Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[7:05] Planning Board Chair: Good evening, welcome to the October 8th, 2026 regularly scheduled Planning Board meeting and
[7:13] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: will you please call the roll. Max? Yes. Bob? Here. Dutch? Here. Justin? Here. Ethan? Here. Russell? Here. And Leah, I think you're in attendance. Can you hear me?
[7:36] Planning Board Chair: We can hear you.
[7:42] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: Randy, if you can hear us, can you turn up the participants' volume a little bit? And then Earl Dean has an excused absence. Excused absence.
[8:06] Planning Board member: To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[8:25] Planning Board Chair: Any amendments to tonight's agenda? It's nice and short. Can we make it shorter? Nope. All right. No amendments. Moving on to public comment. Public may attend the meeting in person or remotely by Zoom. Public comment and opinion are welcome during meeting. However, comments and opinions related to development projects currently being reviewed by the Planning Board will be heard only during a scheduled public hearing when all interested parties have the opportunity to participate. Any commentaries pertaining to projects currently in front of the board or containing abusive or profane language which may be terminated by the board chair and those providing comment here at the podium must please state clearly your name and address, record it in writing at the podium, and if you're at the podium and are referencing the screen, please be sure to use the pointer that is provided. It's extendable. Further, the public may submit written public comments via email, US mail, or by hand delivery to Town Hall. Emailed comments should be sent to mzakian at kid remain dot org and comments received by the noon on the day of the meeting will become part of the public record and may be read in whole or in summary by the Planning Board or town staff. Is there anybody here with public comment not related to something pending before the Planning Board? Hearing none, Max, you have any? Anybody online? There's a couple
[10:12] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: people online. Their names are in Russian, so I'm not sure if they can understand this, but if you are, if you have any comments on something not related to something currently being reviewed by the Planning Board, either on the agenda or ongoing, use the raise hand function now. My Russian's a little rusty, so I'm not going to repeat that in Russian. Okay, and we had no written comment. All right.
Unfinished Business
[10:40] Planning Board Chair: That concludes the public comment portion. We'll proceed to old business, item 169 Tower Road, major modification to an approved shoreland plan. Potential action is to accept the application and approve the plan or continue review. View Brian McCarthy on behalf of owner applicants Mary Quinn revocable trust requests approval to amend originally approved relocation of an existing non-conforming single-family dwelling within the base zone setback of a water body on the property of 69 Tower Road, tax map 58, lot 39, in the residential, rural, conservation, shoreland overlay, and resource protection overlay zones.
[11:30] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: Good evening. My name is Ryan McCarthy. I'm with Tidewater Engineering and Surveying. I'm here to represent the owner of the property there with us tonight, Mary Quinn, and Archie McAllen. Also with me is Nicole Sanborn. She's an engineer with Tidewater as well. So this is for 69 Tower Road. This is tax map 58, lot 39, in the rural conservation district. This is for the replacement of an existing non-conforming dwelling. It is non-conforming with regards to the front setback and the wetland setback. We were previously before you in December of 2024 for an approval of a different design with a different house in a different location. The owners didn't move forward with the construction of that project, and since then it was determined that the on-site wetland is actually an isolated freshwater wetland so that's this one right here in green so that 's a wetland that's less than one acre in size and again it's it's an isolated freshwater wetland so technically that's not our shore land wetland for where we're measuring setbacks from anymore max if you could bring up that wetland exhibit for me yes we since that 2024 approval we actually did work for the neighbor that those wetlands extend northerly onto and while working for that property owner we found out that in the records back in 2007, wetland scientist Albert Frick concluded that wetland actually closes back in on itself and comes back down into the Quinn property. So this is the Quinn property. This is the abutting property that I'm referring to. So this blue wetland highlighted in blue, since we didn't have rights when we did this one to cross over onto other people's property to flag those wetlands, assumed that it was contiguous with the large coastal wetland out behind Seapoint Beach. But based on this new information, that means that our shorelands setback is now measured from the closest point to the Atlantic Ocean on the other side of the berm or from the edge of this coastal wetland to the north. So the plans have been modified to reflect that. Previously we were non-conforming to the 100 foot setback because the 100 foot shoreland setback because we were measuring it from this isolated freshwater wetland. So back then we were dealing with 30% expansion calculations, much more restrictive building height. But now with the 100 foot setback measured from the highest astronomical tide of the Atlantic Ocean, that gives these property, this property owner more options for redevelopment. So that's why we're here before you tonight. We also had this isolated freshwater wetland reevaluated in 2025 by joseph noel who concluded the same thing but both of those memos in your are in your packets so going back to the site plan yep nope now so the existing The existing house is in gray right here in the background, so you can see that 's nonconforming with the front setback. Existing is 20.7 feet from this front property line to the existing corner here. We're going to improve that nonconformance by shifting the building further away. We're 26.2 here to the deck, and then if you actually measured it to the house, we're at 29.3 feet. So that's an improvement of roughly nine feet, plus or minus. This wetland, since it's less than one acre, as a 50 foot setback, that 50 foot setback is shown with this dark dash line coming across the property here. Existing structure is 47.3 to this corner, non-conforming. Proposed structure is shifting back, improving it, and making it conforming to the 53.8 feet off of that wetland. Building coverage is restricted to 6% in this zone, so