Brunswick council hears contract zoning pitch for 53 Main project

[0:04] Chair (McDonald): Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Monday, September 21st, 2026 Town Council Workshop. This is primarily focused on contract zoning and a contract zoning request. We currently have all members present, with one of them currently stepped out of the room. Was this meeting properly noticed, Town Manager? Yes, it was. Great. So our first item of business here is a contract zoning informative presentation. presentation then we will go through the request and then we'll adjourn the workshop just so you're all aware this will be about an hour we'll get done about 15 minutes before Council meeting is supposed to start at 6 30 just so that way Tech has time to transition all the links so without further ado I'll turn it over to the planning and development director Erdman thank you waiting [0:54] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): for my presentation Larry could you put it on the next slide please so the representatives of the J are here tonight to present their request for a contract zone and to receive some initial feedback from the town council before a public hearing is scheduled on the project before we hear from the applicant i'd like to take a few minutes to explain what contract zoning is and how it applies to this project i'll also discuss planning board and town council roles and what the process looks like from here out the council has held workshops on contract zoning projects in the past, but the town has yet to approve a contract zoning application, so providing a little context here is in order. Next slide, please. So what is contract zoning? Section 5.13 of our zoning ordinance recognizes that in some circumstances, traditional zoning methods may not be sufficient to promote desirable development. In those situations, contract zoning provides a more flexible approach that can accommodate appropriate development while ensuring that there is a public benefit contract zoning is only permitted when the town council finds that it is necessary or appropriate to impose certain conditions or restrictions by agreement with the property owner to ensure that the rezoning is consistent with the town's comprehensive plan next slide please in other words when considering a change in zoning the council May determine that certain conditions are necessary because of public necessity or general welfare. Those conditions are intended to protect the interests of the property owner, neighboring property owners, and the neighborhood, as well as other property owners and residents of the town, while ensuring that the development is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Importantly, any conditions or restrictions imposed through contract zoning must relate to the physical development and operation of the property. Next slide, please. So why does the J require a contract zone? With the recent adoption of the Main Street overlay, the J will now conform to the height standards for downtown Main Street. However, the project is unable to meet the parking requirements in the zoning ordinance, and they've requested a contract zone for this reason. It's up to the Town Council to decide if the development is something that the town wants and if it provides a measurable public benefit for the community. Next slide. The Planning Board also has an important role in this process. The board will hold a public hearing, review the contract zoning application, and provide an advisory recommendation to the Town Council. The Planning Board's public hearing on this project is scheduled for tomorrow night. Next slide. Before making its recommendation, the Planning Board must find, must make findings on three specific factors. First, whether the project is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Second, whether the project is consistent with, but not limited to, the existing uses and allowed uses within the original zoning district, and third, whether the project is subject to conditions sufficient to achieve desirable development that provides a public benefit as described in section 5.2.13. For the Planning Board to recommend approval, it must make a positive finding on all three of these factors. Next slide. The Planning Board's recommendation will then come back to the Town Council, which will consider the recommendation when determining whether to schedule a public hearing on the contract zone and whether to approve the zoning request. If the council approves a contract zone, that approval is made through an amendment to the zoning ordinance, and the approved contract zone will be listed as adopted under section 5.2.13. Next slide. I want to emphasize that contract zoning does not replace the normal site plan or subdivision review process. Any project that goes through contract zoning must still comply with the Applicable site plan or subdivision review requirements of the zoning ordinance. In this case, the jay has already received sketch plan, sketch site plan approval from the planning board and design approval from the village review board. If the council ultimately approves the contract zone, the project will still need to return to the planning board for final site plan review. Next slide, the jay is seeking a contract zone because the proposed PROJECT DOES NOT MEET THE PARKING STANDARDS IN THE TOWN ZONING ORDINANCE. IF THE COUNCIL DETERMINES THAT THE DEVELOPMENT IS DESIRABLE AND PROVIDES A MEASURABLE PUBLIC BENEFIT, THEY MAY VOTE TO ALLOW THE REDUCTION IN REQUIRED PARKING AND APPROVE THE CONTRACT ZONE. THE PROJECT SITE PLAN AND ELEVATION DRAWING SHOULD BE INCORPORATED INTO THE CONTRACT ZONE APPROVAL TO PROVIDE CLEAR REFERENCE FOR WHAT THE COUNCIL IS APPROVING. IF THE DESIGN AND AMENITIES PROMPT COUNCIL TO APPROVE THE plan, then those details should be guaranteed as part of the agreement. Any changes to those plans that are more than minor in nature would need to then come back before the council for approval. It could be written into the contract that minor changes are approvable by the planning director as a minor modification. I also briefly want to mention the sidewalk, the replacement of the portion of that sidewalk along main street in front of the project was placed on hold for the development of this parcel. Town staff have had discussions with the applicant regarding cost of the replacement sidewalk and feel it is appropriate for the town to pay for the portion of the sidewalk that is already planned to replace. Additional expenses such as widening the sidewalk to create parallel parking would be borne by the applicant, and these are details that would also need to be included as part of the contract zoning agreement if that's what council wants. Next slide, please. The process from here is as follows. The Council holds a workshop tonight to discuss the project and provide feedback to the applicant. Tomorrow night, Planning Board will hold a public hearing to discuss and vote on the contract zone. The Planning Board's official recommendation will come back to Council the same evening that the Council votes to schedule a public hearing for the project. The Council will provide a final decision on the contract zone at the public hearing, and then should the contract zone be approved, the applicant will then return to Planning Board for final site plan review. Next slide. And with that background, I would be happy to answer any process questions that any of you might have before the applicant