spelled wrong. [4:39] Speaker D (unidentified): What's that say, Carter? T4 is the first. Yeah. What's T4? [4:43] Speaker B (unidentified): T4 is maintain, enact, or amend ordinance standards for subdivisions and for public and private roads is appropriate to foster transportation efficient growth patterns and provide for future street and transit connections right so that's one that's actually there's a [4:57] Chair (Planning Board Chair): warrant article for it at the moment so that one and I'll get Orion's head nod since he worked on that is that is that what's on the warrant article going to cover that T4 goal as far as your concerns so [5:15] Speaker D (unidentified): maintain an actor and then standards for subdivisions that's one thing and for public and private roads so I would say for the subdivisions we 've satisfied that already the public and private roads we're working on that it's not it's not that but the public private roads is an item I'm working on right now that's not municipal road acceptance but I don't know okay for an ordinance standpoint of standard if we want to go beyond what the subdivision already requires for a private room so I guess that's kind of your call can I interrupt for a [5:56] Speaker B (unidentified): minute sure when I got this planning board packet the only document that I saw in the planning board work plan is just this top section here yeah I didn't know what it was what was [6:08] Chair (Planning Board Chair): happening yeah so we've had this document before right which is why this little appended piece doesn't make sense on its own yeah and that's all it was in this thing and I [6:18] Speaker B (unidentified): Meant to email and question this and get information before tonight, but I didn't have time. [6:23] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Over the week since we signed packet, this wasn't an action item for us. This is really just to keep us abreast of what the all right, so I'm happy to be asking us information gathering mode at [6:33] Speaker B (unidentified): the moment, but I don't really have any, I won't have any comments to do with this. [6:39] Chair (Planning Board Chair): No, and that's not what's expected. This is basically the comp plan task force telling us we need to work on these things in the next one to five years from the time it's [6:50] Speaker B (unidentified): approved. So the timeline is years? Yeah, years. Okay, and number of strategies just refers [6:54] Chair (Planning Board Chair): to the strategy index with the numbers. Right, and I'm actually having a hard time finding my little document that says what all those things mean, but they're, rest best assured at all in the comprehensive plan. [7:04] Speaker B (unidentified): Mr. Should I hand it to me? And if you want this, you can, she's got it outlined. I don't know where that came from. [7:09] Speaker D (unidentified): Ms. It's on the SharePoint, I believe. [7:11] Speaker B (unidentified): Mr. It's not on the SharePoint for this meeting. Ms. Oh, it's not, okay. Mr. Yeah, [7:15] Chair (Planning Board Chair): and I don't think, you know, there's urgency to even the things like in the one to five year that we need to do it, like at this meeting or even at the next meeting. It's more that we need to be in a position where we can say what we're doing about these things. [7:33] Speaker B (unidentified): Perfect. I look forward to getting up to speed on it. I just looked at what was in the thing and I just, yeah. I meant to, my... Yeah. [7:41] Chair (Planning Board Chair): And I was just looking through the comp plan to find an easy way to answer that question because it is all in there. All of the strategies are in there. They're just not... Yeah. [7:52] Speaker C (unidentified): If you go to the comp plan folder in SharePoint, there's an implementation plan. [7:59] Speaker B (unidentified): Like, over in the overall SharePoint, you know, not the packet for today, further up, right? [8:05] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Right. So every committee in town, in theory, that has been assigned strategies from the Comprehensive Plan has one of these documents associated with it in their work plan to say, you should be working on this, and report to the select board as to, like, how your progress is going so the 10 plus years like that's where everything else in is for us so those are kind of when we get through the first ones maybe we're looking at those more hey [8:41] Speaker C (unidentified): Orion what's up regards to the public and private road stuff is that something that you said you're working on it is it like well so something that you'll present to us or no it's not it's [8:57] Speaker D (unidentified): Not an item that goes to the planning board, so I guess from you it's more of a for subdivisions and for public private roads it would be the what is it, article 12 section 12 of the subdivision ordinance that would cover standards for the road, so those have been satisfactory for a while. I don't think we've had an issue in the past. I don't know if y'all want to take a crack at it at some time to look at, or it wouldn't hurt, but that's our design criteria, our standards. Yeah, that's where you look. I'm looking at what I'm looking at is the town accepting [9:39] Chair (Planning Board Chair): private roads, right? This is, this is a different thing. This is, I'm now, I'm remembering what this is. This is a little bit more ambitious, and this is talking about like how are subdivisions, people that are creating subdivisions that have internal roads connected to the public roads doing, exactly what says, like fostering transportation efficient growth patterns. So it's like, are you providing sidewalks, is it a place that like a bus could go down and turn around if need be, or is it linking to other roads in ways that it's like helping transportation that's what that's what that's about so it's a little more academic than does it meet the dot standards for underlayments etc [10:22] Speaker D (unidentified): and then if you remember we put in the land use ordinance an item for projects to connect to like infrastructure that's coming or infrastructure that's already there so if the sidewalk already exists you would bring the sidewalk up to your development right so that 's the language that did do so i would say