it's that 6% of the lot area. We're proposing 5% for the building coverage, so we're conforming there. Building height is limited to 35 feet now. We're proposing a structure that's 33.3 feet, again conforming with the height requirement. De-vegetated shoreland coverage, that only applies to the portion of the property that is within the shoreland zone, which this thicker dash line represents the limit of the 250. So this portion of the property has a 20% de-vegetated coverage limitation. We're at 12.7% who are conforming there. The house is not increasing the number of bedrooms, so we're able to continue to use the existing septic system that's right in this location, so no changes to that. And same thing, we're going to reuse the existing water service from the well. Driveway configuration actually gets to stay very similar to what it is now, existing there's a loop driveway in the front, same thing, we're going to maintain a loop driveway, shifts a little bit, but very similar to existing. Same thing with the driveway, that accesses the existing house out back. That driveway is gonna stay roughly in the same location and then access a lower level two car garage that's underneath the living space. I did pass, Max, if you wanna pass out the rendering of what the new house looks like. In my opinion I think this design by Mighty Roots is much more traditional and will fit the neighborhood better than the previous one because the previous one had to really shrink up and be narrow have flat roofs and have tiered systems so this I think will fit the neighborhood much better I think you would agree with that if you have any questions I'm happy to answer you
[17:58] Planning Board member: Anybody want to start no question for me pretty Self-explanatory I'm good You show the existing structure you show the proposal can you summarize the changes from this proposal to the previously approved plan what did you guys net yeah so building footprint wise going from what was approved in 2024 to this?
[18:30] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: Footprint wise, you can look at the tables on there to see. Existing is 1,465 square feet. Proposed today is 1,864 square feet. Previously proposed was 1,893. So a little bit smaller in footprint. [Planning Board member: Right as] Far as setbacks went again we had a hundred foot setback from this wetland previously which means we had to try to squeeze that building in as close to the front property line as we could as far away from that wetland so you can see there's this tiered approach where this was shaped to actually follow that angle point in the setback line I do kind of remember this one yeah it kind of creates a funky you kind of look to it still a very nicely designed building but and then also the top floor Because we had that height restriction we had to push that top floor outside that hundred foot and just squeeze that into just a portion of that footprint of the building so we had that kind of tiered roofline would
[19:44] Planning Board member: You and it's okay if this is not your purview, but are you able to summarize kind of what went in into redefining the wetland from coastal to freshwater, besides just we were able to go on the abutting property and see that it didn't connect all the way through. Is there any other process that goes into re-delineating that?
[20:07] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: You pretty much named it. So if you go back to the exhibit, as surveyors, we typically hire out a wetland scientist to come out and delineate the wetlands. We'll locate them and map them and then apply the regulatory restrictions to that. Because only a small portion of it was on the Quinn's property, we did not go onto the other property. We didn't have any ability to, no rights to. But again, because we did work a year later for this neighbor, we then were able to close off that delineation and circle it back through. So the wetland scientist is the one who makes the determination. They come out, they evaluate the wetland, where those limits are, and they flag it off, and they can close it upon itself. We'll locate those flags to map it. Once it's closed off like that and it doesn't meet the size criteria and environmental habitat criteria to be a shoreland zone, then we look for where is the next closest shoreland limit. So that would be the ocean over here and the coastal wetland.
[21:15] Planning Board member: And the feature that's separating the freshwater wetland from the ocean is the
[21:24] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: the it's just upland area, so it would be high enough where it doesn't have like hydric soils or wetland plants that would qualify for to be to meet the Army Corps definition of a wetland.
[21:36] Planning Board member: This is a dumb question, but it's like salinity testing part of this, is it salt water, it's fresh
[21:44] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: water. Yeah, so salinity, we don't go to the extent of doing any type of salinity
[21:47] Planning Board member: testing. I'm just asking because I'm hitting the I believe button that this, which appears visually to be directly adjacent to the, yeah, to the ocean, isn't
[22:01] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: part of it, right? Sure, so if you, if you read the memo by Jonah, well, I'm pointing at you with this, with this point here, if you read the memo by Jonah, well, he actually goes into that a little bit, where he talks about looking at the type of vegetation, whether they're a saltwater vegetation or a freshwater vegetation, or even freshwater vegetation that is salt tolerant, because they're naturally, in big storms that you're gonna see, you're gonna have some splash over, right? You're gonna get some saltwater in there, but if it was predominantly saltwater, you would see a different type of vegetation in there.
[22:40] Planning Board member: Okay, yeah, no, I could buy that. Thanks for explaining. no just well the new layout for the parking does that have any specific
[22:57] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: setbacks to it the parking is actually meets the setbacks because the primary parking is here so this is the driveway that the owners are going to use majority of the time because that's where their garage space is this that swings up here is more of a deliveries drop-off visitors because it presents itself to the front door
[23:33] Planning Board Chair: Yeah, I don't have any questions really, it's a good packet. The wetland question that questions that Ethan was asking are interesting. I live in that neighborhood and I know a number of freshwater wetlands that are very oddly located close to the ocean, but and I haven't gone out and tested them myself, but you know the local lore and looking at them says they are freshwater wetlands, so that's just seems to be the way it is.