gives their presentation. [7:24] Chair (McDonald): Yeah. So questions on the contract zoning process. [7:29] Councilor Ellis: Counselor Ellis. I think this is truly a process-running question. Question, I don't know if you're able to pull up that last slide with the timetable, the step, feel free to continue on. Yeah, I'm just trying to remember what the verbiage was that was using this, so the step that was included, so the town council public hearing and then Council decision, is that presuming a waiver of our standard procedures to vote on it the same night of a public hearing? I thought that there was built in a waiting period after [8:00] Chair (McDonald): public hearings, so we could choose whether or not to waive our rules, but I don't think it affects have the order of operations in which this goes. No, but I'm saying we would have to waive [8:10] Councilor Ellis: our normal operation procedures to make that occur on the same night as the public hearing, is that [8:16] Chair (McDonald): an accurate statement? If you want it to occur on the same night as the public hearing, yes, but this one has it broken up as town council public hearing and then council decision, so this already has it broken up, assuming that we're not going to waive our rules. [8:30] Councilor Ellis: But didn't I just hear that the council decision would happen on the same night of the public hearing? It does, it's not required to. Okay, that's what I was trying to get at, that again affords for us to make that decision based on what we might hear at the public hearing, is what, why I was asking the question. If we heard something that was meaningful that needed consideration, we could make that decision at that time as a council, correct? Okay, thank you. Further questions [8:56] Chair (McDonald): on process, counselor [8:59] Councilor Weems: Weems? Thank you, chair McDonald. Just a little bit of confusion on my part here. Very good presentation, very logical, thank you. If we take action to approve it at the end, what are we actually approving? Are we approving the project with the new provisions for parking, or are we approving a contract zone that would apply to other projects? [9:26] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): as well you're approving basically this project as its own zoning amendment so you're you'd be approving the parking reduction that's that's why they're applying for the contract zone because that doesn't meet the standards of the [9:44] Councilor Weems: ordinance right so that's why it goes in the ordinance but it goes in the ordinance as an as an ordinance change for this project thank you counselor [9:57] Councilor Hicks: hicks i was curious about the possibility that the project scope could change so right now i imagine the project has been developed in a way assuming that it could have the waiver on two it's two parking spots per unit right now that's what's required so is the project developed already with the mindset with the assumption that it can be reduced or like has the project been developed with that one with one parking or two parking spots per unit at this point so the way that [10:39] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): it's set up right now, there is, I believe, one per unit, and then they have the ability to add more parking through parking lifts in the underground parking garage, but that parking is residential parking, and they still need parking for the commercial aspect of the project, which is [11:00] Councilor Hicks: not included in the in the current proposal, the current, right, there's, there's no parking provided [11:09] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): commercial businesses except for what's on the street, no off street parking, which is, but again, [11:14] Councilor Hicks: right now there's, they would need to provide parking for commercial to be compliant. Yes, so I guess my point is that right now their proposal is not complying with our current zoning standard, correct? So their projects, if they don't get the contract zoning, the project is going to have to change, or maybe it won't happen. I don't know. I'm just curious. So that would be another part of the process, if that contract zone did not, we don't approve that, it changes fundamentally, I imagine changes the project. [11:54] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): I think it would in effect kill this project. Okay. All right. [11:58] Chair (McDonald): Further questions about process, and then we'll get a presentation from the folks. And then we can get into the details of, you know, back and forth. Okay, all right, let's move, let's move to, it seems like we're segueing over. Yeah, a question from Councillor Wilson. So the real issue is about the parking. We're about to find out. Okay, all right, come on up here. Thank [12:29] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): you, and yes, Mr. Eckhart I'll be happy to handle any questions since you don't want to give them to Julie. So my name is Ryan Barnes. I'm with the group that's doing the project. For my slides up, you can actually go to the next slide please. So tonight I'm representing Dave Holman's group, 53 Main Associates. We're trying to develop 5369. You've all already heard me speak a couple of times, so I'm going to try to do this as brief as possible to allow as much time for questions at the end while having the opportunity to kind of step through the process. So it'll just be a brief project introduction, just as a reminder, refresher for those who may not have seen it before, kind of reviewing kind of what the town's vision has been for Main Street and this area as a whole, as well as going through that contract request and spelling out what it is we're actually asking for. Happy to take questions as I go or at the end, whichever is preferred by the council. So I leave that up to the chair to decide how to facilitate. So next slide please. Actually just go right to the next one. So again, I, with me tonight is Dave Holman with 53 Main Associates LLC, representing the ownership team. My name is Ryan Barnes with LJB Engineering. We represent the civil site and permitting aspect of the project. Along with us but not here tonight is Archetype Architects with Katherine Norman leading the project, and Landscape Box Architects. We have Dry LA with Braden Drypulcher, whose name I always try to butcher. What we've assembled as a team, or what Dave has assembled as a team, is a team that looks at a balanced approach. We look at efficient design. We look at trying to kind of maximize the footprint of what we're working on. So it's not, we don't take these projects lightly. Next slide, please. So a little bit of background on the project. Obviously, we're looking at the former J&J Cleaners building as well as the commercial building that was cited immediately to the north of that. What we're proposing for development is approximately 9,900 square feet, plus or minus, of commercial retail space on the first floor. Those exact tenants haven't been worked out yet, but we're working through that now. The upper floors will all be residential with a total of 34 units spurred between three floors, and the parking for the facility will be fully underneath it, so that we're able to maximize the footprint of the building and what we're able to provide the community. Next slide please. And THEN YOU CAN JUST SO JUST GOING TO KIND OF STEP THROUGH. And a lot of this is from my memory and history from working here, kind of a history of the parking and other issues here, just to kind of bring those to light for those who aren't aware of them. So if you could go to the next slide, please. So the downtown has always been analyzed for parking pretty heavily. 