Bangor committee advances downtown zoning change, new planning fees, climate rebate plan

[0:19] Daniel Carson: We are live. It's Monday, October 5th, 2026, at 5:52 p.m. This is the regularly scheduled Business and Economic Development Committee meeting. This committee will need to first start by [0:38] Susan Faloon: electing a temporary chair. Have a motion. I make a motion that you, Counselor Carson, and chair of this committee meeting. [0:50] Daniel Carson: So we do have a motion. Second. Second. Is there any objection? All right. So again, welcome to the Business and Economic Development Committee meeting. I am joined around the table by fellow committee members, Councilor Fish, Councilor Faloon, Councilor Malheur. I am Councilor Carson and temporarily chairing. We don't have enough people. Councilor Beck, will you join us? Yeah. Okay, great. We're also joined at the table by Councilor Walker, business and economic developer three, planning officer on you and Colette and comforting. Didn't mean to forget. We have three agenda items this evening. The first is for area ratio removal from the downtown development district. I believe [1:41] Carollynn Lear: that's you. Yes. Wonderful. So the floor area ratio, for those of you who don't know what that is, basically the floor area of a building, as in the entire building from bottom to top, divided by the horizontal area of a lot. So for example, if you have a building with 40,000 square feet of floor area overall and you have a 10,000 square foot lot, that gives you four area ratio of 4.0. For reference, the building across the street where Redmond Winchell is has a four area ratio of 4.3 and the one on Thick State Street has a four area ratio of 5.3 and that's where the credit union and Goldman's offices are. So when and this proposal to go back, this proposal would be to get rid of that dimensional control from the downtown development district and that is what is gonna be proposed in the new land development code across the city in any zone because it's pretty outdated dimensional control overall. And it doesn't really get at the form of the building and the scale of the building and the things that we're trying to control for. And instead the new code will propose things like design standards and controlling setbacks from the street once it reaches a certain height, things like that, and then transitions to residential zones, softening those up. But for the purposes of this proposal, this is just a very, this one small tweak to this particular zone because there is an interested developer who wants to add stories to a building downtown for residential and that's the type of development we want to see. That's what the Comprehensive plan is trying to push forward in promoting infill development, especially in our downtown and our urban core. And originally when four area ratios were proposed, the purpose of those was to try to control development intensity and manage building scale and things like that. But, you know, downtown is supposed to be our most intense district in the city. And then also as far as building scale, there's better ways to control for that than using this tool it's a very know what the right word is it's very broad it's not very precise and managing that scale it's also difficult to understand other things like maximum height you know are easier for people to understand and so I think that pretty much covers it again I just went back to the comprehensive cohesive plan policies one and seven really promoted encouraging development and growth boundary And promoting increasing the house of supply downtown by revising zoning regulations so we see this as aligning with those policies are there any questions [4:49] Susan Faloon: If this was in here I missed it but do we have a maximum height not down in the downtown district and so you said that there's a developer who wants to add stories and I'm just wondering if having a maximum height if we remove this if having a maximum height might be a good idea because I mean I mean it's probably not likely we're gonna have skyscrapers in downtown Bangor however I mean they could get pretty tall and is that something that we're gonna want is there you know is that going to Impact other businesses or you know views and that kind of [5:28] Carollynn Lear: Thing I think that's a good policy discussion to have I will say number one most of the buildings downtown are historic and so any change to an existing building is going to have to go to the historic preservation commission to make sure that it fits in with that district and so I don't imagine a skyscraper is gonna fit well with that I mean we do have newer areas of downtown where you know maybe something like that could go I will say what our consultants are proposing with the new code is Still to not have that maximum height except when it's a certain distance away from residential. So say it's within 30 feet of a residential district, it would have a maximum height of 60 feet, and then also would have some higher setbacks if it's close to residential districts. And then again, we would have design standards that would control, like if you are going to have a building that's taller than six stories, it would need to be kind of set back further from the road so it doesn't feel like you're being, you're closed in on, among other things, on other design standards. So I mean, that's the proposal. If council would like to talk about having an overall maximum height [6:50] Speaker D (unidentified): for downtown, we're happy to discuss that. I guess that was actually my question, but if I could follow up with that, what is our tallest building currently downtown, just for a point of reference? I believe it would be the Camden National Bakery. Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. Yeah, including the garage underneath. So our restrictions are for six and other areas, six stories, 60 feet. Another door? Yes. No, I think the zone with the highest [7:28] Carollynn Lear: building height limitation would be our institutional zone. The height is either have a maximum height, but it might be 80 feet. It's either 80 feet or there's no maximum height in the institutional zone. Other zones like residential vary from 35 feet to 60 feet in certain cases, and then our main commercial zones, like over by the mall and those areas, so maximum height is 60 feet most of the time. That's about five stories. Okay, thank you. [7:57] Carolyn Fish: I think this is a great idea. You do have a question? Just because the, with the wording, so that I understand it correctly, I think somebody referring to this to encourage development in housing, and so would this new ordinance be applied to both development and housing, or is it intended for the expansion of development by housing? I mean, does it apply to both categories, development and housing? Any type of development? Okay, thank you. Just the way it was worded, that was enough clarity. Thank you. So [8:37] Speaker D (unidentified): if [8:41] Michael Beck: council decides to do this, it sounds like there's enough other processes in place regarding the height limit. You have tiny board with you know grants or that we're not having to worry about some developers suddenly saying hey here's a window opportunity come in there and get my skyscraper. I mean, if they're impacting an [9:03] Carollynn Lear: Existing well, actually, I mean, we do have historic districts covering most all of downtown, although most of all of that is already developed. So yes, most of the time a development downtown is going to have to go to the historic distribution commission. If it's outside of the historic district and the project meets the code, otherwise then theoretically yes, I mean, somebody could propose a skyscraper for down on Exchange Street if there was a vacant law there, because if it met all of the code requirements and we didn't have a high limit, so that is a consideration. We're not seeing demand for skyscrapers, and it's also extremely expensive to construct anything right now, and the skyscrapers are fast, you [9:55] Michael Beck: did a follow-up on that. Yeah, I'm in favor of eventually having a conversation about a potential high limit, but I will say in all of the different affordable housing conferences I've been to, you know, they talk about how high limits can be the enemy of building more units. So I'm, you know, glad to see us take steps so that, you know, in this case we're going to have another residential, you know, bunch of units coming in, so that's great. So thanks for bringing this forward, and yeah, I would like to have that conversation about, you know, potential height limit and what would make sense for Bangor. Councillor Mallar, when are we looking for [10:29] Wayne Mallar: completion of the comprehensive plan, the no, well, the land development plan development or whatever, probably late next year. So would we be benefit more beneficial to wait till then to do this and include it, because you said there was going to be a discussion in that, and I don't want [10:49] Speaker D (unidentified): to see you do it twice. We do have a potential project downtown that is on hold waiting for this change to take the FAR out. If there is a concern about height, we can certainly have that conversation, you know, at your next meeting. I mean, if that is a concern that you [11:13] Carollynn Lear: don't want to wait, I mean, it might be worthwhile. I mean, we could have it now, I guess, if you all want to, because we're, we can change the organ ordinance tomorrow, and if we wanted to put a height limit, you know, I'm not sure it makes sense, 100 feet, something like that. [11:34] Carolyn Fish: If we put a height limit because we don't know what the future is going to be, and we don't want to shoot ourselves up by saying, you know, now we have an ordinance with a height, and it goes in the right location, and the height that they're asking may be a little bit higher, if we do have a height limitation, could we have some verbiage on there that says something about unless otherwise approved by, you know, review, just so that we're not, you know, we don't know what the future is going to bring, and I would just hate to see this. You can create a special permit process [12:09] Speaker D (unidentified): where there's sort of an allowed height, and then to go x amount of feet above that would require like a conditional use permit. Yeah, then we're not just saying black and white, and then something [12:23] Carolyn Fish: in the future comes along that we're, you know, regretting that we discouraged somebody from doing something because we just didn't leave that broader interpretation. I think we actually [12:32] Carollynn Lear: do that in the network from development districts. Taller buildings do require conditioners. That's [12:37] Speaker D (unidentified): exactly where, actually. Yeah, any [12:42] Michael Beck: other? We're back. Yeah, but when that conversation does happen, I would be curious just to hear from the fire department to see if they have any concerns about, you know, equipment needs for bigger buildings, you know, versus where we are now, just to get their thoughts on that, so we're prepared. Well, [13:01] Carollynn Lear: so just to get some guidance, I was just wondering if you all want us to incorporate a height [13:07] Daniel Carson: limit now with this ordinance change I'm gonna call on myself real quick I am not necessarily in favor of adding I'm happy to have the conversation I'd like to see if there's data available counselor Breck I think brings up a great point in and involving the fire department. Similarly, I