[24:13] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: Just really quick, I would recommend that the board, any board member who wasn't here when this decision was made, I think it was December 2024, confirmed verbally whether they've reviewed this in previous material to sufficiently discuss and vote on this item today. Yes, I read the
[24:35] Planning Board Chair: previously approved document. Thank you. Same. Did Leah have a question? I have one
[24:46] Planning Board member: question. When looking at the plant, can you guys hear me? When looking at the plan, it says the approximate septic tank location looks like it's on the driveway. Is that accurate or am I looking at the wrong place? No,
[25:06] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: that's accurate. Yes. Yeah, so septic tanks can be h20 rated, so they can, you can drive over them and you can have vehicle loads. Okay. Is this a well
[25:17] Planning Board member: or is this town water? This is a well. Is that located on this as well or if you scroll
[25:25] Ryan McCarthy, Tidewater Engineering and Surveying: down max I think we can see it so this Mary Quinn also owns the property across the street and well that services this house is across the street and so that existing water line that crosses over to the house will be connected to the new house they have there are two other wells that they tried to get water from on the plan you can see them under the driveway here and then another one over here they just didn't they didn't yeah they didn't support enough water i think
[26:09] Planning Board member: Those were my only questions. That's
[26:10] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: It okay, Max, do you have anything just to explain why this is coming before the board? So this is outside of any water body setbacks now, but it is technically still within a front yard setback. Even though the new structure is improving that front yard setback, the shoreland development ordinance does not explicitly state an exemption for modifications like this. So the office as a whole voted and decided erring on the side of caution with state shoreland land laws was the safest approach. So this is really just confirming that they are in fact moving it further from the front yard than was originally approved.
[27:00] Planning Board member: Well, this would be considered a major modification anyway, right, for
[27:06] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: the purposes of coming back in front of the planning board? Oh yes, yeah, and any relocation of the structure is a major modification. There you go. If
[27:16] Planning Board Chair: we're ready, anybody want to make a motion to find this complete?
[27:20] Planning Board member: I move to determine the major shoreland plan modification from Ryan McCarthy on behalf of owner-applicants Mary E. Quinn Revocable Trust as complete. Second. All in favor?
[27:32] Planning Board Chair: Aye. Any opposed? Leah, you said aye. She did. I saw the hand. Yes. Me too. I
[27:43] Planning Board member: move to approve the major shoreland plan modification from Ryan McCarthy on behalf of owner-applicants Mary E. Quinn Revocable Trust.
[27:52] Planning Board Chair: Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Max, will you poll the board? Bob? Yes. Russell? Yes. Ethan? Yes. Justin? Yes. Dutch? Yes. Leah?
[28:07] Planning Board member: Yes. Another yes. We did it so well last time. There we go. Finding a fact for 69 Tower Road major modification request to an approved shoreland plan or whereas Ryan McCarthy on behalf of owner applicant Mary Quinn remarkable trust requests approval to amend an originally approved relocation of an existing not performing single family dwelling within the base zone setback of a water body on the property of 69 Tower Road tax map 58 lot 39 in the residential rural conservation shoreline overlay and resource protection overlay zones pursuant to the plan review meetings conducted by the Planning Board as noted in the plan review notes prepared for ten eight twenty six pursuant to the application plan and other documents considered to be a part of a plan review decision by the Planning Board in this finding of fact consisting of the following here and after the plan now therefore based on the entire record before the Planning Board and pursuant to the applicable standards in the land use and Development Code, the Planning Board makes the following factual findings and conclusions. And do we have any comments or objections to the findings of fact as written? I do not. Based on the foregoing findings, the Planning Board finds the applicant is satisfied each of the review standards for approval, and therefore the Planning Board approves the shoreline development plan application subject to any conditions or waivers. No waivers requested. The conditions of approval are as standard, and conditions of approval not to be depicted on the final plan are also as standard. Any objections to those conditions? None here. Okay. So the Planning Board authorizes the Planning Board chair or vice chair to sign the final plan and the finding of fact upon confirmation of required plan changes.
[30:06] Planning Board Chair: I guess you get to poll the board again next. Happily. Bob? Yes. Russell?
[30:12] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: Yes. Ethan? Yes. Justin? Yes. Dutch? Yes. And Leah?
