Auburn comp plan committee reviews draft plan section by section

[0:00] Committee chair/presiding officer: whether they indicated they won't be attending or not, but oh, sorry, Riley or Kathy, I have heard. [0:10] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Sorry, I haven't heard that they weren't here, so there's always the expectation that they're [0:14] Committee chair/presiding officer: they're coming. Okay, good, thank you. All right, we'll get started, and if they arrive, that's great. This is a, would we call this a workshop? It's just been advertised as a workshop, the Carlo or Sam, yes. Okay, so we don't have any minutes from our last meeting to approve or anything. The purpose of this workshop is to begin our review or continue our review of the proposed comprehensive plan. And we're going to be led in this discussion by members of the planning staff. And so I'll turn it over to the planning staff, and we'll have lots of hard hitting questions along the way. [0:50] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Thank you all. My name is Carl Brown, the planning director for here for the city of Auburn. With us we have our planning staff, if they can introduce themselves for the record. [1:01] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Hi everyone, Lauren Cafe, long range planner for the city of Auburn. [1:06] Carl Brown, Planning Director: I'm Sam, I'm the planning coordinator. So this evening, this is one of your special workshop meetings. Tonight, only thing we're talking about is the comprehensive plan, reviewing the comprehensive plan. So some action items that we, some takeaways that we want to do from today is to get some ideas that you may want to make comment on. So it's not the actual comments themselves, but topics. And so what staff will do with your topics is try to summarize your thoughts to get them into some draft recommendations or comments that you might want to make, and what happens to the next meeting is that we start discussing those individual topics of going, hey, you know, during this meeting tonight you had talked about, I don't know, on land use near the Taylor Pond watershed in increasing housing availability over there or decreasing housing availability, what is the pleasure of the board? So that we'll do that next sign, but this time it's actually going through the sections in a more general way and we'll start to flag some things just like we did in our previous meetings so already you flagged two things for discussions it's not last meeting but the meeting before then and had to do with not only the ag and resource protection areas but also ag and resource protection oh and then the areas next to exit 75 so those are two of the examples of we'll bring up at the next meeting and then you all can start to formulate your official recommendation to the City Council so tonight we're going to Go through the comprehensive plan that we've given you links to, and hopefully you've read a bunch of the sections. I know it's very long, and you all have careers and families, and so what we're gonna do today is we're gonna go pretty much section by section to see if there are any initial reactions to those or topics that you would all like to bring up for potential changes, or, you know, or just potential comments in support or not in support. So support comments are also welcome as well. So to get started, what [3:25] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: are we going to start with first? I think what makes the most sense for us is to start with just the first chunk of the plan, which I'll go to our table of contents, and for our first section I'll call that our from our acknowledgements to our community engagement, and then we'll actually move to the, let's see, goals, policies, and objectives, because you've talked about future land use, and then we'll go back to future land use, unless there's a preference to just do it in order by the table of contents. Okay, so we'll start with, if there are any comments between the start of our acknowledgements to the community engagement section. Yeah, we could go shorter. Yeah, let's do acknowledgements to page 16, how to use this plan. Are there any comments in that section? This includes our letter to Auburn, executive summary, a vision for Auburn, and our introduction, which has what is a comprehensive plan and why plan and how to use this plan? I think I [4:40] Committee chair/presiding officer: think, although I can see that Chelsea has a big binder, which I guess she printed off the comprehensive plan. Is that, is [4:50] Speaker D (unidentified): staff printed it for me by my request? [4:54] Committee chair/presiding officer: I don't have the plan in front of us, so if you're asking us to comment on pages 1 through 33, that's going to be difficult. [5:03] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Okay, so let's just go section by section. [5:06] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I can start scrolling? Okay, I'll zoom out a bit just so we can see the whole page. So you have our letter to Auburn. I'll go do a slow scroll, and you can yell at me and say, hold on. [5:21] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Well, just to start on the letter to Auburn, have you all read the letter to Auburn? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns about the letter? [5:36] Committee chair/presiding officer: No. I mean, maybe other members do. I think for us to have questions or comments on the cover letter would really be. [5:46] Carl Brown, Planning Director: We have to ask. We want to give you the option. We have to ask. It's in the plan. [5:56] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: So we move to our executive summary. Can [6:01] Committee chair/presiding officer: you summarize the executive summary for us? Yes, so the executive summary [6:06] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Takes the current Auburn today section as well as then what we're looking for into the future, current challenges the city is facing. It also talks a little bit about our engagement and the structure of the plan and how the goals and to relate to each other and what you'll see throughout the plan and kind of the purpose of the plan. So it's two pages, three pages initial. [6:42] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Reactions I [6:51] Speaker E (unidentified): guess I'm very comfortable with the whole plan in a sense because I know it's been worked on by a good group and the public has been fully engaged in many opportunities to respond by either questionnaire or attending whatever. So I guess personally I'm very comfortable with a presentation of the plan and I guess for me I'm really looking forward to the public input. I guess my only real concern and I think I've kind of expressed it the levels that we're talking about, you know, the plane itself is really conceptual, you know, but organized responding to the public in different interests and so forth. So these sessions are good because I think we're speaking more to the public to try to get them to really understand what the plan is and as you say how we're going to use it and I think we've begun to recognize that it's a plan that we have to somehow participate in now because we're going to have to work with the tools. So it comes down to those layers that you know conceptual but then and I mentioned before the colors, we got to be careful because we have existing zoning, you know, we've got some land use that's been coded now in colors and public's gotta kind of understand that we're working from the concept down to kind of discussion of broad leaf type broad brush and then you know really this board is then more in tuned down below where we have to as you did finally getting down to parcel by parcel as far as you know land use and so forth. So but I guess I'm very comfortable with the presentation at this point. Okay. [8:56] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Chelsea you seemed like you were going to say something. I have a general question [9:03] Speaker D (unidentified): and it's I'm actually going to go a little backwards here and this question is for anybody who wants to answer it. I reviewed pretty much this whole thing and I would agree with Bob and I generally thought it was excellent and wonderful and the presentation was great. My question is it's the job of this planning board to provide recommendation to the city council on how this document will be adopted, is that right, to some extent? So I guess my question is this to help me when I'm reviewing it to What extent does the board change anything to say to this? What are we recommending to the City Council so that I know how to review it when I'm reviewing it? [10:05] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Does it does that question make sense? Absolutely any proposed changes to the plan? And for instance, the plan goes over some things that you've already spoken about, right? So we've directly talked about some of the land use categories, right? And you all had ideas or concerns about different portions of the land use categories. And so this is something that you would, as a body, gather together and say, we believe that this section should involve more of X Y & Z or that this section should not include this way in this way it or it alternate of instead of going this way we believe that it should include you know this whole different area and so that 's a part of your powers of really reviewing the document and giving recommendations because you're coming at this document from you know really the land use view of going Hey you have a unique portion because you're not only the board that's reviewing this document but you review applications on a regular basis and you're you're dealing with the zoning ordinance itself and so you've seen things from your times on the board from applicants or from building things at that it forms your opinions basically on how this is going to operate at you level so if you're seeing also structural things that can be improved in the plan for instance if you're seeing that hey This land use requires us is it a perfect example their lane use categories in this document that are for mixed-use mixed-use neighborhood mixed-use corridor and to enable to make that reality the regulations are going to have to follow to match that and so in order to make that a reality you now know that in going into the zoning ordinance some changes are going to have to be made and so now it's to your best you know judgment you're you're going to have to say okay we think this is Appropriate for these areas and this is going to require us to make these type of changes and it is our recommendation that we do x y and z so this is you are the linking piece between the two between the absolute policy makers of the of this legislative body of the city but when the rubber hits the road you're gonna be in seeing these applications and some things Tim like have you described that you have been very vocal and very straightforward of I well let me let me finish that the Ambiguities are not something that you prefer. You like things that are very straightforward, and so people can say a yes or no. It either has this or it doesn't have that. And so in keeping that in mind, then the provisions themselves are going to have to be very straightforward. And so as direct line from the comprehensive plan that we want this, these areas to look this way, means that these regulations are going to need to be put in place, which means that when applications come in, they're going to have to be held to those standards. So that is the point of view that we're looking for, especially when we're talking about the different land use categories. [13:26] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I'll also add to a little bit, add some more concreteness to that. In your recommendation to council, it will be something along the lines of, yes, adopt, yes, adopt with these changes, or no. So you're telling them what you think should happen with or without changes, and they'll wanna see changes. If the answer is no, what changes would you wanna make? And also, with the understanding that as you're reviewing this document, to Bob's point we've had planning board representatives on the comprehensive planning committee, we've had city council representatives on the comprehensive planning committee to serve as that bridge between that the comp plan committee and the planning board and to make that process very robust. And so our goal through this review process is to this document will be your kind of guiding light as you're reviewing applications, you'll be going back to the comp plan. So we want to ensure that the board, with the understanding that people have been involved in this process throughout the year and two years, you're not rewriting the comp plan, that you feel comfortable that this is the document you will be referring to throughout your work on the board. I [14:33] Committee chair/presiding officer: just want to make an observation for the rest of the board if it's not clear. So the conference of plan is a, it's a plan, it's a concept, and it's going to call for growth areas as we've seen, high growth, medium growth, low growth areas. But then the zoning ordinance presumably will be amended after this zoning comprehensive plan is finally approved. Our next step will be to participate in the amendment of the zoning ordinance and the zoning map. So to that end, I would like there to be as much Flexibility as possible that the language of the comprehensive plan not be construed in any way as inviolable or binding when it comes to adopting or revising our zoning maps. Maybe that'll become clearer when we get back to our discussion about the exit 75 area, for example. And as you may all recall, the Carlo gave us at our last meeting a use table showing you a lot of redundant uses in various zoning districts presently. And I think that we, in addition to looking at how we want this future zoning map to appear, we also need to look at the uses that are allowed the zoning map and the zoning ordinance that are consistent with the comprehensive plan. But that being said, I hope that the comprehensive plan is not so restrictive that we have to accept whole cloth everything that's in it when we're discussing amendments to the plan in the future or to the zoning map and the zoning ordinance in the future. Because the adoption of this plan is just really the first step. I mean, then we have to implement it by amending the ordinances. Yeah. It's the guiding light. [16:51] Carl Brown, Planning Director: And then it sets your like, we're going to implement. We set the basically as a whole city, you said this is your guidance. And then we're all going towards making those a reality during the implementation. Which is why when we get to And so if something's missing, right, during the actions, this is another view of you all can look at the plan and say, okay, well, you said that you wanted to do this, but we think that another action should be in this document in order to make sure that 's a reality, those type of things. Okay, so I think we're good to go to the next section, if [17:40] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: that's okay. Sure. I'll just explain this graphic. I did a bit in the presentation to you all last week. This diagram is not meant to be used literally in the sense of the objectives connecting them together. It's to show that the different sections of the plan are interrelated. This is something that the comprehensive plan committee Want to make very clear is that they took a very systems thinking approach to this plan of when they were considering one section they're thinking about how that might impact another section and so on and so you'll See that when you're thinking about this is missing over here, is it relevant over it, should it be in this section, and so on, so things might come up where you expect them to be and where they might be in other sections as well. So you've all seen this vision statement here, this sets the tone for the plan. So we have this overarching vision when the prompt that we gave the comp plan committee with this was what's your utopia Auburn, with a little bit of reality, is how we rebranded the vision statement, and so it's a far-reaching look into the future of what Auburn could be in 10 years, and followed by the guiding principles. So each of the actions, policies, objective actions should meet our guiding principles, and they're organized by our goals. So I'll take any comment for this [19:06] Committee chair/presiding officer: Was the vision established at the beginning or at the end? [19:10] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: The vision was established in the beginning after we had done community engagement. So sometime in late summer, early fall [19:25] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Your silence tells me that you all love this plan [19:30] Committee chair/presiding officer: I think, I think we do need a few minutes to look at me and I've got it on my computer now and I know that at least one of the board member does and Tim's looking at it on his phone I have [19:49] Speaker F (unidentified): a [19:56] Speaker G (unidentified): quick practicality question. The electronic copy that will be online, will that have search abilities and will it be pretty well-encompassing so any member of the public, if they wanted to look at something specific that don't have a working knowledge of how the plan works will it be able to bring up whatever they need, whatever they put in the search bar I'll show whatever excerpts are relevant to their [20:24] Carl Brown, Planning Director: search. Yes, absolutely, and as well as that on the on the website that we've now put up is also the presentation that you all were in attendance for. So it's also not only on their own they have to search through, but if they wish they can watch the presentation as well and they would know the exact outline of the plan as well. So we're trying to make sure that it's accessible as possible to everyone and we're, if with more tools that we can use, we'll use them very [21:16] Committee chair/presiding officer: aspirational sufficiency, okay [21:23] Speaker H (unidentified): So I'll scroll [21:26] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: to the guiding principles and we can hang out with those for a second so [21:45] Committee chair/presiding officer: The guiding principles were gleaned from responses to surveys or community engagement events, yes. Do you believe that there was a significant or substantial cross-section of the Auburn's population in business and community interest involved in these [22:09] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Events we tried our best. Our focus group tried to hit different sectors of Auburn's community, so we invited business, businesses and organizational leaders working in different aspects of Auburn, as well as Education Department families and parents. We went out to events, farmers market, we tabled that, Touch a Truck at Auburn Public Works, we saw a few families there. I was at the drop-in center, the backpack drive, as well as a few other events, and we tabled, we had tables at City Hall, at the library, as well. You can, there's a summary of those engagements, and I can go through those in the engagement section with the time that we had. We worked to get a section of as much as we could of Auburn and [22:59] Carl Brown, Planning Director: actually we were sending out a postcard to every address in the city of Auburn, and that [23:05] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: will be sent out on Friday. Yes, tomorrow, Friday, and Monday, mails and chunks, yeah. [23:11] Speaker H (unidentified): Overall, [23:15] Speaker G (unidentified): I'm really impressed with his presentation, how this is structured, how it's put together. It's a beautiful document, just it's, it's well organized. I have a question regarding your community outreach and your business outreach. It's safe to assume a lot of the stuff that you heard as complimentary, or you know, golden moments, played a role. Did frustrations from the public or for business owners play a role in this plan as well? What kind of revisions did you make from negative comments? Yeah, we [23:55] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: heard, I would say most of our comments were, and the way we asked the questions to people were, what would you want to see improve, some of them are what do you like, and so those are more positive. With businesses, we heard that they were struggling to recruit workers and to have people stay in Auburn, live in Auburn and work in Auburn, and so there's a section you'll see in our implementation table that talks to workforce issues. They talked also about housing and transportation, getting workers to their businesses and then being able to afford to live in Auburn, and so I would say in our vision statement and also our goals, it was addressing those conflict points that we were hearing from people, from regular citizens. We heard that they would really like to walk more in Auburn and get to places without a car and feel safe. Feeling safe was a really big one that we heard, having a place to live and not feeling nervous about being evicted from your home. From older residents, we heard that they need more housing options, a place to move into if they've outgrown, owner cannot live by themselves in their home. So housing options was a big thing that we heard from folks. From kids, really want something to do. Auburn, there isn't a lot of things for them to do. And that reason is a loss of third spaces and places to go where they feel safe, where parents feel safe leaving them to go hang out with their friends. And so a lot of kids that we heard, and this is common of kids, I think, is that they want to leave Auburn. And I think where we grew up we always want to get out and maybe we'll come back and that was a big concern for the committee is how do we get this to be a place that kids want to you actually stay and like to hang out and have places to go so I would say most of the feedback we heard is what people want based out of what they were not seeing so whether those are negative or constructive and to add [25:48] Carl Brown, Planning Director: on to that just before you finish is that we've actually heard from individual property owners as well so when they were going through the land use categories and actually the actual future land use map we've heard directly from some residents about different areas of the of the city and they actually took those into account in reorganizing some different places so some were taken and then some the committee thought it was in the best interest to not change and they actually gave their reasons so what's important to me is it's not only that you're that the public is listened to in the property owners and residents are you listen to but when you're making decisions that they're they're they're rational reason decisions and that thought process is very public because this is a public process and it's a community process and you make decisions [27:01] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I would say from a few different avenues. In planning, we talk probably once a day. We mentioned the importance of having eyes on the street, and so what does that mean? And building social infrastructure actually is a topic for us to talk about. this week and so with the built environment how do we write regulations and ordinances to kind of form a built environment that is safe for kids to walk that you have people who are out at different hours of the day and not as car dependent so we looked at that from the built environment perspective part of the future land use map you'll see the minimum growth that the state is requiring of the city will kind of allow for that infill development and so that will speak to itself. We talked a lot with police and fire over the past year and a half about types of calls they were receiving, areas they were going for those calls. We looked at service maps and things like that and ways in which they could improve that area. So responding to things, so prevention and the built environment response. We talked a lot with general assistance and community development about those cases that they were seeing. And so that section in the implementation table was built around helping people get back on their feet and the resources connecting that with data was a big role for that department and to see that in the comp plan I would also say we talked a lot about arts and culture too and how arts and culture can bring people together so actually as I'm saying this I feel like safety is kind of woven into each of the sections transportation and when it comes to pedestrian safety so on thank you for that answer you touched on [28:46] Speaker G (unidentified): a few things I really wanted to hear thank you I just have a quick question about comments as well [28:52] Speaker I (unidentified): of the comments that you received were they generally consistent did people have consistent views on the topics or did you receive a lot of contradictory feedback that was challenging to [29:02] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: sort through that's a really good question I'll have to think about that for a moment I'm thinking back to when the conflict committee was taking all this feedback and doing their vision statement workshopping and then their goal workshopping. I feel like, again, it was very heavy leaning into natural resource protection as well as the safety and the pedestrian experience. There weren't as many outliers, but I'll have to go back in our data and see. But it was not a, for the vision statement, I don't remember it being like we were stuck in a point where it's this way or this way. It was very much trending in one direction, or multiple, I guess, multiple same directions. Yeah. [29:54] Speaker E (unidentified): Bob? I guess what would be helpful to me going through this is where is the play of all these topics, you know, where do we have the most influence or where are the areas that we should focus on? certainly land use in which we've already started to do but in all of these areas we as a board and with whatever tools that we have to work with can have some effect so I guess as we go through this it would be helpful to me highlight even outside just the land use areas that we influence through codes or [30:46] Carl Brown, Planning Director: whatever yeah I would I would bring up you know obviously the land use sections but the goals policy action sections is going to be the next most important when it comes to you all's work in the present and in the future and one of those reasons is that it has specific actions that's supposed to actually meet the goals and so it's really now reviewing these sections and making sure that they are there they meet the point they met the prompt basically and so that 's actually kind of the next section we're going to, so that's it. [31:26] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: That's a great segue. Yeah, I think we can move to the goals, policies, objectives, and actions. I have said that string of words so many times in the past it's [31:39] Committee chair/presiding officer: like ingrained in my brain. Before you do in all of this outreach, was there, was there ever a meeting directed toward those who are have been coming forward in the last few years with development proposals in the city of Auburn to find out, because you know, let's face it, there's only a handful of people that do this sort of thing? Was there any effort made to reach out to the stakeholders, so to speak, from the development side and get their opinions on things? [32:13] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Yeah, so we had a few people in that realm of real estate and development come to our open houses. We had a built environment open house last summer that was tailored to development and the built environment. It was at that time when the state regulations were kind of working their way themselves out. And so there was some interest to understand what those would mean for future development in Auburn and where our growth areas would be. That was a bit early in the process for us because it was the summer before we started future land use mapping. And there was kind of more questions than comments about how Auburn was going to handle those regulations and when we would adopt those. In terms of feedback, I think we didn't, I'll have to go back into my notes some specific feedback from the built environment open house, but really it was a lot of questions about how we were going to integrate the state regulations into our future land use map and just [33:08] Carl Brown, Planning Director: That just independently, while we're going through current planning and development applications, we're seeing those individuals and those parties that you're talking about, and we always let them know, hey, we're currently doing a comprehensive plan. If you're seeing anything, could you make a comment? Could you make a comment and read it? Most of the times they're like, sure, yes, absolutely, and then you don't hear from them. But other times we actually have, and it actually has resulted in people coming to the meetings and actually requesting x, y, and z, or for the future land use map. The majority has been very specific on what project they're working on at that time, but even though we're asking for more general questions, but we welcome, we welcome to all the comments, and we've actually shown, we've actually seen a couple of those developers come and make comments directly to the [34:04] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: committee. Yeah, you'll see some of those in our open, our public hearing. Thank you. Can [34:12] Kathy Shaw, Valley View Farm (public commenter): I make a statement? Kathy Shaw, Valley View Farm in Auburn. I appreciate the fact the vision statement that the second, the second sentence refers to the abundant and healthy farms. Is there any way that a little bit of wordage could be added to place a strong importance on those in our comprehensive plan, or that may well be addressed in another section that I've not yet gotten to? What would you have in mind? The word commitment, preservation. I think over the past years it's been demonstrated by our residents time and time again that these are very important areas that they do not wish to see development in, and I'd like to have that emphasized in some way. And if it's done in another section of this plan, then that's okay, but getting into it preliminarily, I've not seen strong wordage, and I understand this is a plan, but I think as you folks know, words matter. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Kathy, in your review, I would look to the goal [35:33] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: page under natural environment that talks about preserving and enhancing the natural environment, agricultural tradition, and that might be another section, but if there are other specific sections that you'd want clear language, that would be, could be a recommendation if the board approves for council. Okay. [36:03] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Are there any other general comments before we get to the next section? Hearing none, so [36:20] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I think what we can do here, there are sections that, as we mentioned, and relate to the planning board's role very directly more than others, but as you're reviewing applications in the future, you'll want to look to all of these sections to see if it aligns with at least the goal statement of that [36:38] Carl Brown, Planning Director: section. It's a quick clarification when we're looking at amending thank you ordinances, not on independent applications, we're looking for you to [36:50] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: cool. I gotta come to more of these meetings, I think. Okay, thank you, getting excited. So I'll just move through, I talked about this in the presentation, this section and I think future land use is a great one to start off with, it relates to your work arguably the most, and so I'll just pause on this. The way this is structured is that you'll have the goal statement and then you'll have the policies and objectives and then further down into the plan is where you get into the weeds of the action steps and so I'll just pause here for now just so we can talk about the policies and objectives and your thoughts. We are on page 79 on the PDF, yeah, oh and the document, it's lined up and you'll see an at a risk in some places and that indicates the state requirement, so the state requires us to include language in this section of the plan or else it would not get approved. Luckily Auburn already has done or is doing all of the state requirements so that wasn't, we had the things before we even realized it [38:07] Speaker G (unidentified): was a state requirement. The language is a state requirement or the theme is a [38:13] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: state, the theme, yeah, and so actually we and are kind of working through the structure of this and the wording of this, we started with the different goals and policies and then we looked at the state list and we took that wording and we kind of modified it to fit auburn while keeping the premise so [38:52] Committee chair/presiding officer: we're looking into policies right now, is that the plan here? Yes, so this is the [38:58] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: policies and the associated objectives for the goal, the