2001, they did a parking study. What they determined from that study is that there was an adequate supply of parking. Some areas were definitely more full than others, but there was typically available parking at all times of day. One thing they did note was that parking management would be helpful, having shorter term parking in certain areas to try to facilitate turnover, especially getting people into and out of restaurants or into retail shops. It just keeps people from kind of bottlenecking the parking. Following that, there were changes made. There were time limits put in certain areas that helped again. In 2025, they revisited the parking issue again. In 2025, they found that there was adequate parking. There were some areas still full, they're getting close to full, so very much the same kind of aspects of the studies. This study did denote that there was approximately an additional capacity of 316 parking spaces in the downtown, which for reference, that's a pretty large facility of parking. It's about 30 to 35 percent of how much AVAILABLE ON STREET PARKING AND PUBLIC PARKING AND SHARED PARKING THERE IS IN THE DOWNTOWN. SO IT'S A PRETTY SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT THAT'S AVAILABLE. SO THAT TELLS US THAT THE CAPACITY IS THERE. IT JUST MIGHT UNFORTUNATELY BE A LITTLE BIT LONGER WALK. AND WITH GOOD PARKING MANAGEMENT IS ALSO PUTTING IN AND PORTLAND STARTING TO DO THIS MORE DROP OFF ZONES AND MORE HANDICAPS PARKING. SO DROP OFF ZONES ARE TYPICALLY LIKE 15 MINUTE PARKING IN FRONT OF RESTAURANT AREAS SO THAT A FAMILY MEMBER can drop off someone who's mobility challenged so that they can get to and from the site. We absolutely encourage that kind of turnover. That really does help get people to be able to experience the whole downtown. It's really nice when you couple those with park benches so that they have a place to sit while they wait for their family to come back to them. But those are all things we definitely have seen work in other areas that have less parking requirements. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. NOT USED TO NOT CONTROLLING IT, SO PART OF THE MASTER PLAN FOR THE DOWNTOWN BRUNSWICK AND OUTER PLEASANT STREET, SORRY, THANK YOU, I WAS THINKING MPIC AND I COULDN'T REMEMBER WHAT IT STOOD FOR, HAD VERY SIMILAR KIND OF THOUGHTS AND THINGS. They realized that the town needed better parking demand. They thought that the town should look for funding sources to try to encourage the parking uses for more active transportation and more public transportation. So, again, all fitting in with what the vision has been from when those studies started. Next slide, please. The 2024 Climate Action Plan, again, it echoed a lot of the same comments. A COUPLE OF KEY HIGHLIGHTS I WANTED TO POINT OUT IS ON THE BOTTOM LEFT-HAND CORNER FROM THE SUGGESTIONS FROM THE COMMUNITY, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WAS REPEATED WAS THAT THEY SHOULD REVISIT THE ORDINANCES, PARTICULARLY AROUND DENSITY FOR HOUSING TO TRY TO ALLOW HIGHER HOUSING DEMAND AND REDUCTION IN PARKING ASSOCIATED WITH RESIDENTIAL HOUSING. ACTION ITEM 3.1.3 OUT OF THE CLIMATE ACTION PLAN ACTUALLY SPEAKS TO REDUCING THE MINIMUM and maximum parking requirements for development so not just changing the lower but reducing the upper so you're really forcing developers to build a right size parking lot and not over design it for snow load or anything else next slide please also in the climate action plan whereas actions 3.62 which was about prioritizing active transportation and public transportation INCREASED POPULATION DENSITY AGAIN ECHOING SOME OF THE OTHER THINGS WE'VE HEARD THAT WAS ALSO IN THE MASTER PLAN FOR DOWNTOWN AND OUTER PLEASANT STREET AND TRYING TO PUT THOSE DENSITIES NEAR PUBLIC TRANSIT. SO TRYING TO HAVE EVERYTHING IN A WALKABLE COMMUNITY. And then obviously encouraging mixed use development helps bring both the retailers and the revenue sources into one area which helps with Those people are typically gonna walk to places and they have income that they can spend in their immediate vicinity next slide, please and You'll notice I'm getting into the more recent studies. So I'm gonna be wrapping this part up quick. So one Brunswick beautifully balanced the comprehensive plan echoed a lot of the same responses or a lot of the same issues. So I just want to highlight two with housing action item b.5 five they actually advocated for eliminating excessive parking demands especially for residential housing to encourage residential growth and in action g13 under the transportation section they also wanted to improve the town's parking downtown but they also wanted to look at redeveloping those lots for mixed use. So if the parking studies are correct and there is excess parking redeveloping those lots with some parking associated with them would be a great benefit to the downtown community and with that i will get on to the contract zoning portion of this now that we've gotten through the background. So next slide please. So this project is a mix of one bedroom two bedroom and three bedroom units. The one bedroom units require one parking space per unit anything two and above requires two parking spaces per unit. So we have 14 one bedrooms 22 bedrooms it equals a total of 54 parking spaces we need for just the residential component of this project. The commercial component of it is like i said around 9 900 square feet they require a parking space roughly one per every 300 square feet so roughly 33 parking spaces that may actually go down. That's just an estimate based on what might go in there once we actually know what those are those numbers may change a little bit but it probably won't be very significant. So a total of 87 parking spaces is what this development requires. The request or the ask from the applicant is that be reduced to the 41 parking spaces that is what we call the ground level parking in the garage. So those are the ones will actually be sitting on the concrete floor. We do have the ability to go up to 74 parking spaces for the residential component through the use of lifts so essentially every unit or every parking spot can become two except for a couple that are tandem and those are things that you know along with the ev charging capability is something that as people buy these units they can modify to whatever their needs are. So if it's a family that doesn't have any cars they don't need a parking spot they don't that one can go to somebody else but if it's someone who has two vehicles which is pretty common in maine then they can accommodate that for every unit in the building with a couple extras Again, 54 we can get up to 74, so some of the units could potentially have three if they want to pay for three parking spaces, but that'll get a little more challenging because you'll be trading lifts with somebody that's your neighbor. So again, that is the ask is to go from 87 to 41. Next slide please. As part of our evaluation of this, we kind of looked holistically at the downtown. We didn't do our own traffic study, but we did revisit the traffic studies that were done. We looked at what there is for available parking downtown. What we found is that there's approximately 515 parking spaces that are like full public parking spaces, and then