[30:20] Planning Board member: Yes. Sorry, finding my mute button. Per Title 16.2.12, I, an agreed party with legal standing, may appeal a final decision of the Planning Board of the York County Superior Court in accordance with Main Rules of Civil Procedure Section 80B within 30 days from the date the decision by the Planning Board was rendered. All right
[30:40] Planning Board Chair: and I am going to suggest a very short break just because the applicant has requested we sign the plan tonight and I'd like to do that right now right they can
[30:53] Planning Board member: thank you very much well done Ryan great house good luck yep thank
New Business
[33:16] Planning Board Chair: you okay we're back on in our meeting and we're going to do new business it's titled new business and continued business I'm not sure which it is but it's continued it's continued business we've been talking about this for a long time item two is the business park zoning amendment action potentially is to continue review and discussion proposed by housing committee and associated suggestions by the Conservation Commission and the director of planning development on behalf of the housing committee is proposing amendments to the business park zone and I would just like to add I think it's important tonight that we also consider and agree on scheduling the public hearing if that's possible so who would like to leave this off Max would you Do we have anything new to talk about there's nothing new I mean the packet that we got online is the same packet that I already have that I take to every meeting for the past month or so I don't think there's anything new I don't know if we Want to workshop it tonight? I'm not, I would sort of like to workshop it at a time when we have everything you really want to look at, and I'll spend the time before the meeting, I mean I spent some time, but definitively going through things, so I'm kind of half-baked about extensively workshopping it tonight, but I do think we should get the public hearing schedule. I absolutely agree with you.
[35:08] Planning Board member: I don't think workshopping it would be, it could be counterproductive, a waste of time. Well, I kind of know what input we have.
[35:20] Planning Board Chair: You have made comments. Everybody has made comments already that are on the record, and I remember some of them anyway. Like, you know, I couldn't be Dutch, but I could.
[35:32] Planning Board member: So yeah, I don't know if we need to talk about anything other than setting up a date for a public hearing. Well, so I agree, we don't, I don't think this is the former time to go through this line by line, but I think we need to, in addition to scheduling the public hearing, talk about the Planning Board's plan for this, right? Are we either, and my options that I see are, I guess accept it as is, right, it's option A. Option B is recommended to Town Council with significant amendments, right, which would take a lot of time to go through and get everybody's line by line opinion, come to a consensus on each amendment or change to it and provide it on, or thank the Housing Committee for their proposal, agree or come to a consensus that we don't think this is it and not recommend it to Town Council in its current form. I agree with that. We're kind of gonna figure out when we're gonna do that or when we're gonna make that decision. We're missing a key piece to this public hearing. Well, that's one of the key pieces
[36:58] Planning Board Chair: and this thing that is out there, yes, but not quite complete from the click. We don't have click inputs to this. I guess my take on is our Director of Planning does feel that click, when we see the click work, that there will be some things that we may well want to endorse and include or amend the housing proposal, and my view on that is from the housing point of view is if we can do something to this that doesn't torpedo the affordability but makes it a better ordinance, it makes it, gives it a better chance of acceptance, an actual implementation where a developer will
[37:49] Planning Board member: Actually do something out there that would be a good thing, so I guess something on that. So that's a really good point. Have we pressure tested these amendments with anybody that's a professional developer, a builder, to say and justify that what we're trying to achieve by this amendment is actually going to be what someone would put on that property? We get some feedback regularly from
[38:15] Planning Board Chair: from an interested party, in other words, the housing committee is open to anybody who wants to come, and there is an interest in party that regularly attends, Mr. Wharf actually, but he's not, you know, he doesn't vote on things, he
[38:29] Planning Board member: doesn't, he listens mostly. So I mean, I guess I'm still like, I understand the goal and I understand everybody's work that went in was very extensive and I think it's really good, but I'm still having a hard time that any of these amendments are going to encourage affordable housing, if that is even a real thing, and if this is the actual location that we should be incentivizing developers to build
[39:00] Planning Board Chair: like the discussion and sort of an enlightening discussion that I had with some of town staff recently was basically that there are some other locations up north of the malls on route one that people think well that would be a good spot but one of the structural problems up there is our water and sewer capacity will not support extensive development up there without redoing for example the sewer line whereas the business part zone that we're looking at can support that as is and I've heard a lot of misgivings about, well, why put affordable housing, you know, in the business park, it's not walkable, there's no stores near there, things like that. Yes, there are drawbacks, but I think in terms of providing some units where people could potentially afford to live and work here in town, it has, it has potential, and I fully agree, I think
[40:07] Planning Board member: like the other thing is like, has anybody done a case study on an existing development that is in that area? Has that created affordable housing? Has it reduced the cost of housing across town? Is that, is the demand for those units, it's like skyrocket, or is there vacancy, is there issues with that? I guess I'm just really, you know, I'm trying to say this the right way, I don't want to sound like I'm, no, I would, against anybody, but it's like I understand we spent money to update the infrastructure there but just because we did that doesn't mean we move forward with incentivizing development in the wrong location because i'm looking at the numbers that have been provided by some of these committees and you know obviously i'm in that industry and 350 dollars a square foot for housing is like bare bone minimum on like a perfect site this is not that and to think that we're going to attract affordable housing there i know that's why i was just asking like have we really pressure tested it i understand there's committee members that have been in that industry and whatnot but have we talked to anybody that it may actually want to do this or could do this or would consider it to make sure that what we're putting forward is actually going to get us what we want which is affordable housing
[41:27] Planning Board Chair: With a pencil and I think, you know, it's, I don't know that the proposal is to support a hundred percent affordable housing there. I think there's a should
[41:37] Planning Board member: be a mix of units, types of units, because and but how does this ensure that, right? And I mean, I said in the well, I mean, it opens it to somewhat the market, and I did sit in the meeting on Tuesday that Jason had sent us, and it was about affordable housing in southern Maine and whatnot, and there were some developers that were speaking, and there were some really good points, and where what communities have like kind of worked with developers to try to promote exactly what we're trying to do and achieve certain goals, but the feedback is anything over 10 affordable doesn't pencil out. It's not financeable. You can't do it unless you're getting state or town incentives, which is either through tax incentives, state grants, or whatnot. But unless you're going 100 affordable, doing semi-market rate and 10 affordable maybe works, but if you're at 25, the numbers just don't work. You probably need TDRs to make it work. Yeah, and we don't
[42:36] Planning Board Chair: I don't think we have that TDRs. What are transfer development rights? And I can't explain to you
[42:44] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: exactly how those work. Maybe Max can, but do you want, do you want planner contacts? Well, just before
[42:50] Planning Board member: We get into that. I think that this goes back to, I raised a question at a previous meeting about professional assistance in drafting this ordinance, right? And I feel like that this conversation comes back to that, right? You know, more than just the housing committee, well, housing. This is a great draft, but you know, I go back to, this is probably one of the most, I guess, significant changes to the ordinance, at least in the recent past, and building off of what Justin said, shouldn't we have professional assistance in drafting this or some organization that can answer all of the questions on this?