future land use goal, so [39:07] Committee chair/presiding officer: policy one, direct growth to the high growth area to encourage compact efficient and fiscally responsible development. Fiscally responsible development is that, is that with the government in mind or is that with the [39:27] Speaker H (unidentified): developers of projects in mind? This is government role, so what the city of all [39:34] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: of these actions and associated objectives are what the city will be doing or the city, for the city, so [39:49] Carl Brown, Planning Director: directly this is fiscally responsible development for the city and I get your dress but it's development being [39:56] Committee chair/presiding officer: undertaken by private parties correct it can be yes right well is the city got any plans for any fiscally responsible developments well we're creating a new police department [40:09] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I think here the policy is that the city is directing growth to our high growth area so that development we see is compact efficient and fiscally responsible as it pertains to [40:21] Carl Brown, Planning Director: tax implications as well correct and so in the instance I'm joking around but in seriously when you have your emergency services in your high growth area you want to make sure that those response times you're directing most of your growth to your growth area so you [40:35] Committee chair/presiding officer: can have lower response times for those agencies but didn't we isn't the new public safety complex where the old public safety complex was geographically [40:46] Carl Brown, Planning Director: in the center of the city it is and we'll also be looking at those type of things and making sure that they 're staffed and we have the infrastructure available to make sure that we're responding and again this is their plan going forward would [41:08] Speaker G (unidentified): it make sense to continue that sentence a little bit and say fiscally responsible development for the municipality that gives the clarity that Ed brings up [41:32] Speaker E (unidentified): sustainability is utilized in many different ways so there is a sustainability committee which represents certain segments it all comes down really to sustainability of the city as a whole so that what we're doing is trying to have development that we can sustain over time so it has to be for the city economically beneficial so that we all can maintain the city in some good fashion absolutely [42:21] Carl Brown, Planning Director: so would your recommendation be to add sustainability into I think [42:29] Speaker E (unidentified): we probably appears in this document yeah I think it's should be recognized that sustainability for certain elements the community but overall the city has to sustain itself with you know proper development in whatever way we define that a lot of it is recognizing you know the costs of certain developments that might be born have to be born by the city and I think it you know I think it does affect a lot when we consider you know we love parks we like pathways but over time they need to be maintained so I think we have to recognize that we can't do everything. So we have to be wise in what we do, and a project might look good initially, but what are the long-term costs of it? Absolutely. [43:54] Carl Brown, Planning Director: What's the comfort level? Are we out of five? Are we in general comfortable with this section, with maybe slight changes that we're requesting or maybe be requesting at the next meeting? Or is it more of questioning a three or two? I just want to get that. [44:18] Committee chair/presiding officer: I do have a question, I guess. What does it mean to direct growth to the high growth area? Does it mean to discourage it everywhere else? Or does it mean specifically you're going to direct it to the high growth areas as shown on your comprehensive plan maps, future land use maps? And if so, what are we going to do to direct it? [44:40] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So that actually comes with the actions. But directly, it's both incentives and disincentives. So you want to disincentive growth outside of the high growth areas and you want to instant incentivize growth in the high growth areas. And you do so through regulations and in other practices. [45:00] Committee chair/presiding officer: So in the low growth area, how do we? [45:05] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Disincentivize growth. So I can, I can only give examples. There's a million different ways that you can do that. You can have provisions that do not extend public water and sewer into the low growth area. You can provide provisions that restrict the amount of density in low-growth areas. So those are two examples of how you can disincentivize growth in those areas and lead growth into the other areas. [45:32] Committee chair/presiding officer: I'm not a big fan of disincentivizing that growth. I appreciate the rural characteristics of some of our areas. I don't think having, if we're going to make the density greater in the high density areas, why aren't we making it greater also in the low density areas as opposed to penalizing those who may not want to hold on to their land just for the sake of the bucolic nature of having it for everybody else's benefit. So why can't we also reduce the minimum lot size and road frontages in our rural areas, our low growth areas? I don't see that as incentivizing growth because you're not, you still don't have [46:22] Carl Brown, Planning Director: utilities out there. You don't have utilities and there's this, it's a much [46:29] Committee chair/presiding officer: much bigger conversation, but isn't it a conversation that is being shaped by what is in [46:36] Carl Brown, Planning Director: this plan what isn't in this plan yeah it is and from a state's point of view the state has policies that they want to incentivize growth into the high growth areas and they've made laws towards that end and they've also made regulations that kind of disincentivize you know within the low growth areas providing more protection in those low growth areas then it would be in the high growth I can speak from a planners point of view where you want to have the benefit of services in high growth areas and to make sure that most of your improvements and developments are in those areas, simply because it's not simply because, but one of the reasons is because it is more expensive to have growth everywhere than to actually direct it somewhere, so you can direct your services and you can direct your support of those. I believe in this document and in many of the comprehensive plans in state law, most of your expenditures have to be in your high growth area, and so because most of your expenditures have to be in your high growth area, want to direct growth to those areas so you can provide those services. So just from a practical point of view, if you're growing at the same rate everywhere, but you can only preside, provide 75 of your expenditures in the high growth area, then you have a discrepancy, but between how are you going to provide services to those people that you're incentivizing outside of the growth area? So that's just one of the examples of just planning theory and actually where the state is headed in their policies, and it's [48:29] Committee chair/presiding officer: subjective. I don't think you're disincentivizing by having, by reducing our current road frontage requirements or our current acreage requirement in the outlying areas. If people want to live there, they're going to live there, and if they don't, they don't. All you're doing is hurting the landowner. That's my opinion. [49:12] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So this would be an example of a topic that's been brought up, right? Staff will then take that topic back with us, and during the next meeting, we'll have categories of these are the topics like you've all brought up, and you would have a discussion of do you agree? Do you want this to be a recommendation? And then you can, you can go forward as a body that way. Are there any other comments or questions on the first land use section? [49:44] Speaker I (unidentified): I was going to say I appreciate the like the overview of the policies and then how you tie in community feedback to each one, and then that you go into more depth for each policy. [49:55] Speaker D (unidentified): Which I think addresses some of the things that have come up tonight. Absolutely if [50:08] Carl Brown, Planning Director: that's okay we can move on to. I want to move on to community is our next one. I'll [50:16] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: explain how this section is broken up a bit. So our first policy talks about lifelong learning opportunities. So the committee discussed you know learning is not just pertinent to when you're k through 12. It happens before and after throughout your whole life. We also talked about services support access to services that meet the needs of the city's most highest need residents. Policy 3 talks to our fire and police least. Policy four talks about our community identity and sense of place. So that's where you'll see arts and culture historic preservation and then policy five looks at municipal services ensuring that they're administered efficiently and effectively for the community. I'm [51:05] Speaker G (unidentified): curious how the comprehensive plan maintains the school graduation rate that [51:12] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: is a great question. We had a lot of conversations about this and I'm actually going to go to that section in the implementation table so you can see our action steps. So I had a conversation with those in our school department about how they incorporate this metric and goal into their own planning for the school department and so you'll see in this action table here that there's different avenues that the school department takes in order to ensure that graduation rate and so there's conversation about diploma pathways, classroom-based consistent staff support, coordinated transitions between middle school and high school, and so on. So this dovetails. A lot of the work for this comprehensive plan, and you'll hear this a lot in planning conversations, is we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. And so a big lift for this over the past few months has been meeting with those that will be using this plan and integrating it with their work and making sure that they're dovetailing and so when you see some of these really like particular detailed sections those were from conversations that we had with the different departments and the directors and staff. There's also I'll mention a balancing act. The comp plan is broad it's trying to do a lot it's trying to be broad and leave space for change while also being specific enough that we can do something with it. So you'll again, you'll see in some instances we were very direct and clear what we wanted to do with action items, and other instances it left room for us to explore and gather more data and so on if we didn't have the answers at our fingertips. So it's doing that balancing act between being broad and visionary and open to change while also being [53:32] Speaker G (unidentified): specific enough for staff to use. I'm looking at C 11.3 specifically, maintain, to make those things happen. Those sound more like school board things than planning board things, and I'm still at a loss with how a comp plan can do that. [54:06] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So the comp plan is not just for the school board, but it's also for the planning board. It's the plan for the entire city, for basically all the departments, as you [54:16] Speaker G (unidentified): as you will know. I can appreciate that, but there's still, you're giving me a problem without a clear answer. It's when I saw that, I was like, that just looks like word salad to me, Tim. [54:35] Speaker K (unidentified): Is your question on this more of like how we're going to do this in terms of the wording where it says [54:42] Speaker G (unidentified): maintain, how does the comprehensive plan in practicality impact or achieve any of those goals? So [54:54] Carl Brown, Planning Director: so for this one, the action, I'm just gonna use this as an example because we're staying on this one, right? So the goal, right, is to maintain 95% graduation rate, and in order to do that, the school department and the comprehensive planning committee has settled on a policy of supporting access to lifelong learning opportunities. And so the independent action is going to, okay, so how do we support access to lifelong learning opportunities? So maintaining, basically, you know, not only when you're in school itself, but making sure that before you're going to that portion of school, after you're going to that portion of school, that we're still, as a community, we have your interest, your educational interests in mind. And so for that end, the maintain support and coordinated transition between middle school and high school, just how I read it, is that they want to maintain that connection when a student is moving from the middle school and entering high school, to make sure that not, they're not basically Left out or forgotten, or that they're there, it's transitioning that person, that student is accounted for and encouraged to go through to the high school. And so for that, one of the performance metrics has been, you know, to annually meet between the middle school and high school to make sure that they're updating each other on, hey, these are the students that are coming through, and to make sure that they're, they're accounted for basically. So my wife's a teacher, and yep, and so as those in the education field know, when you're going through high school or middle school or elementary school, students are accountable, right? So there's, there's basically a database, and every student, when you're transferring schools, they are notified, the school is notified that the student is going there, or the student is unaccounted for. And then what happens is basically, then they start doing investigations of where is this student, to make sure that they are continuing to go on through the schools and everything like that. And so I think this is what this is getting at. The word's solid, I'm hearing you where you're talking about that, and you want it to be direct of saying this is exactly what we mean by that, so to be more specific. So I definitely hear you when you're saying that. Yeah, I'm a [57:36] Speaker G (unidentified): I'm a visual person, and I think there's more people out there like me too. Yeah, and being able to see something, a clear connection, yeah, it's helpful. [57:48] Speaker E (unidentified): At the same time, we have to be general as well, because that may not mean much to us with what's before us to actually make decisions upon, but it has real meaning I think when it comes to school administrators. And yes, this means a lot, because transitioning, particularly from you know junior high to high school, you do lose some students unless there's a smooth transition. So I think this has a real meaning to the school department and the administrators where it may not seem very relevant to us, so I think that this type of statement is still necessary, and [58:39] Carl Brown, Planning Director: I'm also gonna get at the direct point between Ed's point earlier and your point now, right? So there's going to be a balancing act, if we as a specificity and more general, that allows you, that allows you that flexibility to actually get actual action, because as we know, if we're going to be consistent with the comprehensive plan and we get more and more specific, that means that you have to do that thing that way exactly. So it's gonna be a balancing act for all of these sections. I'm not gonna pretend to be any type of expert when it comes to education in the school portion. This is a little bit out of my subject matter expertise, but I'm just trying to get the idea of what they meant when they've inputted these actions into the comprehensive plan. So [59:39] Speaker I (unidentified): this is, I'm sure, outside of the planning purview, but I think does speak to community, and I'm curious if any residents had any concerns about connectivity and the availability of certain internet services or cellular telecommunications, and if the city considered any type of digital equity initiatives in looking at the community and making enhancements to connectivity for residents and for businesses. Good [1:00:12] Carl Brown, Planning Director: question. I don't know off the top of my head, but we will be going through the sections and I'll highlight it when we [1:00:18] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: get there, and I'll just say we didn't directly, and so this is something that we can go back and look to whether it's adding in action or policy because [1:00:28] Speaker I (unidentified): that's very important. It is something that I bring up only because digital equity has been a big federal initiative for the last several years, but over the last couple of years those initiatives have been completely scrapped, and I think it's left a huge gap for both state and local governments and an opportunity for them to help their residents with [1:00:50] Carl Brown, Planning Director: certain digital equity initiatives. Absolutely, in just a few years ago, even in Maine, we had a huge push at the, at the state level for connectivity, for broadband access, and those type of things, so it's a great point to bring up. [1:01:04] Committee chair/presiding officer: So what is digital equity? [1:01:08] Speaker I (unidentified): I mean, it runs the gamut. You know, the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, cut the cord classes, having some sort of community support and training to help people understand what they can do with the internet as far as, you know, obtaining entertainment services for less, telehealth initiatives, you know, basic research, accessing news online. I think that there's a segment of the community that isn't necessarily familiar with those uses, and I know Auburn has a lot of access points of something that a lot of Communities don't have, but we do have a robust library system with available terminals for people to do research and even applying for jobs and searching for jobs online. So I think that's something. And then also maybe looking at ways that you can extend connectivity into MD use and some of the lower income areas. Is there a way to incentivize providers and full disclosure, I work for internet service provider, but is there a way, you know, help bring that to areas that aren't necessarily in and of themselves economically viable to serve, but is there a way to incentivize them? And it may not even be the more dense lower-income areas, but also some of the rural areas as well. Thank [1:02:44] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: you for that feedback. That's fantastic. We mentioned in objective six of community and the related actions very briefly digital literacy, digital safety and tech literacy, and so that's something that we can bring back to discussion on how do we maybe make that a more robust, whether it's a policy or objective or an action, and that could be for board and committee discussion. Are [1:03:24] Carl Brown, Planning Director: there any additional comments or questions on section we're at community, correct? We see policy, yeah, well there's five of them, so [1:04:08] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: here's one through three, and then four through five. If there aren't any other comments or questions, we can move to the next section. Okay. So our housing goal looks small, but it's mighty. So this, I'll just preface this, housing is a challenging thing to talk about when we're talking about solving the housing crisis. And so this policy section leans heavily on the city's housing goals that were informed by the Auburn Housing Needs Assessment that was conducted last year. It also looks towards, and that's a state requirement, the regulatory structure to create a predictable, development-ready environment. So that speaks to our developers and real estate people that we've heard from. And then also talks about eliminating chronic homelessness, rehousing individuals who become unhoused within 90 days and prevent those who are susceptible and aren't safe due to violence from becoming unhoused. Especially with Objective 3, that involved a lot of conversations with the Ad Hoc Committee on Homelessness, as well as other conversations in the community, especially with our drop-in center. [1:05:48] Committee chair/presiding officer: What were the city's housing goals in this Auburn housing needs assessment? [1:05:54] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: One from the top of my head, it's the goal is to create 1300 units by 2030, and there's a following report that breaks down the type of housing for each within that 1300, the type of housing and the amount you would need for each type. I'm not aware of that number on top of my head. Yeah, just to give [1:06:15] Carl Brown, Planning Director: additional information in that needs assessment, just as a general, the most need is actually for one and two bedroom units into the city today, which was a surprise for me. But looking at the data, that's accurate. And it just comes from some of the things that we've spoken about before, where the housing stock right now is, it has, it's meeting the demand for three and four bedrooms through, because we have single family homes here. But the demand is really for the smaller units. And it's really about not only the younger generation coming up, and that it meets that younger need, but also the older need that people are wanting to rotate out of the single-family homes, but we don't have the stock for them to go anywhere and to stay into Auburn. And so we're basically we're getting hit on both sides for those units, and that's actually why in the data it comes out that the most need, we need, we need it all, but the most need, the most demand is for the one and two bedroom units right now and [1:07:29] Committee chair/presiding officer: do we know when this needs assessment was performed, what year? I don't have that number offhand. I'm sure you don't, but I'm just trying to get a sense of how far down the road we are. [1:07:57] Carl Brown, Planning Director: We are, we need to catch up. But there's a number that I can get for you. What's that? We are, we need to catch up. But there's a number that I can get for you. [1:08:05] Committee chair/presiding officer: I said, I don't have that number off hand, but I know that we're not close to the 1,300. Well, I'm sure we're not close to 1,300, but just maybe the board could be briefed periodically on the number of units that we've approved since a particular date and how many have actually gotten their permits and how many haven't come to fruition and why. [1:08:27] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Sure, absolutely. And some of that, basically that reporting is actually built in to the action items that we need to do for this comprehensive plan. It is regular reporting of how many units have been created and basically where they were created and some of the reasoning behind why. But that takes a little bit more analysis of, okay, why aren't these units, these units were permitted, but maybe these units weren't built, and that's going to take a little bit more analysis, but we do have regular Reporting built into the action items for this plan, and we're actually gearing up for implementation now. Even we're gearing up for reporting and implementation now. Our department can I [1:09:25] Speaker D (unidentified): make a comment, kind of an extension of Ed's desire to see the report say annually or every six months, twice a year. We get, we have a meeting where we can see an updated inventory of what's been built. I think maybe this has already been said, but it seems to me like that is exactly the point of this comprehensive plan. And at a meeting like that, we need to be, it needs to almost be a comprehensive plan meeting, because then we can say, we can refer to the comprehensive plan when we look at those numbers and where they are and why, if our comprehensive plan needs to be adjusted to improve the numbers. I guess I didn't really explain that super well, but it should be, the comprehensive plan should be included in a meeting like that, it seems to me, so we can, because it's a liquid document, so we can update it if we need to increase what's being built. [1:10:36] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Yeah, if we need to make changes, but your point of the comprehensive plan being used and be an active document one when we're getting you reports and actually where you're going through amendment process. That's what it's designed to do. This is literally what this document is designed to do. So we hear your expectations and we will live up to them, hopefully. [1:11:06] Speaker F (unidentified): Sorry, if the chair would entertain me. So I have one thing from community, one of the last parts of community. So Lauren, if you could go down to the action items [1:11:16] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: for community. Yes, one second. And [1:11:22] Speaker F (unidentified): I appreciated it because it was something that I had brought up with the feedback on the committee with this board in mind in particular. So if you go down to Jim or what policy it was, I think it's one of the last ones. Okay, I'll just say it's relating to like municipal boards. Oh yes, I think it might actually be the last one is [1:11:52] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: it the strength and the role of, yep. Is there an action you want? [1:11:55] Speaker F (unidentified): 5.2.2, that one right there. Okay. So, I think it would be worth considering. I mean, we go back to Ed's conversation about how specific we wanna be, how general should we leave wording and stuff like that. I think it would make sense for us to consider more specific language for this. And for that, my reasoning behind that is because, you know, part of my suggestion to the comp plan to include some of this language was also because of how kind of the CIP process went down this year. I mean, this is my first year on the board dealing with the comprehensive, the capital improvement project, and it just kind of was in one direction where the planning board didn't really give kind of recommendations to the city council. And so I'd like to see more specificity around that and more policies and procedures, whether that be from the administration, whether that be from the planning department about how that process should play out, you know? And so that's just my opinion on that. And I know I'm not the only one on this board that had frustrations about how that went down. So I'm just going to leave it at that. [1:13:09] Committee chair/presiding officer: And I think that frustration was a part borne out by scheduling issues because we were presented with the capital improvement plan as presented by the city manager very late in the process. There was really, they were about to adopt the budget when we first got a look at that. There was nothing for us to really, but there was no meaningful communication if it was ever intended to be meaningful communication. There wasn't an opportunity for it. And I'm not suggesting that was by design. I think it's just the way things happen. [1:13:49] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Yeah, absolutely, to your point. I think you all are getting up around the topic of establishing policies and procedures for structured feedback at regular intervals for these type of plans and documents. [1:14:05] Speaker F (unidentified): Exactly. That goes back to your point about having this be a public process of getting the public engagement, right? And so that's, I think that's a step that we shouldn't be able to miss and shouldn't, you know, miss that stuff. I'm [1:14:27] Speaker E (unidentified): looking at policy one objective two with respect to housing. I think this board's gonna have a hard time dealing with that objective. Strengthen the city's regulatory structure to create a predictable, development-ready environment and help ensure that land use controls encourage the development of quality housing for renters and owners. It says a lot, but in this environment of where we're trying to make it affordable, things that we've been talking about with these blocks and connectivity, making sure that we have maybe housing looking over a common path, then connecting to those, are all, you know, more regulatory requirements, which doesn't lend itself to encouraging some types of development, which might be less costly within the housing market. I just, you know, I don't have an answer for, I just say we're going to [1:15:56] Committee chair/presiding officer: struggle with that one of those that has a little asterisk next to which means the state is insisting that we well the state has passed the law that says that we have to do this but I don't think that means that we have to make it I don't see the words affordable in there anywhere it just means that we need to have something that's predictable and just beyond that I don't think it's anything more than having predictable standards that somebody ought to be able to look at and figure out whether they can comply and make the process that much smoother. Little things like right, title and interest and financial capacity, you know, trip up over the very basic things, but [1:16:41] Speaker E (unidentified): but somehow the language of land use, land use controls that encourage development. Usually controls, to me, it almost seems like it means there's a control that might lessen development. If you don't have any controls, development is free to go. So I get it. I just have a little trouble with, I understand and that's what we're all striving to do, but it's difficult to do to provide the housing that we seem to be looking for, but I always say it's going to be a difficult task. [1:17:27] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Yeah, I actually have some feedback on this. So this is in land use. This is in the planning purview. What this is getting at is that establishing clear thresholds and clear standards, and so what developers, instead of being subjective, their objective standards, and so your work will be on the front end of developing those standards and saying hey, this is very clear, this is how, this is what we're expecting, these are the type of things that you need in your application and your development, and these are the standards we're setting, so when you're getting in before a board or before development, those are things that you can have in your pro forma. You can already pencil out. And it not being more subjective in an instance where these things are going to drastically, raise costs because of subjective standard that you put into your development process. So the state is really pushing us more towards more objective and more objective design standards, if things that are going to fulfill your requirements of places that are safe and comfortable and predictable for people. And so they can do that design work first before they're getting in before your board. And so they understand what to expect. And for a lot of these things, even though it they're newer design standards to you all, some of these things actually do make development cheaper. And so you know one thing that I'll bring up is that one of the one of the provisions that we've been talking about is frontage on a public street, right. So allowing development to have frontage on a private street will make development more predictable and it can make development cheaper. To do the same thing about development being facing towards an open space. And if you don't require them to have frontage on a front road and just have access to a road, then they don't have to actually do that design work of making sure that every house has frontage on a road or a street. That actually decreases the amount of money that it takes to develop because your home or the house can be in a walking distance from where you're parking your car, and you actually can build more homes. So those type of things, even though it's a new design standard, doesn't mean that it's making it more expensive. To do these new design standards actually can make housing more affordable to develop and eventually more affordable to the end user. So those are the type of things that we have been discussing as a board and goes more towards what this is this is saying is that it's had your discussions and discussions that you've been having, have discussions in the creation of the provisions, not at the at the review stage. And so that's what that's getting. Okay, so we're still in housing. Are there any other comments or questions or about the housing section? I [1:21:01] Speaker G (unidentified): so a little bit of a rewind. 1,300 people within the next five years, units. Okay. 1,300 units. Okay. 1,300 units within the next five years. [Carl Brown: 1,600 people. Yeah.] Okay. And the comprehensive plan is about planning and looking ahead. Correct. Where's the new school going? [1:21:27] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So that doesn't say that they are all coming with school children? [1:21:31] Speaker G (unidentified): Well, let's be reasonable. Let's say even half of those. 