that number goes up to about 700 plus or minus at night using shared commitments from some of our commercial properties, CEI, the bank, a couple others. So there is a fair amount of parking in the downtown, and those are, that doesn't include going really going out into the residential neighborhoods. That's just the ones that are kind of in the main core. So in addition to that, there's two transit stops within or less than a quarter mile from this location, and there's over 20 bike racks that have currently been installed by the town along the new streetscape project, and we would absolutely encourage more bike racks to be installed along this portion of the streetscape when it does get completed. So you know, it would help with everything because we are seeing a lot more people biking these days. Next slide please. So the intent of this slide and I apologize, the colors are not great. I should have done something different. She's laughing because she knows I'm colorblind, and to me it looked fine, but that's what everything looks like to me. So I just wanted to give kind of a perspective of what 40 parking spaces looks like on that site if we were to do just a surface lot. So if we were to demo the existing buildings and just build parking lot, which no one wants, it's not pretty, it would take the entire site to site 40 parking spaces, but there's a problem with that. Next slide please. The 20-foot setback to parking. So even if we were to build this out fully, the most parking we could put on it is 20, which means the ability to actually redevelop the site and provide parking on it is next to impossible because of how narrow the site is, how long it is, and quite honestly, parking is never the highest and best use of any land. So finding ways to be creative, putting parking underneath, is all things that are beneficial, just not just from a parking standpoint in a clutter standpoint also from an environmental standpoint because every parking lot that's underneath doesn't have to be salted so we're not loading up the catch basins and everything else with chlorides every storm. The Public Works Department isn't trying to plow around all those cars that are utilizing outside parking. It really will just help kind of keep the residential component out of Public Works this way. Next slide please. So the other issue that the site has and I'm sure you're all aware of it and this is kind of a big one because most developers would run away from sites like this is the contaminated soils. So it's a former gas station former dry cleaners, you name it, has it. So in order to build this site the way it's envisioned right now to put the parking underneath requires that we excavate out 16 feet of material. So the entire footprint of the building down 16 feet. What does that mean? I should say it's about a third of an acre. So depth of 16 feet, that means you're removing roughly 10,000 cubic yards of material. Or for non-engineers that's 700 dump truck loads. 700 dump truck loads that have to go the nearest license facility for disposal. So there's obviously a significant cost associated with that. The nearest license facility is 130 miles round trip. If we can go there stay tuned might have to go somewhere even further. So these are all things we're trying to work through and as far as trying to go any deeper we're right above the groundwater table here and we want to stay there because we don't want to get into any legacy contaminants that are in the groundwater in addition to the already contaminated soils. So in addition to getting a beautiful project you also get your brown field cleaned up and someone else is paying for it which is really the best. Next slide please. So just kind of spinning back to what I was talking about earlier at the beginning kind of consistency with your plans. So as far as the comprehensive plan goes the image on the top left is from the comprehensive plan not the Same block, but it's the same idea where it essentially shows going to that taller building height, but it also shows totally infilling the site. So it's assuming that whole site is going to be filled up. So the comprehensive plan understood that parking can't be the thing that limits growth and can't be the thing that limits expansion. And then next slide, please. One of the concerns that was brought to us originally was kind of consistency, or from staff, was consistency with the future streetscape project, and we've actually worked with them to make sure that anything the town builds or we build, town pays for most of it, I heard, we got it, is consistent with what we're all looking for. So what we have here is just a rendering of what that building with the streetscape kind of as it is now look like. It does have the parallel parking because that corner is going to be a full signalized intersection. It's already probably not the safest, but it'll be far less safe for people to get in and out once it's a signalized intersection than the current situation. So less gaps means more bad judgment, more bad judgment means more fender benders. So parallel is the way to go. I mean, that echoes what the town is doing at Lamont Block as well. As far as contribution, another thing that this project will contribute to this is that the cost per block that the town has been seeing so far should be reduced from what they've had to pay because this work will be done without having active businesses. So you're not maintaining deliveries, customers, all of that minutiae that is really challenging. I talked to the person who did the first phase of the project for the town and they were pretty eye-opening is how they put it when i asked what the construction was like so that's huge the other thing is that as part of this project at some point that front area will be barricaded off which means the cut workers are working in a more safe location and through coordination with the developer 's contractor and the town's contractor you should see a pretty significant savings in what it costs TO Actually build that sidewalk because the traffic control price will be much lower, if any, and just the speed of which they can build it will be tenfold. So it'll be a much more reasonably priced project, hopefully, for the town. And then last slide, please, the next slide. And then very important, and it's spoken to in a lot of the projects, is having corner projects that are gateways to the town and gateways to the downtown. I may be biased, but I think Archetype has done a great job bringing those two together so that both looking out of town towards Fort Andrews and looking back into town from Fort Andrews, this really does blend into the landscape. You can't visually see that building is taller than the ones across the street or significantly taller, and really it's going to be a great anchor for the downtown for years to come. And with that, I'd be happy to go to questions. Great. [29:54] Chair (McDonald): Thank you so much for the presentation. We appreciate you coming in to do this. Questions of counsel on the project. I'll start with counselor Parole and then I'll go [30:05] Councilor Record: counselor Record. I have a few. So one is you mentioned as a signal intersection [30:17] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): Yep, DOT is currently working on signalizing the intersection of Mason and Maine. [30:21] Councilor Record: So I just have to say we have blinking lights there because it was a disaster when we did it before. So to me, I think that's a