[43:37] Planning Board Chair: Maybe what we do is like we do with applications. We put them out to an independent engineer for review of that type. I mean, not an independent engineer, but an independent party to look at this and say, because to answer some of those questions, because this area has been studied to death. I mean, we've had, you know, the wetland survey and we've had charrettes and we've had public meetings and we've had, and this draft from the housing committee came out of a good two years of work and a lot of chewing over by town committees and I think some, there's been some chewing, more chewing that started, you know, more recently and we haven't seen the results, so and I
[44:30] Planning Board member: know, I agree fully. I just, I'm like really hung up. I mean, here we are, we have two amendments from two different town committees trying to achieve similar goals, you would think, and we still can't come up with an agreement. We spend all this time chewing on them and it's like, feels like we're trying to shoehorn something into a place that shouldn't be. I don't, I don't, I understand the town council, right, that was a goal back in whenever it was, 2021, but the market has changed, cost of construction has changed, like the economy has changed, there's a lot of change, and to keep going down a path blindly because we set out for a goal, that's great, but goals change and should we be taking a step back, hit a pause button and really look at is this what the town wants and is this the location that best suits what the town wants? I think we're gonna, I think we can all guess how the public meeting this is gonna go and whether I'm theorizing the majority of the respondents are going to be proponents or detractors from this proposal. I think we can guess what that's gonna be. People supported for
[45:43] Planning Board Chair: affordable housing but not there.
[45:47] Planning Board member: That's everywhere no matter where you propose.
[45:51] Planning Board Chair: You know our best solution that the housing committee has been a part of is infill because infill happens voluntarily on property that someone owns they add a unit and it's more gradual increases density without you know the shock
[46:12] Planning Board member: effect one of the speakers made a comment on tuesday it was i thought it was interesting it was just like the challenge like we'll have public comment right but the housing that we're talking about building here those people that are going to live in those units don't live here right now and they're not going to be at that meeting either right so it's it's like we're creating housing to bring new people into town not to put people not necessarily because they're they're you know
[46:39] Planning Board Chair: they're kids that can't stay in town. There's, there's, that's true, people that work in town that can't afford to live in town, they got to drive up to Lebanon or somewhere, and I mean, nothing wrong with that, but that's a lot of driving, you know. They're just, yeah, just I
[46:55] Planning Board member: get, I mean, I think it's cyclical, right? Like again, it's, this goes back to how we started this conversation, right? I think we can schedule the public hearing, right? But we need to come up with a plan as a board as to how we're going to handle this proposal. Well, are we going to accept it as is,
[47:12] Planning Board Chair: are we going to amend it? I'd say until we get all of this stuff on the table, I'm, I would argue you
[47:18] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: don't need to make a decision at the public hearing. No, of course, yeah, of course, but we are
[47:25] Planning Board member: restrained, right? We have main state law coming into effect in July of 27, I think it'd be good to do something before then, and we need to incorporate at least the requirements, the base requirements of that law into this, or you just let the
[47:41] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: clock run. With that in mind, if the next step is a public hearing, then delaying the public hearing until a full plan as you describe it is ready with just, we're not suggesting
[47:54] Planning Board member: now, and I, so the thing to go back to your question, my take is we need to figure out and not amendments to an ordinance, not different pieces to this, unless you just want to throw everything at the town council, let them pick what they want, which is what will happen anyway way, but I think we need to try to do our job right. I agree, and but I think we need to give them an ordinance and not just amendments to our ordinance, right, based upon whatever input we end up with. Public click Conservation Committee, Housing Committee, once we have all of that, then we sit down and work. I would Agree with you. I would say that it's the planning board's responsibility to put forth ordinance proposals to the town council. And yes, we should take into account all of the separate committee's input and opinions, but it really should come from us. And I think that we've been backwards on this whole thing from the start.