650 kids. Where are they going? [1:21:39] Committee chair/presiding officer: Do we have an overcrowding problem right now? Yes. We do? [1:21:46] Speaker G (unidentified): I can't officially answer that, but I can by a parent in the school system, but the school board would be able to answer that. But my question is, if the comprehensive plan is about looking forward and planning, and we want 1,300 residences within the next five years, where's the new school? [1:22:04] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So what I'll respond to that is we can get you additional data from the information that's included in this comprehensive plan. We've actually seen a decrease in our school system, and so the additional housing actually works to address the decrease that we're seeing. Most of the new housing that's coming in, the people who are actually buying those homes and in those homes, most in part, they're not coming with children, and our population of children is actually decreasing. Our population in total is increasing, but the children at those age ranges have been stagnant or decreasing at this time. But I get your point. I do get your point. And as we see those numbers come in, we will have to adjust. And that's one of those things that this is a living document, right? We can't account for every variable. We can start seeing, okay, we need to check in. And this is actually one of the reasons why the comprehensive plan requires us to check in so recent, so often, and so we're seeing some type of increase or big increase in this short amount of time, because we're talking about 2030, that we can start to address that, right, because I just looking passively high. [1:23:26] Speaker G (unidentified): HIGH GROWTH ZONE, 1300 RESIDENCES IN FIVE YEARS. WHERE? AND PEOPLE ARE GOING TO ASK THAT QUESTION. NOT JUST ME AS A MEMBER OF THE BOARD, PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY ARE GOING TO ASK THAT QUESTION. WHEN THEY LEARN, OKAY, THESE ARE THE HIGH GROWTH AREAS, 1300 RESIDENCES IN FIVE YEARS, OH, MY GOSH. AND THESE QUESTIONS ARE GOING TO BE ASKED. And that's why I'm asking it to see if we have anything we're looking at down the pipe. [1:24:00] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Yeah. We don't have individual projects that we have in mind, but one of the things that they've done to this comprehensive plan is indicate those high-density cores where we're talking about the mall area, right, and redevelopment of that entire area. We are talking about downtown, where we already have our farm-based code districts, already have unlimited basically density, and we have our state standards that we have to change in the growth area that have access to water and sewer. And so we are going to see infill development throughout the high growth area, and one area in particular that, you know, staff is looking at directly is Center Street. Right now the maximum density is 17 units an acre. It's going up to basically in during your discussions hired in that to the state requirements, which will allow a lot more development to quote-unquote pencil. And so there has been interest in these areas, and so we can start to, staff will start to see these trends start to occur, and then we can start to basically address it internally and with our public boards to go, okay, now we're seeing these type of growth in these and these areas, and so now we need to start planning for x, y, and z. So to your point, you know, if we're starting to see not only the population come in but then an increase of children come in we need to see at what age ranges and then i'm working with our school departments to start to come up with a plan to address that it's it's one of those things that you know it's an it's a known unknown right and so we know that we do not know what is coming but we because we're we're creating a structure that 's a feedback my feedback mechanism that's what's important to have the structure so we can start to address that when it comes. I feel like I'm on a hot seat [1:26:10] Committee chair/presiding officer: that's what's supposed to happen. Yeah,, absolutely. Absolutely. Sam, how you doing? Yeah. [1:26:16] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Okay. So any other questions in this section? So I think at our last meeting I [1:26:22] Committee chair/presiding officer: asked if you would inquire the assessing department. I'm not expecting that you have an answer yet, but I don't, I want to make sure that we understand the questions out there. We've got single-family detached dwellings or condos or anything that is individually owned, and I want to know what the difference in the tax revenue implications is for that type of development, just to indirectly to Tim's question, whether we have room in our school system or not for additional kids. Each child cost some amount of money to educate, and I'd like to know that what the tax dollars generated by units in an apartment complex are compared to tax dollars for individual family housing. [1:27:13] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Yeah, absolutely. It's one of our action items that we have for staff, and we're working on it. I can't not guarantee an answer back before we have to have an answer for this. But some of the metrics are value per acre, right? Right. And that's that's some of the things that we'll be bringing to you all's attention, both at this board level and at the city council. And single family homes do take up more space or can take more space than multifamily homes. And so there's going to be an evaluation basically on this is the tax per acre that this type of development brings in versus the tax per acre that multifamily and then also the cost, right? Cost of services per each type. And then you can do that calculation. We'll be doing those calculations of, you know, this is the net value acreage per this development type. And that's going to change basically based on spatial location, right? And that's some of the things that we've talked about before. If you're here in the city center, that's going to be a different costs and different revenues versus then if you were out in the AG RP AG and resource protection area because you don't have city services out there, right, but you do have other costs that 's going to factor into it. So that's why it's it's a it's a more robust analysis that we're doing so we can get those numbers to you all. It's going to take us some time, but we are working on that as it is a part of our work. Are we ready for the next section? Okay, so moving on from the housing section. Okay, [1:29:15] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: next is our economy section, also small, also mighty. Something that you'll note and also isn't here, I believe somewhere, is that one of our goals and actions following this comprehensive plan is to do a strategic economic development plan. And so in the timing that we had for the comprehensive plan, the time restraint to do a comprehensive strategic economic plan, and so that will be forthcoming, hence why this section is a little bit smaller. But you'll see in the particularly objective to my earlier point was talking about those workforce work force constraints and addressing those and looking at Auburn as a regional service center, regional economic center for surrounding areas, and then building upon the work and objective one that the city has been doing to date is [1:30:24] Committee chair/presiding officer: There any information in this re... is there any information in this report or conference plan, or did you have resources that gave you a sense of whether the number of jobs available within the city of Auburn has increased or decreased over [1:30:41] Speaker H (unidentified): the last 10 or 25 years? I believe that data is in our inventory analysis which [1:30:50] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: is in this report support. Yes, it's the version with the appendices. Yeah, all [1:30:58] Committee chair/presiding officer: the way. I know what the appendices are. [1:31:02] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, the one I have in front of me doesn't have it. 's page 480. Yep, so that's [1:31:12] Carl Brown, Planning Director: all you've got on the economy. Yes, it is a plan to make a plan. This is, this is one of those ones that it's going to take a little bit more time, especially when we talk about economic development. So it involves not only services to the people who live here, but because we're a super regional service center, this is something that is going to affect the region as well. To give you an idea, we have over 2 million GLA, gross leasable area, and at that rate, you're servicing an area of residents of 200,000 people. Now, our population is 25,000 people. And so that's going to be a mix of different services, personal services, retail services, and jobs for the entire area. And so that's something that we wanted to take a little bit more time to do to make sure that we're getting it right. And especially when we're talking about employment and jobs for the people who live here, to make sure that those jobs are adequate for people to be comfortable and in order to afford to live here. So it's a little bit more complex and we wanted to give it the time that it deserves. And so that's why it's a plan to make a plan. What is gross leasable area? Sure, absolutely. So when you're measuring a structure you have the Space within the structure. However gross leasable area directly refers to the amount of space in that structure that you can lease [1:32:49] Committee chair/presiding officer: And so for instance the mall so we're talking commercial space excluding residential spaces correct yes yeah so that 's what i thought you meant so but we're a regional economy so you say that we have enough gross leaseable area to support a population of a couple hundred thousand but we only have 24 or 5 000 people in auburn but we do provide the basis for a regional economy, right? I mean, we have a Lowe's and a Home Depot. They don't have one across the river, right? Yes, correct. So what is our service area, and how many 100,000 people does that include? [1:33:33] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So just from a layman's term, you're gonna be broaching over 200,000 people. Spatially, I would have to get back to you because it's a part of the analysis that you would do with an economic development plan. And I don't wanna speak out of turn. We have an economic development department that I would allow them to speak on their behalf. And so they can bring up the numbers themselves and they can specify this is our area. And you're gonna have different ones. So you're gonna have a retail area that has a certain amount of demand, a special demand. You're gonna have a manufacturing area that's gonna have a completely different spatial organization for not only employment to give you an idea for employment you can basically catch on 45 minutes travel time in below after that it's depending on the job type of what people will go to for instance if you're making 16 to 17 to 20 dollars an hour you're not going to go above 45 minutes of travel time if you're making more than that then you may go a little bit out of that and so that's that's about the information that would be included in an economic development plan for the city to ensure that the sectors that are predominant in the city are the same ones that we want to target for our future economic development what else goes into that is actually employment right so in the actual housing study it actually shows that there is we can't meet the demand for labor as it comes to retail it just there's open jobs everywhere but you know adequacy of those jobs to meet the cost of housing so those will that information will also go into an economic development plan of going okay does our does our employment reach you know meet our needs as a city of the residents are here so there's a little bit of information to give you as ahead of time but i'm going to wait until we have this economic development plan to give you a little bit more information because it's going to it's going to flow directly into our work as a planning board and what areas should certain uses be allowed or should we be encouraging through different thresholds of [1:35:56] Speaker G (unidentified): Approvals of things like that, thank you. I like what you just said to Carlo. You brought up a very valid point that entry-level fast-food jobs should not necessarily be seen as a win when it comes to employment. Auburn's in desperate need of higher paying, higher level employers, and I know you cannot speak for that department, but I thought just air it out. I hope we don't see a fast food entry-level job as a win for our economy any [1:36:36] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Other comments or questions about the economy section? Small but mighty, okay. [1:36:50] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: We're moving, we go transportation, the opposite, large also mighty. So I'll talk a little bit again about the structure of this because it can be a little bit confusing on first glance. So the way that the committee decided to parse this out, well as policy one focuses on intercity and intercity public transportation, policy two looks at active transportation. Policy three looks at the city's road network. Policy four looks at regional freight logistics and industrial center, which is like the airport and the intermodal facility. And so that's how the policies are different from one another. But again, they connect to each other. [1:37:47] Speaker D (unidentified): Chelsea? I have a comment. I don't even know if this is a planning board matter, but it is mentioned in policy two about the e-bike and e-scooter situation, which to me is like completely maniacal. And so like in real life when you're driving or walking or anything, they're just zipping around. So it just got me thinking in general, and again, I don't know whose job it is, but it'd be nice to see something somewhere where we develop, you know, an electronic bike and electronic scooter general policy on how, because that's growing rapidly, and it's young kids, which really scares me, and into adults. Everybody's using these things. They're everywhere and it's it's growing rapidly that e-scooter culture. So I'd really like to see That addressed somewhere and Also, generally I was driving around the other day thinking about this and noticing and maybe it was my imagination but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of bike lanes in this city and that might need to be part of this as well because Throughout the comprehensive plan, there's a lot of discussion everywhere about pedestrians, bicycles, e-bikes. And so I think you have to, maybe this is a Chapter 46 situation, but I think there needs to be thought put into long-term integrating bike lanes and bicycling and e-biking policies. Across the board. That's all [1:39:51] Carl Brown, Planning Director: And absolutely, we are all responsible for the development city, and to your point, they are the city is developing, starting to develop policies for e-bikes even today. [1:40:07] Speaker K (unidentified): Chelsea, I want to say this is an excellent point you bring up. I don't want to diverge too much, but the town of Yarmouth actually recently drafted in an active transportation plan, and they highlight the micro mobility and e-bikes and scooters and safety needs of that, and they also discuss different levels and comfort of cyclists. And so Auburn, we don't currently have standards for bike shoulders, and that relates to chapter 46 of what we discussed at the last meeting, and so the plan highlights, did a survey, and they found that a lot of people were not comfortable biking in the road if they wanted to bike at all. And so it highlighted the need to have that built infrastructure, the separated bike facilities and bike paths. So I think it's an excellent point, and I think something that this plan could look into as [1:41:10] Speaker D (unidentified): well. Thank you for that. And I just want to amend what I said. I don't want it to be construed that I'm anti bike or anti, because I'm not. I'm very much pro bike, pro e bike, I love them. I just want to see it integrated safely into the community. That I want to make that very clear, I'm not anti. In fact, I am one of the cyclists that would love to ride on the road, and I absolutely do not, I don't ride on the roads, because I am terrified. I ride in my living room on Zwift, on my road bike. So I appreciate that, and I'm sure it's being worked on. This is a big one for me, personally. [1:42:01] Speaker F (unidentified): I'm glad you brought that up, Chelsea, because that's also one of my frustrations in the city, is having infrastructure. I mean, there is infrastructure in place, but I'm not going to say that there isn't. I mean, I live in the neighborhood of Edward Little High School, the