would like to hear from the airport. I mean, like flight, things like that. Just, I don't know if there's any issues with how tall something could be so close to air transportation. But I think I would like to hear more about what our consultants have discussed, why they think that it's not appropriate for us to have those height requirements. And I'm sort of where Councilor Fish is, that thinking about, you know, I want to like shoot ourselves on the foot going forward, particularly if there's not, there's not a pressure, a demand pressure that we're facing at this time to answer such a, such a question. You know, like we're with data centers, we're sort of under that to think through that quickly, but happy to have that. I do want to direct us back to because it doesn't sound like we're ready to have that full conversation tonight. But so back to this floor area ratio removal. And I think the intended action here is if the committee is interested to forward this to the COOL Council, is that what we're looking for? So are there any other questions? Or comments? Or snide remarks? I will look for a motion. If anybody's interested. Counselor Calhoun. [Susan Faloon: Staff recommendation.] Right. We have a motion and a second. Is there any doubt? Okay, that'll move on. We have for number two to discuss the proposed new planning fees. [15:05] Carollynn Lear: Yes. So we're proposing two new fees to cover off that we're currently incurring for development. So for pretty much all land development and zone changes and historic preservation applications, we have to send mailed notices to opening property owners. Oftentimes it's 100 feet out, but sometimes it can be 500 feet out, and sometimes even larger than that. So what we are suggesting is that we charge a fee for that mailing, both to cover the cost for us print those letters and put those together, and then also the postage. And based on our the current cost of that, we're recommending 1.22 per letter. It would be a pretty nominal cost for a small development, but if we did have something with a large nailing, it would help us cover that larger cost. And currently it's being paid for by taxpayers, and this would put more for a development developer. We do that similarly for advertisements and things like that. And then another fee is to cover our cost for stormwater permitting review. This is only applies to certain types of development that are typically larger scale, they need extra stormwater permitting. And before the state was doing all of that review, which added a lot of time for these developments, but then we were recently given delegated authority to do that. So now it's on us to review and inspect. And then it's also honest, you know, to cover the cost of that unless the developer pays for it. The state does charge developers to do that permitting, so we're suggesting charging the same as what the state does, and that money would go into the stormwater utility fund since our stormwater managers the one who reviews those projects. Any questions on either of those? I [17:14] Daniel Carson: Think this is another one where we're looking to forward to the whole council. No questions or comments, rents or quibbles. I [17:24] Susan Faloon: move staff recommendation on the proposed new fees to the council. [17:30] Daniel Carson: So moved. Motion and a second. Any discussion? No. [Wayne Mallar: Goes on. So] the final thing we have here is a discussion on our proposed climate rebate program for residents and we're looking for feedback, I think, right? Yes. [17:52] Carollynn Lear: And approval to move forward with it. So this is a proposed new program that we're suggesting to pay for out of the Climate Action Plan funds. Those funds are meant to be used to implement the Penobscot Climate Action Plan. And in that plan, we have 10 toolkits. And the second toolkit in there was to help residents retrofit their homes. That was going to be one of the highest impact toolkits we had because of the because buildings make up the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the city it also has a very high potential to help residents be more resilient power outages and things like that and also high fuel costs so what we're proposing is to use fifty thousand dollars from this funds to provide rebates for things like weatherization heat pumps and possibly solar and this would work in concert with existing rebates from efficiency name and through CDBG so that we can provide sort of gap financing if there's any cost left over after those programs we would help cover that cost we're thinking and the details haven't been worked out yet we've just hired two interns and they would help us figure out the details over the next month or so but possibly it would be something like two thousand dollars per household cold depending on you know that gap that's left over and the added benefit of course to this is that these would help people save money on their energy bills as we all know it's very expensive looking to be very expensive heating season with weatherization obviously that would help anybody save money heat pumps would typically help people on oil save money it typically costs over half the cost to heat with a heat pump versus oil. And then also solar, if somebody's mainly heating with electricity, that can help them in that way. We did do some very initial soft public outreach at the farmer's market about up central rebate program. We said, if we offered money for solar or bikes or weatherization or a different thing, what would help your household the most? And people were pretty evenly split between these different categories, so we're proposing, you know, for people to choose the rebate based on what would help their household the most. And we would also recommend that if we were to move forward with this, that