[49:02] Planning Board Chair: But we've been waiting for, we received significant input in the spring, and then we've been waiting for that final shoe to drop from QLCC. Will QLCC meet before the 12th, before our next meeting? I thought they were gonna try to wrap it up before this meeting, and it appears, I'm hopeful that they'll wrap it up and we'll have the full, the full memo instead of the partial memo. There will be a QLCC meeting in November.
[49:33] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: I believe the first Monday of November is when they usually meet, and I'm seeing head nods from click members in the audience, because we can, if we can get
[49:43] Planning Board member: information from them then, in our next meeting, do we have time to like actually try to work on something? We next is October 24. I keep seeing November and
[49:52] Planning Board Chair: then we jump to November 12th, and that's unless we have a special meeting in November, and that's another topic for discussion tonight. Well, my suggestion is
[50:03] Planning Board member: we plan for the public hearing, and then we take what, whatever we get from the public hearing as input, then we wait on the click input whenever that happens, and then we deal with it. Okay, I mean, I like that. I mean, I, but I still with Justin's concerns, I'm right in line with those. Yeah, I mean, we have a public hearing, and what if the public is like, we don't want it there, which is exactly, that's exactly what they're getting. Then what, we're back at the same point, and we're like, where are we looking? Are we looking somewhere else? I mean, I think at that point I
[50:35] Planning Board Chair: think at that point we need to sit with council in a workshop and say, you, here's the public hearing, here's all these other proposals, you know, you have tasked the Planning Board and the Housing Committee to do these things, and we are kind of running into, you know, some headwinds, and I'd like the council to take a look at its intentions, you know, that started this ball rolling a couple of years ago.
[51:07] Planning Board member: Because the main goal is affordable housing.
[51:10] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: Or is it to preserve green space?
[51:13] Planning Board member: Because I'm really confused.
[51:14] Planning Board Chair: I mean, I think it's responsible development of affordable housing. And responsible development, you know, respects the green space, et cetera.
[51:23] Planning Board member: So are we better off than proposing a mixed use for that?
[51:30] Planning Board Chair: In that area? Mm-hmm. In other words, mixed type of development.
[51:36] Planning Board member: Much like we're working on the other side.
[51:38] Planning Board Chair: Well, doesn't the current ordinance allow for those types of uses, a mix of those uses already? It doesn't say it has to be all 100% affordable. It just gives incentives for affordable to happen. So you could have, you could have 50% market rate and you could have 50% affordable. No one's gonna build that. Well, you have a hundred percent market
[51:58] Planning Board member: rate. I don't think it requires, and we're getting lost here. I don't think it
[52:02] Planning Board Chair: requires affordable. No, well, 10% of units would be required or they'd have
[52:08] Planning Board member: to pay x dollars per, like everything else. Yeah, and I mean, kind of in this business, but like they're going to pay, they're not going to do affordable housing, right? So we're not even going to get the goal that you want. We're going to give up our 50 feet or 55. I mean, there's other things too, like setbacks and stuff that like are actually beneficial to development, having larger footprints. But again, that's not what we want here, because you get, you want to preserve the green space. I've just been like back, I mean, we had the conversation the last meeting too, you know, and I don't want to transition to that, but mixed use commercial zone and stuff, but like, I don't know, like I just am really, it's hard for me to get past that we're so hell-bent on this area when there's areas that are already developed, completely underutilized, and we could be putting all of our energy into creating development in the areas of town that from the people that I speak with in the community would much rather see things happen in a different area, and developers would much rather develop in those areas. And I know we spent money to build the tip district over here, and that's great, but I just feel like that's not a good enough excuse for me to keep going down the path of, well, I think this
[53:24] Planning Board Chair: parcel is going to get developed one way or the other, you know, with something, and probably be single-family home type use would be what it would be, which may be palatable to the community, right? And I think the community would accept that. The birthing
[53:43] Planning Board member: process of this ordinance has been, and I'm sure, I mean, I don't want to argue or anything, it's like, I want housing and I look like, let's do it. I just, some really like, I just, I'm not convinced this is the right location to try to incentivize.
[54:00] Planning Board Chair: There's no land in Kittery that is usable as affordable housing land because of the price of the land. Just the price of the land.