new high school they built, and it's infrastructure all around the new campus, but the minute you leave the campus, it's just two, you know, two way to two lane traffic, you know, so it's definitely a big need for that, as well as sidewalks and maintenance of those infrastructure. But if I could go to down to the action section again, Lawrence, I'm I'm swinging you all over the place, down to T 2.1.11 is [1:42:55] Speaker H (unidentified): it this one, yeah, so I [1:42:57] Speaker F (unidentified): Think that is a fantastic section because, you know, given some of the projects that we've had in front of the board that hasn't been, I think this is key when it comes to connecting different parts of the active transportation network from between sites and into the public sphere, you know. And so I think the language on that is exceptional, and so I could just, you know, that's one of [1:43:25] Carl Brown, Planning Director: the good points I'd like to bring out. Yeah, oh, so I was just going to say this is actually one of the, this is one of the sections that you all started to discuss last meeting, right? And the difference between cost to the developer and then end cost to the user, where if you want these new designs, we'll have to make regulations to create them. And so you don't get out of that. And on the other side is that if you provide additional units in a network that actually that connects, it decreases the amount of cost that the person who's living in the home actually has to has to pay for. I know, you know, we're young idealistic people were like, okay, if I didn't have to have a car, then maybe we wouldn't have a car. That's not realistic. I have a kid, you always, you'd have to have a car, but maybe you only need one instead of two, or maybe you only need two instead of three, you know, because to meet your needs because you have the services nearby. And so that's the kind of thought behind that is that no, we're not going to a situation where we're, we're in Maine, you need a car, it's just, it's just a fact. However, we're looking towards a time that maybe you don't need a car that much, right? Maybe we can decrease the dependence on the vehicles in a certain area. We're not talking about the agricultural area and the rural area. We are talking about improving the network as a whole. And maybe when we are starting to increase the connectivity in the rural areas, we are talking about maybe speed designs, right? You know, like, okay, well, maybe we would feel a little bit more comfortable in certain areas of the rural area if we designed our streets a little bit differently. More separation between paths that we are building and the actual travel road or something like that. You know, let people go 50 miles per hour on the road, and if you have a separated path that people can bike on, people would feel comfortable on it. But that also requires investment and it requires a dedication to changing your design requirements is unless you ask for it. You just will not get it and [1:46:06] Speaker F (unidentified): One final point, you could scroll up to the complete streets policy. Yeah, right there, T point 1.9. So it's my understanding that the city moved from the complete streets committee to a new parking and traffic safety committee. With that, I know the language in the actual ordinance for the complete streets committee was part of the thing that I had mentioned earlier about, I'm losing it right now, oh, any project that has, you know, 100 peak trips that applies for a traffic movement permit has to meet with the committee. Is there language like that, similar to that, for the parking and traffic safety committee, or is there, I mean, that's just a [1:46:57] Carl Brown, Planning Director: question in general. I'll look into that. I know that our ordinances, we are looking at our ordinances, and we specifically, staff was looking at those exact sections, and we are going to need to update those sections of ordinances, but that's something that I don't have an answer for you tonight, but we can definitely look into with [1:47:22] Committee chair/presiding officer: respect to policy number three, provide maintaining improved city, the city's road network. Is there, is there a discussion anywhere about Washington at Washington Street and the plan that's underway there and the section of Minded Avenue that bisects the city, and are there any things in this proposed conference, it's a plan to just reduce the speed in this community, because I'm [1:47:55] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: trying to find, there is an action item that speaks to those transportation studies, I think [1:48:01] Speaker F (unidentified): it's three point three point four. Thank you, ah, there we go, [1:48:07] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: oops, just underlined it though, and we're also an active discussion, those projects are ongoing right now. Yeah, [1:48:18] Carl Brown, Planning Director: but to your direct point about reducing speeds, we do not have specific language in there, so if that's something that you specifically you would like to include into these major arterial ways within the center of the city, that's something that we can definitely look at as adding as a recommendation. Well, I [1:48:42] Committee chair/presiding officer: don't know what people were thinking back in the 60s when they built Washington Street north and south, but that and the continuation through the heart of the city and the Union Street bypass basically divides this city with just a constant stream of traffic that is moving just as fast as it possibly can, and it's a detriment, I think, to the city, all the way from the interstate exit to the Turner town line. So if there's anything that we can do to slow that traffic down, and that includes the Longley Bridge coming across from Lewiston as well. I mean, it's a thing that there should be a lot of planning around that and I don't think we're going to be able to do anything with the Minor Avenue section of town that we've had a special meeting about recently without affecting the traffic there too, slowing it down, that's [1:49:59] Carl Brown, Planning Director: That's something definitely we can look to add to the plan and just to the MDOT's point of view, their emphasis, which they have directly told me, it's not on speed but safety. And so I don't, I don't know if that would be clashing with their stated priorities. Okay. [1:50:30] Speaker E (unidentified): Any other income? No, actually just it was the first time on Washington Street that the lights were actually working at it was an old Danville, old Road or Corner Road that certainly has slowed down traffic, so glad to see that. I think even with the blinker and with the additional lighting to get the speed down to 45 over the last couple of months, that's working. And the light I had to stop and, but so I think we, a lot of people don't like lights, but it does slow down traffic if they are not synchronized too well. Does the city have [1:51:18] Speaker I (unidentified): any ability to influence the speed limit on state roads? So we do have the [1:51:24] Carl Brown, Planning Director: ability to communicate with MD OT and request for improvements of those roads but mdot does not change the speed of road without any type of physical changes because just changing the number doesn't change behavior it's actually on design speed some things that we've talked about before and so they do look at design improvements of the roads in order to slow down the actual movement of vehicles and then as a reaction to that they also then go through analysis of okay what is the actual speed should be while we're changing the design of these roads? Yeah, so we do have some impact on that decision process. They are state roads, so they do have the final say. However, we do get a voice. I [1:52:21] Committee chair/presiding officer: assume that they're actively involved in whatever planning we're doing for the washington street makeover our office has make I think we've made comments. And we are involved in that process. Yes, well, but it is our process to change. Washington Street to a two Washington Street north to two ways and we'll have cross streets and villages going to pop up and all that great stuff. But if the D. O. T. is going to let traffic flow through there like it does now, that's all. [1:52:58] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So they're, they're sitting all seriousness. They are a partner in this process. And they do take our feedback very seriously. And they are they're directly involved and the city is directly involved in the planning of any type of improvements of Washington Street. For further information of how the transportation plans go your first stage is a plan. So basically a transportation plan and then you go to engineering which is a completely different section. And then the construction and in end of engineering and construction is a three-step process that has to do with funding. And so for any of those streets basically, we're at the first stage of We're starting to plan and those things do shift over time as well through due to city comments through public comments and those things as well. They do have a public comment process and a public hearing process that they invite the public to be a part of as well yeah [1:54:10] Speaker F (unidentified): I'm not sure where it is in the plan or in the action items but is there mention of like maintenance of sidewalks that [1:54:20] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: type of thing yes and i'm going to try to find it for you and while she's finding it yeah it's [1:54:29] Carl Brown, Planning Director: it's a really big deal for planning staff is a maintenance of our current infrastructure and quality of our current infrastructure that's that's one of our priorities. It's it we want to make sure that it's the things that we have are usable and actually user friendly and to maintain our level of service. It's one of the our biggest priorities [1:54:56] Speaker F (unidentified): for sure does this mean what you are talking about i was also implying like during the winter months right i mean that's when most of our seasons are and so how are we going to i mean a sidewalk is only as good if it's walkable you know what i mean and so yeah if there is procedures in place to prioritize that, whether that's upping staffing at Public Works for a certain period of time or recruiting during those months before the winter to make sure that those jobs are available. I mean, is there any sort of push from administrative, administratively to make those changes? [1:55:36] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Would you like to add a recommendation or a topic or recommendation of maintenance of pedestrian infrastructure during the winter? [1:55:44] Speaker F (unidentified): Yes, I'd like to see language around that. [1:55:47] Speaker G (unidentified): Okay brought up a great point with the sidewalks. This question is a personal question, but it pertains Vegetation overgrowth on the sidewalks. Is that the purview of the municipality or the property owner whose vegetation is growing over? [1:56:03] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Let me get back to you on that because it's different. It's different from every municipality. You can make laws that makes it the purview of the property owner. So I'll have to return I answer because believe it or not, I do go for walks [1:56:15] Speaker G (unidentified): and only in the summer but there are places in Auburn where it's almost impossible due to overgrowth and some of the bushes are thorns for goodness sakes. Yeah, it's like let's maintain this stuff. Great question. Any [1:56:34] Carl Brown, Planning Director: other initial comments? [1:56:43] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: So our next section is the natural environment and I will walk through the policy, oops, the policy structure here. So policy one looks at the water quality and health of all Auburn's water bodies and to meet or exceed state designated water quality standards. Policy two looks at the protection of natural resources like wetlands, vernal pools, threatened and injured species habitat blocks in open space. Policy three is in regards to Auburn's agricultural lands and forests and policy four looks at climate resiliency concerns and impacts of climate change. I [1:58:01] Kathy Shaw, Valley View Farm (public commenter): appreciate the efforts, I appreciate the efforts and the wording and a lot of this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you Kathy. I'm [1:58:26] Committee chair/presiding officer: going to skip around a little bit here. Policy 3 mentions city-owned woodlots. How many city-owned woodlots are there? [1:58:34] Speaker H (unidentified): What's the city do with these woodlots? That's a good question and if it's not in our inventory [1:58:40] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I can get back to you on that. [1:58:44] Committee chair/presiding officer: And is the inventory analysis in the appendix? Yes. [1:58:48] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I think it should be. And [1:59:07] Carl Brown, Planning Director: you said you were going to jump around? [1:59:09] Committee chair/presiding officer: Oh, yeah, I am. Do you have any idea if the amount of land that we have in this watershed protection district, which is thousands of acres, is its tax value is lessened because of that designation? That's [1:59:41] Carl Brown, Planning Director: a, that's a good question because it's market based but anytime you have restrictions on land as you know there's the possibility of decreasing the value of that land and because you're in a watershed protection district there are protections for the water sources. And so I would have to get back to you that I can ask the assessor to see if they have any available data on that question and return with return [2:00:10] Committee chair/presiding officer: And I think I may have asked you this after the last meeting rather than during it but do we know what the cost sharing arrangement is with the city of Lewiston for the operational expenses of the common water source that being Lake Auburn and whatever other common [2:00:30] Carl Brown, Planning Director: infrastructure we share and I know the actual infrastructure costs I believe is 50 but obviously the land is it's within Auburn and a few other municipalities and so we're also actually having additional costs on our side for taking care of some non-direct costs that we have so I don't know if we're going to have an exact number for you about the cost split because some of those things maybe aren't calculated as that portion, but we do know that we'll have representatives from Watershed coming to us very soon that we've requested to come because we had other questions about the Watershed. They'll have a little bit better information about the exact numbers than we can give at this time. Okay. [2:02:11] Speaker D (unidentified): I'm just gonna make a generic general comment and say that I like everything in this section, but I liked the whole plan, to be honest. I read through this, I read through the whole thing, or at least to the end of the goals, policies, and objectives section which was something like 130 pages and in general I thought it was brilliant I appreciated the layout of it 's laid out very logically with these policies and objectives and then they reflect back to the beginning where you are outlining how you know there's there's a direct line on how you get from a to b to c to d and i appreciated that through the whole document and it made it really easy to follow and actually enjoyable to read from somebody like me who's this is not my background this is very new to me. It made it easy for me to engage with the document and understand what was happening and why and I think you're going to find that with if I can come to that conclusion I think pretty much anybody who wants to read this is going to come to the same conclusion whether you agree with the content or not it's it's easy to use this document so I'll say I appreciated the natural environment section and the content of it but in general I thought the whole thing really reflected what you got from the people and the people were saying that they wanted to support natural environment they wanted a city that was walkable where they could ride their bike have interconnectedness and I do think when I look at the growth zone map I think you're gonna find that there's ample opportunity for growth and I thought the comp plan in general really does a great job in balancing all those arrays of topics. That's I guess that was a long-winded response but that's my opinion thank you [2:04:33] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Chelsea you just made my whole life. I can retire now. That's that's