terrible choice, but that's not your choice. [30:32] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): The technology has changed a lot since the last time. It wasn't that. [30:35] Councilor Record: It was backed up on Main Street, so it was horrid. Like if you did not live here then, it was a mess. When they, that's why they've been blinking for 30 years. So another thing you mentioned that the study found that there was 315 underused parking spots, but then you said there was a total of 515 available with 286 on the street. So you're telling me that, I'm just saying the study you referenced means that [31:11] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): there's only 200 spots being used at a time. No, I think the study that I'm referencing also included parking areas in the neighborhoods that we didn't include in our numbers. Okay, well you include [31:22] Councilor Record: INCLUDED A LOT OF OFF-STREET STUFF, SO I CAN'T IMAGINE THAT WE'RE GOING TO FIND THAT MANY MORE. IT JUST SEEMED THAT NUMBER, THE 350. I 'M A BIG PROPONENT OF PARKING, SO I DON'T HAVE A LOT OF faith, and what the study was, I would, I will tell you, overall I am happy to support this program, I mean the project. I love the idea of the underground parking for the residents, and I would be more supportive of having the lifts in there, that because i want the residents to have their parking. I think as a council we have to figure out to make sure that the downtown, like you can reference stuff, but that ultimately, like whatever you guys are going to do, like i want to make sure the residents are taken care of, but you can't really do much for the businesses, like because the downtown is the downtown, so i'm not, but i really would love to see you guys maximize that underground four-year residence period, so that would be my biggest thing in all of it, if we can [32:41] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): see that. Yeah, and the reason we have it expandable, or the reason we're presenting is expandable, is there is obviously a cost associated with that, and it's a cost that is a perfectly reasonable cost if the spaces are going to be used. Just the added cost of going to 74 parking spaces AND THEN HAVING THEM NOT BE UTILIZED ADDS COST TO A PROJECT THAT'S HOUSING, AND HOUSING PROJECTS ALREADY HAVE FINANCIAL ISSUES THESE DAYS. SO WE'RE JUST TRYING TO LOOK FOR CREATIVE WAYS TO MAXIMIZE WHAT WE NEED, BUT NOT OVERBUILD THE SITE. COUNCILOR ERIKER. [33:10] Councilor Weems: YES, THANK YOU. I DON'T KNOW IF WE CAN PULL IT BACK UP AGAIN, BUT THE CHART THAT SHOWED FOR THE BUILDING THE PARKING SPACES ALLOCATED TO RESIDENTIAL VERSUS COMMERCIAL, if that's easy to pull up, he's working on it now, yeah [33:32] Chair (McDonald): that one, slide 13, larry is [33:39] Councilor Weems: this what you're looking for? That's better, i can see it now. So all of this is going in the garage, right? Only the residential, only the residential is going in the garage, and where's the commercial? That's what we're here asking for. That's the piece that you don't have, and there's, there's no way to get any of these stacked units to be part of the commercial, to be able to direct any commercial traffic in there [34:13] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): Or employees or anything like that, it becomes very challenging because of the all the different owners. In this case, you'll have 34 people that own the units plus all the different businesses that may change over time. So the intent was to try to provide all of the long-term parking that is needed for the facility but not the short term parking, not the short term, which is pretty, I mean, it's typical of a lot of communities in Maine, is how they handle commercial and mixed use buildings. Okay, so just on the residential [34:45] Councilor Weems: You 've got 54 needed by the code, right? Correct, and you only have 41 without the stacking. Correct, so it seems like that piece is taking care of, just not the [35:04] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): commercial. Correct, the intent is to fully accommodate the residential need [35:08] Councilor Weems: but not the commercial need. Yeah, okay, and is there no way, is it just not work with the way the site circulation is, to have any that underground parking [35:22] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): can be utilized by commercial? Again, it just becomes very challenging from a management standpoint, having people come and go that are different, because if it's employees, that's what you're asking, or the public, it becomes a security risk for the people that own those specialty or purchased units, and trying to have people that aren't familiar with them using lifts is probably a rather large liability risk. Okay, I think they're fairly simple to use, but I'm often surprised of what people can do. Someone went the wrong way down 95 this morning, so anything's [35:56] Councilor Weems: possible. And in the in the lift, this may get two in the weeds, but the lift, does the car below need to be gone for the lift to be used? Yep, yeah, okay, so that's another complication. Yeah, and that's [36:07] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): what I was trying to get at, is that the intent would be that the list would be for single units, so like if one resident wanted two car spaces, then they would have to deal with shuffling their vehicles if they wanted the one on top instead of the one on bottom, but it's not uncommon in residential condo type housing like this or purchased units that they often have stacked parking, so it's the same idea of stacked parking where you have to shuffle vehicles, it's just a [36:32] Councilor Weems: little bit higher. Yeah, so just one last vein here, is it, is it even possible, these are condos, these units, is it possible to deed restrict them so they can only have, you know, one car per unit or something along those lines, allowing more space to be used potentially if you could figure it out for the commercial or the employees for the commercial businesses or something [37:02] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): Like that, I think the hard part for that would be that if at some point someone wants to sell one of these beautiful condos and they only have one parking space and their deed restricted to one, that means that they couldn't on their own dollar put in a lift and provide two parking spaces for the people that want to buy the house or buy the condo, so it would make it so that unit would effectively kind of be in that spot forever, but the way we're proposing it would give them the ability to be flexible through future sales as well as current design, because they would all be fully outfitted with conduits and everything else that's needed to run the electrical and stuff to run them even if they aren't installed day one, okay, or if someone decided ten years from now I really want two cars instead of one, they could upgrade their lot at [37:44] Councilor Weems: the same time, okay, I have one last question for the manager, have we, have we ever done it, anything, any serious work in the past about implementing some kind of impact fee associated with parking in that district, associate with part for dedicated fund for funding new parking initiatives or some of these studies that don't [38:11] Speaker H (unidentified): involve capital, not in my memory, impact fees have not been about parking, yeah, okay, thank you, I mean when that consideration