[54:09] Planning Board member: Takes it right out. So how do we incentivize other ways, through tax incentives, through working with developers, to say what could you actually build and what can we do to help do what we want? And I mean, again, I talked to a lot of developers, and a developer that wants to build a property that, I mean, obviously they're here to make money, but it's like they want to see it successful, they want to be partners with the community, sure, they want, they don't want to, I mean, there is some that want to put up whatever and say see you later and let you deal with it and it turn into a wasteland, but I mean they're investing in this to make money, they're not doing it to make nothing, and sure they're not paying to do it, so I'm just, it's, I, again, I'm again, that's kind of where I'm at with this, I'm really hung up, and if before we get, it feels like before I get into the weeds of scribing line by line, it's like I'm still haven't been convinced this is the right location to achieve the goal that I believe, so we're gonna be forced a little bit, right, agree or disagree, right, the state has mandated that thou shalt permit this level of density, debate that on your own, but my personal opinion is that we're going way above and beyond even the state requirements, right, in terms of the environmental considerations, or sure, right, I mean as far as pretty much every dimensional standard that's in the state, the state has said thou shalt permit 5,000 square foot per dwelling unit or 1250 for the first four on each individual lot, right, and you can go up to 55 feet with a house with a affordable housing bonus on that, and all the other conventional standards, you know, setbacks, front yard, backyard, shall just, they need to be equal to the surrounding area, right, or you can't be more restrictive than the surrounding area, we've taken that in this proposal, or the housing committee has taken that and gone way above and beyond for that, right, we've, they've totally removed the bonus height for affordable housing and just gone straight to 55 feet, right, the max that's permitted by state law, with no, you know, no inherent incentive for affordable housing in that, they've, We've reduced the setbacks, so front yard, street front edge, side, rear, to nothing pretty much, right? And it's not in alignment with the surrounding zones, right? We've taken the state requirement and we've gone way above and beyond it in density.
[57:05] Planning Board Chair: I think the point is to concentrate the development in a less footprint area and conserve more land undisturbed.
[57:14] Planning Board member: Without going line by line, I don't understand how this works. That's the point. Because we have 25% open space. There's some of the standard wetland and water body setbacks, right? there's some you know little crumbs about building setback from people's property lines no it's not property lines being and I think that 's specific for that reason right usable yard space that's wacky that is so
[57:45] Planning Board Chair: wacky that will probably get changed because that's, that is not, that's within
[57:51] Planning Board member: 200 of existing residents, right? And so my point being is, right, I think that the housing committee did what the housing committee's goals are and tried to maximize density in housing in this. And I think it's antithesis to what most of the people in Kittery want, and it goes above and beyond even what the state requires. And that's why I struggle along with Justin and it sounds like Dutch, right? And, you know, is this proposal what we should be working forward on, trying to get this proposal slightly amended to town council, or do we need to?
[58:28] Planning Board Chair: Well, I don't, you know, if the votes aren't here, it doesn't go to council with our recommendation. It may go with no recommendation whatsoever. We could forward it with no recommendation. We could forward it with a thumbs down. Or we could forward it with a thumbs up, but either way it's got to get up there
[58:52] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: some way sometime. Chair, if I may. Yep. This is discussion that I wish Jason was here for, because he is the staff person, right, who has shepherded this through housing land issues, the public charrettes that were held by Seacoast housing, greater Seacoast housing coalition, the public forums, the interviews he's had with developers, one of whom is in this room today. He has the context for some of your questions, or may have the context that I do not, because I am not the staff person for this. I would suggest I, you know, there, whatever you schedule the public hearing, it's not going to be at the October 22nd meeting. Why don't we, why don't we reconvene at that time? Yeah, because he will be there covering for me, so I just think that this conversation would be more productive with Jason here, whether it's a workshop or just a continued discussion.
[59:55] Planning Board Chair: I think a continued discussion would be okay, and we could have, I think, Qlik to get done by then.
[1:00:04] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: And to some of Justin's points, not all of them because I'm not going to remember all of them, I would hope that the public hearing would be an opportunity for developers, some of whom again are in this room, to express what would make things pencil out and would not. Right? And I would extend an invitation to you and all other board members to come to any housing committee meeting. They are the first Thursday of every month, and there are almost always, there is at least one market rate develop housing developer and one affordable housing developer, if not more, are so that the feedback from developers is there consistently and they again, I don't go to every housing committee either, and also you could, you could also watch it by Zoom. There is a Zoom link during, so we should figure out
[1:01:01] Planning Board member: scheduling this public hearing. Sounds like, yeah, before we do that, Leah has been noticeably silent on this. Hi. Hi. I just didn't want to butt in, but I agree with everything you guys are saying. I think it would be great to schedule the public hearing. I also think if we get out of the public hearing and have a pretty like cohesive story from them, I think it would be interesting to talk to town council before we make a recommendation just to understand their positioning. I agree, Justin, like it's been a while since they proposed this, and yeah, interested to see if this is still the right action going forward, but I think there's a lot more we need to learn before we can make a decision. November
[1:02:05] Planning Board Chair: 12th okay here was that one of the dates and that is that is the date that 's about the date we have I mean they said that he said in his memo
[1:02:17] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: that the third would be state leaderable and then the November 12th meeting would have to be in council chambers, so I guess it gives us time to discuss it and
[1:02:28] Planning Board Chair: December 3rd. Alternative to December 3rd. Okay.
[1:02:35] Planning Board member: No Zoom at Star Theater. There's no Zoom at Star Theater. I think we talked about that last meeting, right? Yeah, we did. It didn't used to have Zoom. We held the last related public hearing there and it went okay. And it gives more people the opportunity to come and sit in and make comment.