all I [2:04:38] Carl Brown, Planning Director: needed. Happy we have a section here protect [2:04:44] Kathy Shaw, Valley View Farm (public commenter): and I feel the same way that Chelsea does, that it is an important section, and again, I have been, just because we've been so busy at the farm, briefly able to read through a lot of this, but I appreciate having a section on this important area of our city. The one I did create just a couple of quickie notes and support for local access, support for access to local foods for our residents, and also reference to the right to farm and food sovereignty. Absolutely. [2:05:55] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Sorry, staff is just talking. as a reminder we're gonna gather all these ideas from you all and then pretty much we're gonna represent them your ideas speak back make sure that we're accurately have gathered your ideas and then you will be able to vote on these and see what are these recommendations from you all as a board together so this is one during this meeting you're doing exactly what we've asked you to do is to really present your ideas and so we can we can gather them all down and so then when we are when it's time to vote as a board you will have your something to actually play off of instead of trying to wordsmith it during this during the middle of this meeting are there any other comments or questions Do [2:06:57] Committee chair/presiding officer: we have a definition of farming? [Carl Brown: In this plan?] What do we mean when we use the word farming? [2:07:19] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: We don't in our glossary of the plan. We can look to our ordinance. I wonder if we have a definition of farming in our ordinance. [2:07:30] Carl Brown, Planning Director: We would have to see, but to Ed's point, is that maybe a recommendation to have a definition of farming? [2:07:36] Committee chair/presiding officer: I had an offline conversation, as Carl and Lauren know, with Lauren about abundant farms and all of that, because of the respect I realize that there are some significant farms. I was advised that a hay crop is like agriculture. And that's fine. I get that. but if you're not making your living farming is having a field that somebody cuts every year so that it doesn't get overgrown is that farming are we calling that farming and is that the sort of thing that we are protecting or are we talking about farmer that grows crops that people eat I think you can come up [2:08:27] Kathy Shaw, Valley View Farm (public commenter): with all different kinds of definitions and varieties of farming but cutting a field to not necessarily create a hay crop creates an environment for wildlife butterflies insects migrating birds and it also is the main maintenance of open [2:08:50] Committee chair/presiding officer: space as well but it's not farming again I'm just trying to understand because I think we tossed around the term agricultural protection zone sort of loosely and I'm not sure that 's accurate maybe I'll get out of this as a change in the name of the zone but and I'm also not sure that requiring three and a half acre lots or 325 feet of frontage encourages farming as opposed to just discouraging anything else. But I know that we have some regulations that are tied to income produced on a minimum of 10 acres and things of that nature, and I'm just wondering where we came up with the idea that we have abundant [2:09:43] Carl Brown, Planning Director: farms. It's a, it's a good question. When we are talking about farming, it's going to be involved into the right to farm laws. Actually right to farm, it's now part of our state constitution, and so you know it is going to be involved in to state statute. What they're considering, to your point of you know, a person may have a piece of land who is being cut for hay just to maintain, you know, once a year or so. But is that product being sold for a particular use? Then you would have a product that you are growing on your land and you're selling for that year. And so technically, would that be farming in some jurisdictions? Yes, because you are producing a crop and you are selling that. Now that's different from the question of what do we want to do with our link. Right, so those are, they're interconnected, they're connected questions, but they're also separate. And what we're deciding to do with the designated land that's in agricultural and resource protection zones that we have here now, this is not exactly zoning. Right, we 've discussed that it is land use categories, and so you know it's going to be involved in these areas of you know what areas do we want to use for agricultural protection, for resource protection, for general rule to be general rural areas, and it's all going to be involved in that discussion. What you, what you have put up before, and it gets to your point of the general versus specific in this document, right, and how specific do we want to get with this document on you must protect this area for this exact reason, and how that translate into actual provisions that we will have to amend our Document to do or to maintain those protections in our in our current provisions. So those are the land use questions we're here to ask and get answered by this board. So it's heard as far as amount of farmland, that is a question that we do have some resources that show maps on actively quote-unquote actively used farms, and it doesn't include some of those areas that are used to be aid because it is a product. And so if you're doing any type of land use analysis, you're looking at literally how the land is being used and not so much on the person doing it. We do know that modern farms around the United States and in the state, sometimes you don't earn enough to be able to just earn your living directly from the land that you own. And so you become a farm hand on other people's lands. Does that change what the land is being used for farmland from a planner's point of view? We go on what is the land use of the actual land, not on who is doing the action. So from a land use point of view, we would say that is farmland because it's it's being farmed rather than it's being it's a it's a job that in economically support the person who owns the lane. So I think those are probably going to be two separate questions and in your Provisions before I got here, this is not a recent change, you actually change your provisions for single-family homes and the agricultural and resource protection zone to not actually put into account the basically the amount of money that people are earning to be able to own a home on the land, and it's one of those things exactly because of modern farming practices you can't afford to support yourself basically only on the land that you own for farming [2:13:54] Speaker G (unidentified): I think Ed brings up a valid point. There needs to be some clarification with that definition. Yeah, I think it being too broad is a slippery slope on the pro side and a slippery slope on the con side. There's valid arguments for each and I think clarity would be beneficial to all of us. [2:14:18] Committee chair/presiding officer: Absolutely and I realize that this is a discussion that we'll have when it comes to amending the land use ordinance after the plan is adopted, right? Yeah. [2:14:35] Speaker F (unidentified): I have one suggestion. So in the action item, Lauren, for natural environment, 1.1.11, and I'd suggest either having it inside this or a separate one, but relating to low impact design, and I know us as a board, we've kind of alluded, There's nothing in ordinance right now that can enforce certain developments to encourage landscaping and more landscaping, preserving native plants, discouraging invasive species that may go into certain plants. Stronger language around landscaping and being able to encourage that kind of development rather than impervious areas where it creates heat surfaces and you know I mean and encouraging more low-impact design yes [2:15:44] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: we can look into that and I want to add that we're working with Bates college students this fall I'm doing two different groups one who's looking at urban heat and the other who's looking at vegetation and buffering and so to your point exactly is [2:16:04] Committee chair/presiding officer: there anything in the comprehensive plan to encourage removal of excess pavement from projects like a walmart where they never fill their parking lot anymore or a home depot or in limiting the number of parking spaces and the what we typically see is a multi-family apartment complex where they put in more spaces than our minimum that might be required can we limit can meet with by way of this or by way of this plan at least encourage the limitation of the number of parking spaces you can you can add that as a [2:16:49] Carl Brown, Planning Director: recommendation we can do that up for you all on to providing a recommendation but if you're asking about actual regulation you can set maximums so yes you can set maximums for parking maximums it's something that some municipalities are going towards especially because of the excess payment you can also require that as a development is improving or redeveloping that they reduce their amount of imperfect services so that is an option that you can do legally if you want that as a as an action item we can do that up for you as [2:17:31] Committee chair/presiding officer: well if that's something that goes the city doesn't have a stormwater [2:17:36] Carl Brown, Planning Director: management fee does it not in that way no and so in a lot of other places in cities they do have a storm management fee that 's basically that's an incentive to reduce your impervious services because you have to pay this fee every year because of excess impervious services and so it's really an incentive to not have so much i do not believe currently the city of auburn has that could [2:18:09] Committee chair/presiding officer: That be something that the comprehensive plan could encourage. It could, it could encourage that if you all are want that as a recommendation plan. So let me see if I understand right. Our next step is going to be all the comments that you're hearing, yes, are going to come back to us, and as a board we're going to say, yeah, we can buy into that, or no, we don't. Correct, so you have to vote on these recommendations because [2:18:33] Carl Brown, Planning Director: your recommendations have to be as a, as a body, right, and so these are coming back to you as recommendations, and then you would have to decide on is this the wording of your recommendation, and are you ready to take a vote on this item to make a formal recommendation to the city council. Okay, all your recommendations make it a stronger document, so I will say that [2:19:07] Committee chair/presiding officer: for just more words salad if they're not good [2:19:11] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I'd be worried if you weren't saying anything, so I'm happy, it means that you're engaged body [2:19:17] Carl Brown, Planning Director: You're, you're engaging in the document. Kelsey said this is, you're engaging in the document, and you care about your city, you care about this document, and you know the importance of this document, so it's, it is, it is, it's encouraging for a staff to [2:19:34] Speaker G (unidentified): see. I want to get back to what I just said about the pavement. That's a lot more important than people might realize. It's not just the presence of hardtop, it's also winter runoff, sand and salt into the environment, it's a lot of things that people, once you mention it, 's obvious, but they don't think about, and I don't think there's a single person in this room who can't say they drive around to major commercial areas and see the excessive use of non used spaces, and yeah, that's a really good point it, yeah, and thank you, and it's one [2:20:16] Carl Brown, Planning Director: of those things that if you make a recommendation, and you all make a recommendation, it's something that you can address in different ways, right, Ed brought up two different, very different ways, one on having parking maximums because parking areas are the most impervious services for commercial areas and have a certain impact, and the other one is actually the fee, stormwater management fee, for amount of appropriate services that allows people to, it acts as a disincentive to have so much services. And so those are two very different ways, but to Ed's point previously, if you're making recommendations more general, it allows you then to discuss the different options that you would like to take when it comes to the actual regulation itself. out are [2:21:11] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: there any other comments on the natural environment section apparently not i'll move to the parks and rec how this is structured policy one looks at connected parks trails in open space and policy two looks at the actual programming that would occur in these areas and with the city programming talk [2:21:48] Speaker G (unidentified): to me about policy one, objective four. [2:21:52] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Okay. Let's head to that one, actually. And I always overshoot. Okay. Here we go. Page 124. Thank you. I'm actually going to go to the action implementation table here. So this objective was borne out from a lot of comments that we heard from people about wanting to increase their access to riverbodies in Auburn, and so we went, the committee went back and forth on different ways to navigate that, and so one of those was public boat launches and waterfront access points. The other was the second action item there is very specific for pond access and a boat launch for the Gulf Island, and then action three is how can we look at the Androscoggin River in the Little Androscoggin River and find access points for people, and also part of that is making sure that it's safe to access water. So looking at that, this connects the section with the natural environment of water quality and maintaining water quality, and also the perception of the Androscoggin River, you know, in history it was extremely unsafe to access the water. Those things are changing with the Clean Water Act, and so that was a big discussion with the committee as well of how do we get people to feel like they want to go to the water and then also provide access points for them because it is a great amenity for the city. Well, I asked because the objective four [2:23:34] Speaker G (unidentified): pluralizes water bodies and you're speaking to me about the interest goggin. Yes, so the first action [2:23:42] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: item looks at also maybe Taylor Pond. We were talking about that, Lake Auburn. We didn't [2:23:49] Speaker G (unidentified): discuss that because, like Auburn, talk to me about Taylor Pond's options. We were [2:23:54] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: in conversation a bit with, and this was a long time ago, so I'm not going, I'm gonna speak broadly about a Taylor Pond. Is there a club over at Taylor Pond? [2:24:05] Speaker G (unidentified): There's a yacht club, yeah. There's a Taylor Pond Association as well, yes, and [2:24:11] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: so I remember brief conversations with those folks about their, I think there's, there's a boat launch over there. Tim, I heard you fish on this pond quite a bit. [2:24:19] Speaker G (unidentified): I want to know your perspective. [2:24:22] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I don't have a perspective on a boat launch at Taylor Pond. I think we left this open-ended and broad so that in the future, if that opened up a possibility for people to access Taylor Pond. I'm not familiar with the specifics. [2:24:34] Speaker G (unidentified): I just ask, because this makes it sound like it's coming from a municipal governing stance, and the only access at Taylor Pond is private. So I'm just wondering how those two could possibly coexist since it's in the comprehensive plan. [2:24:50] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Yeah, I think that we put that in there so that we can explore our relationship in the future. There's no specific plans to have a city boat launch at Taylor Pond or impede on the private boat launch of the club. [2:25:02] Committee chair/presiding officer: We would prefer that it not be. [2:25:06] Speaker G (unidentified): Very much so. [2:25:09] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, you can also amend this action item as well. Yeah, so there are real negative consequences to that. [2:25:16] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So and this is one of those ones that because they're, they're, they're considering multiple water bodies, has the section