has come up it's been should we do part paid parking because of course that is the people who are using the parking would be paying for, yeah, like metered parking just on [38:30] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): main street or something all right thank you both the 2001 and 2025 studies the surveys from those bore out that people didn't want to have to pay for parking of course it's like paying taxes i know but counselor wilson but i still approve i still like it thank you knowing [38:54] Speaker I (unidentified): that growth, this is not going to stop until the world ends, one of the things I noticed is was it parallel packing on front on Main Street, did you change it, I think that's wrong, I think the sidewalk, I think angled packing, what is it, 's with it's angled parking today, lost my brain, it obviously packs more cars and I don't understand why we'd go to parallel parking when so many people have a problem with it anyhow and can't get it off, there's more after [39:32] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): the curb, yeah, so because of the signal going in and even today people backing out into the traffic are much more likely to cause an accident or get in an accident themselves than someone pulling [39:41] Speaker I (unidentified): out of a parallel spot, I understand that, but I still think that we need to learn to drive properly [39:48] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): And I think engineers have probably been saying that for 100 years or since the advent of a [39:54] Speaker I (unidentified): vehicle, but I just know that the growth is never, it is not going to end, and the other, my other issue is about bikes. I know you talked about a lot of bike racks and stuff like that. I do know that I don't use mine as much as possible for shopping because I'm afraid of it being stolen, and it costs too much, and the little locks you can get nowadays can just be cut up. So that's the thing in the future if we want more people to use bikes and things like that. We need to be able to make sure they're not only parkable but safe when they're parked. [40:32] Chair (McDonald): You got to come up, you got to come up to the podium please and introduce yourself. [40:36] Dave Holman (developer): So yeah, Dave Holman, developer. Just to answer your question, Counselor Wilson, what the streetscape we're proposing is for the town to consider, and if the town wanted to go back to angled, I mean, that's okay, it really is up to Brunswick. I mean, we feel it's kind of safer and easier for this area that's really close to that soon-to-be traffic light intersection, which is a little different, you know, it's kind of like the Lamont block, but on the bike piece, each of the stalls will have a bike rack mounted to the wall where they can hang a bike of their own in the, in the garage, so they'll be safe. If you come live with us, your bike will be safe in [41:16] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): the garage. Yeah, all right, thank you. Thanks, Counselor. Also just add that the reduction in parking is one to two spaces, it's not like we're cutting it in half, it's going from nine to seven or eight. So thank you. Well, we do recognize that, we do think the safety outweighs it. This [41:36] Speaker K (unidentified): is getting off the topic of parking, which I know is what we're actually talking about here, but you mentioned earlier not having tenants lined up for the commercial spaces on the bottom. I was under the impression that those were also condo-type spaces where the businesses would purchase them. Was that just tenant in a, like, person occupying the space, not like a rental tenants or? [42:01] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): Correct. They're condo-type units. Got it. I don't know if that's the right word for commercial, I'll defer to the real estate broker. [42:07] Councilor Hicks: Over here, commercial condo. Yeah, Counselor Hicks, I'm curious about the project's scope. As far as I know, you are, you're removing the building that's right on the corner of Mason and Main Street, and that's where the apartments will be built. I know you're also purchasing the building behind that property. Is that to expand the property north? Northwood, I'm just curious about, like, that space that, well, that building be removed? That's [42:41] Dave Holman (developer): behind the cleaner right now, correct. We are under contract in the building behind it. That's for two reasons. One is that we have to build directly up to the property line, and I'm afraid I might break something, and I'd rather break my own building than my neighbors. And two is that there's a sliver of the alleyway between them that we want to deed restrict for air rights so that our building can have the right amount of windows and balconies and everything in that area. And again, it was easier to just buy it, take that, and potentially resell it than to do it with an existing owner there. But we don't plan to knock [43:24] Councilor Hicks: it down. It's too expensive. It is, okay, that's, that's great. I was just curious about that. So that as far as, so there's no space behind that building. The new building will have no space in the back of it because you'll continue to have that building. It'll be a narrow egress [43:46] Dave Holman (developer): pathway. It'll actually be a little slightly more space than now. It'll be about, I think, three feet or so, yeah, to be able to walk and get in and out, but it'll be a sort of locked gate on that. Got it, thank you. Further [44:02] Chair (McDonald): questions? Yeah, Council Roll, just out of [44:06] Councilor Record: curiosity of how many existing, like, rental units are there right now that we're gonna be replacing? There's only two rental, you occupied? Yeah, I got you. [44:19] Chair (McDonald): You've got to come up to the podium. You're good. I've got to play that game, though. [44:22] Dave Holman (developer): I'll stay up here for the duration with Ryan. It's a three-unit building. One of them is completely unoccupiable, holes in the floor and ceiling, molds, you name it. We didn't go in the occupied ones, which gives me a little fright, but there are two that are occupied in the building now. [44:45] Councilor Record: So, just like if they were rentable. Like how many units exist on the full site? Just three total? Correct. And so we're going to be bringing in 34, so a net of 31? Yep, correct. [45:04] Councilor Ellis: Councilor Ellis. Explain to me, because I want to make sure I'm certain on this. It's a condo rental, not a rental. And so when I think about a two-bedroom, it's still the same group, like somebody's buying this parcel. And it's so it's not like me and Kathy getting together and forming the odd couple, and I have one bedroom, she has another, right? Like it's not that. And the reason I asked this question is from a driving perspective, it would probably be harder for Kathy and I to coordinate cars. We probably both want cars, but with a family it's more of a, or not family, or an individual buyer, they can sort that out. And so yeah, and I would as well. But the so these are condos, meaning that they are owned by a group. Are they sublettable, that somebody could take a two-bedroom and then say rent it out to me and Kathy? And again, this is probably going too far with this metaphor, but we'll put you on the buyer list, Richard. Yeah. [46:03] Dave Holman (developer): Yeah, so they're all for sale. And, you