that as t4 we are in progress on it working towards it and so this [10:45] Chair (Planning Board Chair): is only regards to subdivisions or is it? Yes. Okay. Well, it says subdivisions and for public and private roads as appropriate. So it's like, yeah, I mean, a private road is probably a subdivision road. So, [11:07] Speaker D (unidentified): the way our road, so if you're going to build something to our standards, that's within our subdivision ordinance anyway. So, if for whatever reason you're building a road, it has to meet our standards and that's within the subdivision ordinance of its business, it would meet those standards. [11:27] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Right. Right. And HIST 2, you guys discussing anything worth knowing? No, sorry. I was just finding. Finding it in the SharePoint? Yeah. [11:44] Speaker C (unidentified): It's only single sentences. [11:48] Speaker B (unidentified): Right. But at least it has a structure. [11:53] Chair (Planning Board Chair): The next one, yeah, that document. That's from the task force. So the next one is HIST 2. So it's adopt or amend land use ordinances is to require planning board or other designated review authority to incorporate maps and information provided by the main historic preservation commission into the review process. So I guess an interesting first step would be to know what those maps and information are to know how they might be referenced when the planning board or anyone else is asking to or is being asked to review something. So, I mean, I assume they're historic maps or maps of prior settlement or something that the Maine Historic Preservation Commission has, and information, I guess, is more like written histories. So that, I think, would require some research as to, like, what's out there. [12:55] Speaker B (unidentified): It would now be a time to figure out why this is being asked for us to consider historic maps in regards to reviews before the planning board. Yeah. [13:07] Chair (Planning Board Chair): I mean, the why should be found in the comp plan on page 107. So it's basically and this, I think, was in the previous comp plan as well or something similar to this. So it's it's to increase efforts of preserving its historic and archaeological resources. [13:37] Speaker D (unidentified): So this was this was one of those items that's a state requirement so if you go to the comp plan checklist by the state this was a strategy that was required to be included that's gonna. [13:47] Speaker C (unidentified): Did we even like vote on that a year or two ago? Yeah, the comp plan? Yeah, the. [13:54] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Oh, at the state level? Yeah. I don't know. I'm. [14:01] Speaker D (unidentified): Lost on your question. [14:03] Speaker C (unidentified): Was there some type of, like, state vote about this stuff recently? No. [14:14] Speaker D (unidentified): I'm not recalling what off the top of my head. [14:20] Speaker B (unidentified): I guess for me, I'm just, I 100% agree about historic preservation. I just, I wonder, like, sort of like the depth that this would go. So I think as a topic of conversation, it's quite interesting, like if there's a sub-development and there's where an old farm is, it's like, are we supposed to consider the historic nature of the old farm when considering the proposed new development kind of thing? Right. And so I'm just wondering how that sort of spectrum. [14:52] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Yeah, I think that's a good, it's an interesting anecdote because it's like, I think what the strategy is asking for is for whoever's reviewing it to consider the historic pattern that a new proposal is perhaps going to like obviate. So I agree with it as something that should be in the ordinance somewhere. I don't know what kinds of resources the Maine Historic Preservation Commission mission could lend to us or like is there like a standard thing I feel like it should almost be [15:32] Speaker B (unidentified): It's almost like there's some sort of review that happens and it ends up in the in the zoning right, you know, like R2 has these areas that need to be right catalog of resources right, because I [15:44] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Wouldn't want it to be on the planning board the code enforcement officers decide how go to the library and see what this is all about right or decide how important this is right, so that's [15:53] Speaker B (unidentified): Quite interesting yeah okay [15:57] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Well put that into your brain and have some think on it we can say we're working on it I don't think apart from that check-in do we have to I mean when we do this follow-up to comp plan work plan this is sort of a bifurcated question to Orion having been part of you know this being on the agenda in the Shenley for sort of its future implementation like what do we do in reporting this what you would you would report it you would [16:39] Speaker D (unidentified): Report your status of your strategies yeah where you stand with them to the comp plan implementation task force yeah then they just catalog it they're like okay just keep track of who's doing [16:50] Chair (Planning Board Chair): On a monthly bi-monthly yearly semi-annually what kind of basis are we doing I think whenever [17:00] Speaker D (unidentified): Whenever you have reached a consensus on one of the strategies, you send it in. If you want to make it more formal, then you can do it on a yearly basis or a bi-basis. You could do it with, kind of line it up with, if you have a ballot question, you've got an ordinance amendment. If that gets passed, then it gets updated. We've done a following that meets, that satisfies the strategy within the comp plan. [17:27] Chair (Planning Board Chair): Okay, sounds fine. Okay. That was our last item of business. Like I said, we're going to adjourn to workshop on land use ordinance items. So is there a motion to adjourn? I will make a motion to adjourn. Thank you. Carter, is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Rob. All those in favor? 4-0-0. 0. Meeting is adjourned at 5.49 p.m. Okay. On to workshop business. So I think the one item that we're workshopping here, although in the future we'll have more, is the item that came up.