gone too broad? Right, so this is one of the sections that we're saying, and even in the language is to identify and assess potential location. It doesn't even say, develop public access to those locations. It's just saying, identify and assess the locations. So it goes more broad, but I do get your point about Taylor Pond. Right. [2:25:46] Speaker G (unidentified): So what I'm doing is basically kind of full circling that we might want to update that statement and maybe not pluralize it, because Lake Auburn only has the access points it has, and for very good reason. The Androscoggin River, I fully understand. Yep. Taylor Pond is privately owned around its entire circumference, yeah, and to put something in the comprehensive plan that invites that argument could be a slippery slope, so we may want to tighten it up. Yeah, any [2:26:29] Carl Brown, Planning Director: other comments on this [2:26:30] Committee chair/presiding officer: section? Yeah, they're only large mouth bass, not small mouth bass interior. There's both. He hasn't caught a small mouth bass all year. He's got 378 large [2:26:40] Speaker K (unidentified): Dr. Mills-Bass. I won't tell anyone. [2:26:44] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, Taylor Pond is very sensitive. And I think both organizations have recognized that. Certainly we don't want it open up by the state with a fully public boat launch. I think that would be very destructive to the pond in the long term. I think we do have to recognize there is truly one beach area that I think I don't know if the city truly has considered, but actually would, there is an area on Taylor Pond that probably could make a better public beach than even the public beach that exists now with the outlet from the lake, which is on a major corridor. So, we want to protect Taylor Pond for sure, but the city probably does have some interest so it could control the public to some extent, keep it for Auburn citizenry, but not for out of city use. And [2:28:08] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I did not mean to imply that the city is planning a boat launch at Taylor Pond. [2:28:12] Speaker G (unidentified): This place I fully understand. Yeah, I was just making the point we might really [2:28:16] Speaker H (unidentified): want to tighten that up. I totally agree. Is [2:28:22] Kathy Shaw, Valley View Farm (public commenter): there any mention, I couldn't find one quickly looking, about the extensive snowmobile trail networks in the city of [2:28:31] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Auburn? That's a great point, Kathy. I'll have to go back in the versioning of this. We had a version that talked about the snowmobiling trails and the group, there's a groups of people that maintain those trails, and so I'll have to go back here because it, we did talk about that. I'm not particularly sure if it comes up specifically. We can make a note. All [2:29:35] Carl Brown, Planning Director: right, just giving a little time. I said no, you all are looking through your documents. Are they any additional questions or comments on this section? Okay, [2:29:48] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: ready. Yeah, I will move on to our, the last section, which is infrastructure, but mighty, and speaks to some state requirements here. So our one policy under infrastructure looks at providing public facilities and an efficient, coordinated, and fiscally responsible manner that meets current needs and responds to anticipated growth and demographic change. The objectives include updating the five-year capital improvement plan to a 10-year CIP, exploring opportunities for infrastructure coordination and joint purchasing programs, and prioritizing infrastructure investments in high growth areas designated in the future land use plan. So objective 3 heavily leans on our first goal, the future land use. I [2:30:54] Committee chair/presiding officer: think I heard at one of our earlier meetings that there's a specific percentage of capital improvement that's supposed to be directed to the high growth area. Is [2:31:04] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: that right? Yes, it's 75, and [2:31:14] Speaker H (unidentified): it's 75 of what? I can get the exact language for you. Thank you. [2:31:37] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: It's a minimum of 75 percent of new municipal growth related capital investments directed into high growth areas, and that's a state requirement. So [2:31:50] Committee chair/presiding officer: You basically get that covered by the school and the police department public safety buildings right there's a hundred some odd million dollars. So I [2:32:04] Carl Brown, Planning Director: don't have those numbers. [2:32:12] Committee chair/presiding officer: Would those two items be infrastructure? [2:32:16] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So the school facilities would be infrastructure, and also it would count for, I believe they would count the, sorry, the new, I want to see, I keep wanting to see the new saying office but it's not office but the new facility for public services for its infrastructure as well public safety building yeah yet [2:32:54] Committee chair/presiding officer: the new public works building or they're renovating one out by the airport that's outside of the [2:33:01] Carl Brown, Planning Director: high growth area right I think it's in the industrial so would be I'm not sure exactly the location but we can get the location it's right by the airport the railroad it's it's so if it's by the airport it's likely it's in the growth area does [2:33:26] Committee chair/presiding officer: anybody have any sense of whether we have not met if that were a standard today or yesterday have we not been meeting that have we been investing much infrastructure outside of the growth area i do not have [2:33:43] Carl Brown, Planning Director: that answer but i do know that our city manager and assistant city manager are on top of this and this is one of the requirements have been a part of state law for a very long time so my first inkling is yes they're following this absolutely they're following this but because i don't actually have the data in front of me or access to that data i would have to defer to those offices so [2:34:09] Committee chair/presiding officer: it wouldn't pinch the paving of rural roads in this instance i would not believe so [2:34:17] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So, and that's actually why maintenance of existing infrastructure is so important rather than expansion. And [2:34:47] Committee chair/presiding officer: does this apply to the capital improvements that might be made by the water and sewer district, or is this just the city of Auburn? [2:34:57] Carl Brown, Planning Director: I believe it's our portion of those costs. I don't have that exact answer for you, but I can return with that answer. I think that's a great answer. Again, this is this is all municipal budgeting, and so it is not by subject matter expertise, but we can ask to ask the questions and get an answer for you. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments for this? [2:35:45] Speaker E (unidentified): Actually, I'm learning more about this plan as we scroll through. What's been, I think, would be useful for me is from the action section wherever under responsible group this planning board is mentioned. If we had a list of wherever the planning board has been mentioned attached to an action number, would be helpful because I think that way we could scroll through very quickly to see just where we are involved specifically. [2:36:27] Carl Brown, Planning Director: You're heavily in this document. So yes, a list would be helpful. [2:36:35] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: Yeah, I'll add, you'll notice that boards and committees and outside groups weren't mentioned as responsible parties, it's the department. So we'll get you a list where the planning and permitting department is the responsible party. [2:36:47] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Yeah, the planning department's mentioned in those action items 101 times. [Committee chair/presiding officer: The last section.] So this is the last section. But the question was, do we want to return to the future land use map and section briefly? Before we in tonight? Well, I [2:37:27] Committee chair/presiding officer: I was kind of surprised we skipped over that and like we spent less time on that than anything else. Was it your plan that we would be coming back to it tonight or on the 13th? [2:37:37] Carl Brown, Planning Director: So probably this, it was this evening because we visited it before previously and all right, we had a whole meeting on it and the document hasn't changed from that portion. The original plan was to at least get through these new sections that we haven't reviewed ever before, but then to have some time to talk again about the future land use section and I do think it's important for us. So at this time because we're so, it is getting late in time, we can, we can briefly go through that and then we can Revisit it again [2:38:14] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: During the 14th if that's okay. We would revisit on the 28th. The 14th is just the public. Oh just [2:38:21] Committee chair/presiding officer: The public hearing. Yeah, well we can have a meeting after the public hearing. Yes, on the 20th of October and you also have October the 13th as well. I guess I'm just saying that on the 14th if we have six people show up for a public hearing and it lasts till 7 30, we could have a meeting after that and continue talking. You can however your agenda right now, we haven't [2:38:46] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Been able to talk about this yet Ed. It's very light on the 13th. You have a regular meeting on October 13th before the public meeting on the on the public hearing on October 14th. So we could just speak about on October the 13th, we could our first item could be just the future land use section and that will, that will allow us some time to really dive back into that section and I [2:39:12] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: I believe, and we can work on this, the intent of the Conference and Planning Committee for the public hearing would be to summarize the comments we've heard to date and have people speak, and that would be the meeting, but we can talk further. That was the original intent of the hearing, was just to hear and discuss the comments, and then use the October 28th as your recommendation meeting. [2:39:36] Carl Brown, Planning Director: From the public on the 14th, yeah. [2:39:39] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: The public on the 14th. everybody [2:39:45] Carl Brown, Planning Director: else confused so okay so our next dates are october 13th when you have a regular meeting regular meeting and you have a very light schedule during the 13th and so you have you have a lot of time to go over the future land use section and over some of the things that we talked about this evening sure october 14th is the official public hearing and that because it's a joint meeting the intent was to have that time for the public to make their comments only and then because it's a joint meeting we want to we wanted you all to have your a time to discuss your comments and your concerns not having the other public board involved and so you can have your discussion to make your recommendations because the charge is for you all this body to make recommendations and so there our next time to meet it's during october the 28th where you again are going to be discussing this plan and then at that time if you need additional time to talk up talk through this through this plan and your recommendations we can provide options going forward. But because we do have another meeting on October the 13th, we do have additional time. And it's kind of scheduled that way because October the 14th, the design was just for the public hearing, public meeting, because we have no idea how many people show up. And we wanted to design it in a way that you all had designated times that you would not have to share that time with public comment that you can discuss amongst yourselves as a public. I [2:41:41] Committee chair/presiding officer: guess I'm just trying to make as much use of the 14th as possible. Yes. Great, if we have a hundred people here and we go till nine o'clock listening to public comments that would be fantastic. Real life suggests that's not going to be the case. And so I don't know why we wouldn't plan on having further discussion about our recommendations on the 14th and carry that over to the 28th. I have one other question. This is the first time I've heard, maybe I've been told it before, that this is a joint meeting? A joint public hearing. Joint with who? [2:42:23] Lauren Cafe, Long Range Planner: The Comprehensive Plan Committee. The Comprehensive Plan Committee is responsible public hearing. So we don't have a public hearing. [2:42:46] Carl Brown, Planning Director: It technically you do because it's a joint public here. If the question is you. You don't have your own singular public hearing. The answer is yes. Just know you have a joint public hearing. [2:43:04] Committee chair/presiding officer: Just give us an agenda then, I guess. So on the 13th, we've got a light agenda, a regular agenda. So we're going to take up the future land use plan on the 13th. [2:43:16] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Yes, and return to these comments. [2:43:19] Committee chair/presiding officer: And when you say return to them, is it possible that you can provide us with, before the meeting, a list of those comments that we're going to discuss? Yes. And it's our intention that we will decide whether any of those comments are worthy of further consideration and vote by this board absolutely and we will do that by what date 28 okay October 20 and we can do it over multiple nights absolutely okay before [2:43:57] Speaker G (unidentified): We close to Carlo given the fact that you are much more well-versed in this stuff than any of us lay people on the board and your introduction to this comprehensive plan much past its inception from your [2:44:12] Carl Brown, Planning Director: Perspective what is its weakest part that's a good question I would say that it would be more helpful to have your economic development plan done prior to this stage, because it's going to have some interaction with the rest of your sections. If you've seen the natural resources section, it's not only verbose in that section, but it has impact throughout the document. And it's just it's a matter of resources and timing right and so I would say from an injective best plan planners point of view it's probably the weakest section because it's a plan to have a plan ideally if you had the resources you would have had a more robust more robust actual comprehensive economic the housing section, how it had its own section. It's referring to those and has a lot of data that impacts a lot of the things that are in this plan. So that would be my answer today. [2:45:31] Speaker G (unidentified): So to that answer. We're kind of at a point where there's not much that the planning board can really do to suggest changes to that. [2:45:41] Carl Brown, Planning Director: As we sit tonight. Correct. Yeah. Just based on the timing and the resources. From a practical point of view, if you wanted to wait until that plan is complete, it would set you back more than a year at this point. And then if you're set back more than a year for that portion, the rest of your data becomes stale. And so this is the part of this is has to do with climate change adaptation is being able to make decisions without all of the data available. At some point, you do have to make a decision on the best available data that you have at the time, and then as you gain more data, you return to some of the assumptions or some of the conclusions that you have in your document, and you alter those. This is supposed to be a document that it's used. It's actively used. It's not supposed to be a document that's supposed to be written in stone and immovable. The world is moving quickly, and we're going to have to adjust and to adapt to it. And so this is a portion of that. It's going like, we understand that this is a weakness. It's an identified weakness, though. And so when these items come up we are we're more able and when we're ready to address those make sure that we are responding accordingly. I appreciate [2:47:11] Speaker G (unidentified): your candor. Thank you. Anything [2:47:19] Committee chair/presiding officer: further for the board tonight on this topic? All right. Take motion to adjourn. So [Speaker G (unidentified): moved. I'll] second. Moved and seconded. All in favor. We are adjourned. Thank you.