know, anyone can buy them. And the HOA will have rules around subletting. We haven't written those yet. So I can't promise exactly. But the idea is that we will not allow very short term rental. So Airbnb, VRBO, I think we'd probably have a at least 30 day minimum, maybe longer, something like that, just so that the people who are paying a lot to be on main street don't have a party happening next to them or just random people that don't know the [46:39] Councilor Ellis: building that well to lay out the rationale, because I'm trying to figure in my head here, because what you're asking for is a shift in the parking requirements on this. And so trying to get my arms around, you know, if it's somewhere between one and two cars per unit, what might be an expected number? Is it realistic to think it could be a lower number because it is an individual group, or is it always going to be people like Kathy and I, where it's probably more likely to [47:02] Dave Holman (developer): be on the higher end of that, right? Yeah, it's a great question. Part of what we're doing here is our learning from the Sandpiper, which we built in 2024, that has a parking ratio of about 1.15, meaning that most people just have one car and a few have two. And we actually have some empty spaces in that underground garage. So those are smaller units, there's more one bedrooms, but there's there's a lot of twos in that building as well. And there are people that have two or even three cars. There are also People that have none, and I'm sure in this condo building, I mean, we will have more than probably one owner that won't have a car. And you know, it can be folks with a disability, it can be folks that are just older and don't want or able to be driving. So there'll be a mix. I mean, there may be a unit that wants three or four spots. [47:56] Councilor Ellis: There might be one that doesn't need any. And so you also indicated that the retail is also considered to be condo retail. What does that mean? Like it's not like, if I think the other side of Main Street, just looking at the other side, you know, we've got a diversity of different types of businesses in there, but they're pretty much all retail, right? My concern would be it would probably be the footprint of a retail operation is impermanent. People come in, they've shopped, they leave, and so those spots aren't like being used all the time. If I were to put a call center in your commercial space, so one of the people buys it out and I've got 30 seats in there, people working phones, well those 30 people now need places to park their cars when they come to work. And so I'm trying to get my arms around what does it mean to be a condo retail environment, and are there focus or restrictions towards the type of retail that we're talking about in a building like THIS SUCH THAT IT WILL EITHER POSITIVELY OR NEGATIVELY IMPACT THIS AGAIN CONCEPT OF PARKING [48:56] Dave Holman (developer): WEIGHT THAT THE BUILDING MIGHT CARRY, RIGHT? GREAT QUESTION. SO THOSE WILL BE FOR SALE AND PART OF WHAT I REALLY LIKE ABOUT THAT, A LOT OF TIMES BUSINESS OWNERS DON'T CONTROL THE SPACES THEY'RE IN, AND WE RENT TO MANY OF THEM IN BRUNSWICK AND OTHER COMMUNITIES, AND I ACTUALLY LOVE IT WHEN THEY'RE able to buy the space that they use as a store. And so we don't know, I mean, we're just saying this is what the zone allows, like you work it out with the town of what you want to do in that space, but we'll be selling the space and whatever's allowed in the zone, you know, they would be able to do. I think most of it would be, you know, cafe retail, the same kind of businesses that we see on Main Street now. I'm very biased towards small, local entrepreneurs. I'm not excited to have a McDonald's in there or something like that. And I think there's always a strength of diversity of different uses in a place. I mean, I'm already thinking I want to start a flower shop in there just so it looks really pretty and we have lots of flowers coming out of the building. So there's a cat out of the bag that there may be a plant store of some kind. but we don't we don't know what those will be and that's makes it hard with the parking because a restaurant would have a different parking requirement than a call center than a retail and that's part of why we really do need the contract zone process to just say you know we want Brunswick to look like the way it's grown with you know the Tundra block the Lincoln block where these we have a good street wall you know that's really appealing to shoppers to visitors that 's not surface parking in that area and with the building development itself. [50:41] Councilor Ellis: Are you developing that ground floor to be multiple units that people would rent, so it's not like I couldn't come in and buy the whole thing, or I could buy like five units, six units, but you're not developing it in a way such that it's going to encourage somebody to put a big operation in there? [50:56] Dave Holman (developer): I mean, are you right, we're marketing them as eight different spaces. If someone wants two or even and three for a bigger restaurant, I mean, the structural first floor can accommodate that. I think it's very unlikely it would be one user. I mean, seven thousand square feet is just a lot of space for one user in the first floor there. And then this is more of a comment, and then [51:24] Chair (McDonald): there is one question that I'll follow up with. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna also just bring attention to time here. We got like three-ish minutes, so let's go through your questions, and then if anyone who hasn't spoken yet, there's been a lot of commentary about the comprehensive [51:35] Councilor Ellis: plan talking about biking and things like that. I just want to say I live in East Brunswick, I'm in district one. I can tell you nobody's biking to the downtown from six and a half miles away, and I would probably hazard to guess that nobody's biking from the Sandpiper to downtown. There's just a large swath of Brunswick that just can't, and I still would want that space to be available to people as we're putting businesses downtown. And so this is why I'm worried that what impact will this have on Frosty's across the street, or Big Top, or Morning Glory that's down there? Will this eat into the parking that they're relying upon? So that's more just a comment on that, but I would also say that we don't, with any of those businesses, none of them have set aside parking per se of their own either, and so I wouldn't want to hold you to a different standard, although I think our ordinance do kind of require that. I'm cognizant of the fact that none of those people have afforded that either, but the one Question I wanted to ask, because I've been asked about this before and I have experience with this with the Harry Peter Stowe School, because we had a very similar issue. Has there been any contemplation or consideration placed to the chimney swift population that lives in the chimney that is there, that come, I shouldn't say they live there, they come seasonally to the [52:48] Dave Holman (developer): chimney? Yes, great question. We've been working with several different folks and entities to basically rehouse the Swifts, and so the plan is to build another chimney for them, and it's either gonna be nearby, you know, we have the Lincoln building where there's an abandoned chimney that we could elevate, or Brunswick High School had built one that the Swifts didn't like, so they