if we do offer a rebate, that heat pump, that would be limited to households that use oil, just because it's going to be a lot more efficient than that oil heating system and save them this money. And then also we would propose tiering the rebates so people that are in lower income households would get more money than somebody who's not, similar to what Efficiency Maine does. And then also I have written in here, you know, maybe we look at funding an energy audit for a household before they do get a heat pump or something like that. When we were looking at doing a program like initially we were thinking, and also the toolkit and the climate actually talks about this too, you know, essentially requiring somebody to get an energy audit first, just because, you know, somebody might need to do a lot of weatherization before they get a heat pump in order to make it the most bang for the buck for them. Basically, you know, if they have a drafty house and they're trying to heat pump, you know, they might get higher electricity bills, however even if they have a drafty house, I think, and they're getting a heat pump, it's still probably going to save them money compared to the heating with oil right now. So what we are proposing is maybe we would just recommend that people get that energy out at first and we could fund that, but maybe not make the requirement of the program. And then we can also talk to them about like, hey, if you're getting a heat pump, you know, there's also rebates from efficiency for installation and things like that and you know, recommend strongly that they do. [21:50] Speaker D (unidentified): So counselor [21:53] Carolyn Fish: Fish, I think this is great and I would like to see, for instance, you know, when I see solar panels, I know they can be expensive, and with just fifty thousand dollars, so if it was limited, if we had information on to, you know, what we're proposing and it could be income based. But someone doing solar, it could take a pretty big chunk of that, just for one solar program. And the energy audit would be good also, because I know for my house, for instance, when I looked into getting a heat pump, my panel box wasn't the right size. And then before I knew it, I had to look at an electrician and potentially $5,000 in electrical work to get the heat pump. So those kinds of things, it would be nice to see that energy audit. It and also when I see bikes on here I just think you know I don't know that bikes to me really fit in this category because we have a lot of elderly that really need energy efficiency in different avenues and you know the bikes would be more or less you know for an elderly to use bike I'm not saying they couldn't but I just don't see the balance there for money going toward a bike or someone elderly may really need more use of this money to just stay warm over the winter so otherwise I think Everything in this is a really good idea those are just to my [23:21] Carollynn Lear: To my concerns yeah I think the bikes I just wanted to say like that was initial outreach we did for this program we would be limiting it to home heating upgrades and things like that. But maybe we could do a potential future program on that. And yes, for solar, you're right. One thing that we were going to explore more is doing rebates for plug-in solar. So I don't know if you're familiar with that, but that could be less than a thousand dollars potentially. And it could also be helpful for renters. The only thing I'm not sure of is how widely available the systems are that fit with state law right now. So that's something we would explore more but I was thinking if we maybe that could be just a potential option [24:06] Daniel Carson: For everything so myself I'm glad that you brought up the point or that was one of my two questions the second would be is there any thought about a portion of this that could be used in a way that's not used to rebates obviously people have to spend money and then we rebate them when I think about the elderly population, I'm thinking about a couple of my neighbors right now who really could benefit from something like this, but whose fixed incomes, if I said the numbers out loud, would make All of you puke. They would not be able to afford to spend money to obtain this kind of a rebate. So is there any thought about a portion of this that could be used in a way where we actually help people to obtain the thing that we would be rebating? [24:56] Carollynn Lear: Yes, I believe the way it works with efficiency main rebates right now, they have some kind of agreement worked out with contractors where when you get a contractor on board, the contractor takes that rebate into account right off the bat and then they submit paperwork to the state to be reimbursed. So the homeowner is not fronting that cost, it's taken off at the beginning. So we would definitely want to work with efficiency main and the contractors is to figure out how we can make that happen see where it comes from you're [25:41] Daniel Carson: looking for two things here which is feedback and approval to continue on so any additional feedback at this time counselor [25:55] Wayne Mallar: mailer just out of curiosity how much money is in the climate action plan it's pending soon [26:02] Carollynn Lear: actually you know we did just we got our reimbursement from the feds for different grants. So this should be a little over 200,000. [26:16] Daniel Carson: comments, feedback, somebody feel moved to move this. What's their point? [26:26] Susan Faloon: Staff recommendations for the rebate program for residents. [26:31] Daniel Carson: we have a motion second we have a second any further discussion we'll send that on is there any other business for this committee business thank you so much with that it is 6 18 p.m they are adjourned stay tuned for