don't live in it, but we could add brick to that to make it better, so one of those two options. [53:15] Councilor Ellis: Because I was gonna say, with that one, and I forget, you were on the committee when we built this, there was intent to have that, and we spent, I forget what we spent, but it wasn't an insignificant amount building that tower, and they didn't come. And so I'm both supportive of trying to retain that just from an ecological perspective, but also don't want us to be dollar foolish if what we're actually putting there doesn't actually achieve the objective of what it is we're trying to do, but I'm glad to hear you're at least [53:42] Chair (McDonald): considering it, that's on your radar. Great, thanks. Okay, I'm gonna go, Counselor Timmy, I'm gonna hold old parole just in case there's other folks that haven't spoken this workshop yet. Counselor [53:53] Speaker K (unidentified): Timmy, I just wanted to say there is a lovely bike path going from Cook's Corner to downtown Brunswick that I see so many people biking on, so there are a lot of people who do bike to downtown Brunswick from, hey, you know, it's a wonderful bike ride, maybe not in the middle of the winter. [54:12] Ryan Barnes (applicant/developer representative): I think the other thing to add is the town's been doing a wonderful job with both the Jordan Avenue new project and the connectivity to the base, so there is going to be more connectivity, maybe not for you and Kathy, but for some of the younger generation, especially those living out on the base. Well, you paired yourselves up, that's you right in my sights, but having that'll, that'll also increase, and I think one of the things we were working on when I was here as a town engineer was trying to really encourage for the bike hearings that's coming downtown is to encourage them using the parallel streets not Main Street and kind of coming in on the side streets. I think they've made some efforts towards that, but I think it's in addition to parking management, kind of a little bit of a traffic directional for the bicyclist might help encourage some of that use. When people realize, oh, I don't have to go on Main Street to get to Main Street, I just have to go down one of these side streets, so you know Federal Street's a lot more biker friendly than Main Street. I've ridden bikes on both. I definitely would encourage you to use Federal Street. Okay, I'm bringing the [55:10] Speaker K (unidentified): floor back to counselor teamie the other thing i wanted to just say is our zoning parking minimums that were quoted there of course were the ones for market rate housing there are much lower parking minimums for affordable housing so certainly i would always be advising that as a way of getting lower parking minimums by my math here for every three units that a two-bedroom units that you were able to make affordable you'd actually be reducing the number of required parking spots by five so just wanted to put that out there counselor weems and then council [55:55] Councilor Weems: yes, and then we're getting out of here. There's not enough time to ask a question, so I'm just going to make a comment. Great, I love this project for three reasons. One is, or two reasons. One is the opportunity it provides for diversity downtown, and more importantly, the creativity that I hope will for be forthcoming from the owners of both the residential units and the commercial spaces. Thanks, Council Roll. Just really quick, and because we talked [56:30] Councilor Record: a little bit about the parking at the Sandpiper. Now those are all rentals, correct? Yeah, so it's, it's parking is more fluid there because you can change every time, but at the at the J, those would be purchased, and so those parking spots wouldn't necessarily be fluid like each unit would have their own parking. So it's not something that could be interchangeable. I'm not, I just wanted to clarify because the discussion kind of made it sound like we could have more fluidity on at the J, but probably those are going to be in the deeds for whoever [57:07] Dave Holman (developer): purchases the condo. Yep, they'll actually technically be separate condos, each [57:12] Councilor Record: parking spot will be. Right, that's exactly. Whereas at the Sandpiper, you can and adjust that as people come in and out based on what's being used. Yep, we do. I mean, it's all [57:23] Chair (McDonald): assigned at the Sandpiper, but yeah, okay, thank you. Okay, all right, counselor, just under the wire, just [57:30] Councilor Hicks: something for the future. The contract zoning provides an opportunity for the council to and the town to come up with some ideas that would offset the impacts of changing the zoning so that there are some benefits for the community. Is there, I guess, I would maybe, this is a conversation offline, but I'd like to understand more about that and what the council can do to come up with an agreeable option if we decide this is an important project. We need to have something for what we're giving up and that is adding to our parking pressure, and so I just wanted to put that out there, that I'm interested in knowing [58:14] Chair (McDonald): more about that. Yeah, the only thing that I'll say is that what was proposed, at least in this, was a brownfield site cleanup and support around the sidewalks, so that is kind of what the current, what I've heard is on the table. Okay, my two cents while I wrap it up here, because we are ten minutes away from our meeting, we need tech to be able to swap over. I guess my two cents is that I think it's great project, I think if you can cover residential, we need to figure out commercial, I think that there's a lot of commercial businesses that have come around recently, like Domino's, that wouldn't have the amount of parking that they need to actually exist there, so I think we have precedent of, you know, making these types of exceptions in this area. I think we do need to take a bigger look at our parking in general, and I think that can happen through the recode process, which is going to be, you know, happening soon here, so personally I think this is a great project. I think not only has having more commercial spaces down there, but having the housing down there is also be a game changer. I know that a lot of new businesses, like the Abbey, in spaces that are similar, that have come in recently, quote unquote, they create community, and they're creating community spaces, especially where we don't necessarily have them, and so it's been really cool to see these different downtown businesses. And I know we're all probably connected to one of them that has to create a community for us. So the more opportunity for that, I think the better for our community. Tom Andrew, you had a PSA to make before we wrap up here. I did [59:43] Speaker H (unidentified): I just wanted to tell the council, while Director Erdmann's in the room, that today she got the news that the Northern New England chapter of the American Planning Association is recognizing the town of Brunswick comprehensive plan as plan of the year. [1:00:02] Councilor Weems: Come on, beautiful. [1:00:07] Chair (McDonald): Okay, we did wave the it's a workshop. Thank you so much to our developers and folks for coming in. We will talk to you again at our future public hearing if we choose to set one. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion by Counselor Wilson, seconded by Counselor Hicks. All those in favor? Okay, we'll be back in 10.