[1:02:53] Planning Board Chair: So what's the thoughts between December 3rd and November 12th? One note the
[1:03:02] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: IT person Randy mentioned that potentially we could set up Zoom capabilities at Conference Room A so that if the council chamber, not gonna promise anything because I start the ear, they can pan out, but if council chambers are chosen, there could potentially be an overflow room for attendees. I just want to point that out, but I think he was, I'll let you as a board decide where to hold this. I was
[1:03:25] Planning Board member: gonna say that room is smaller than this one. It is, I do just want to mention on December 3rd there is a Port Authority meeting, I believe, but Jason said in his memo that it didn't conflict with any other town or department business, but I don't know if that matters. I thought Port Authority
[1:03:48] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: was the third Thursday of every month. No, it's the first Thursday.
[1:03:56] Planning Board member: So November 12th is a regular Planning Board meeting, right? Are we doing any other business
[1:04:03] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: on that date if you schedule this hearing? Likely no, so
[1:04:13] Planning Board member: then any other business would be
[1:04:14] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: shifted over to december's meeting yeah so before when i was under the understanding that the hearing will be October 22nd I was telling applicants you're gonna be on the November agenda not the October 22nd so now that 's changed I would have to let people know that they're gonna be pivoted to a December meeting unless we unless they're small enough that we could squeeze them in
[1:04:42] Planning Board member: I'm hearing that we're not gonna hear from CLIC until the 12th because they're not meeting until November, so we would I don't think that we need to take that into consideration. Let's just have the public hearing and then we'll have the input from that and then we can
[1:04:59] Planning Board Chair: get a click as a separate so a sense of the board sooner November 12th or later
[1:05:05] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: In here, in here, or the, or the Star Theater on December 3rd, right? Is that
[1:05:15] Planning Board member: I think December 3rd is better to give us nights available in Star Theater.
[1:05:22] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: On December 3rd it would be at the Star Theater, not here. Oh, we can't do both, we serve, so yeah, I did just check and it is the first Thursday of every month, so actually I don't think so. Yeah, I guess
[1:05:43] Planning Board member: do we think there's enough room in here and in an overflow conference room remembering how it was I mean five years ago I went to it wasn't a public hearing it was just like an information session, and those people want to, yeah, I mean it
[1:05:58] Mary Alice Lapointe, Conservation Commission Chair / CLICK member: was packed yeah Russell can I just say something about the dates sure having attended the last would you say Mary Alice Lapointe chair of the conservation commission and member of click i believe based on the meeting we just had on monday click feels as though they've covered i hate to speak for everyone but i 'm looking at jeff because he was there too click feels as though they've covered all the issues negotiated on some of them agreed to disagree on some of them and jason has sort of agreed He could put together, I'm gonna call it an amendment, I'm not sure what if he would call it, but I believe CLICK feels as though they're ready to put something together for you, and that just hasn't been put together yet, based on the meeting we just had this Monday. Not that we agreed on everything, but we did negotiate a lot of things and discuss pretty much everything that was on both of the amendments, if that helps you with your timing. Do you have an
[1:07:02] Planning Board member: opinion on the November versus December options that we have in front of us?
[1:07:08] Mary Alice Lapointe, Conservation Commission Chair / CLICK member: I am reluctant to do that because I don't set Jason's schedule, but I believe that we kind of all agreed that Jason was in a position to take everything he's heard from housing, conservation, and CLICK and put together, I'm going to call it an amendment or a memo, put something together that kind of incorporates all of them and lays out for all of you the issues that you sort of have to decide on because we can't agree on, and it would be an amendment, and it would have, my vision is it would be an amendment that combines everything that CLICK has talked about, housing has talked about, conservation has talked about, a single document. Then he would highlight in color-coded, this is how he described it, right, I'm looking at Jeff, he would highlight, color code it because he's good at that, here's what we have negotiated together and here's what we can't agree on, and then put it in your
[1:08:03] Planning Board Chair: hands. Public hearing might concentrate the mind, that's all I can say. I feel
[1:08:14] Planning Board member: that we need to do this in the Star Theater for size, was capacity what he said? No, really said no. I would think that maybe there's some way we can figure out priority and schedule for this. I find it amazing that every single evening in Star Theater for the next
[1:08:36] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: three months is booked up. I'm happy this is not the amendment I'm working on, but yeah, KPA is meeting on December 3rd, so I guess your choices are, we could, you could schedule it and I can talk with Jason, we can pursue cancelling a meeting and the
[1:09:00] Planning Board member: Worst-case scenario down there, you do not want to go down there. To go down where? Because now you're denigrating another committee. No, I'm not trying to do that. Oh yeah, but that's what it sounds like. All right, I all retract that. I would just, I served there was some flexibility in some manner that we could figure this out.
[1:09:17] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: Worst case scenario, we can, if you schedule a hearing and it has to be moved, you guys can reschedule hearing at another date, but that sounds reasonable. But if you, if you would rather wait until the 22nd and for a new list of dates, I can, maybe he didn't think of KPA or maybe he knows something I don't, maybe they're not meeting in December for whatever reason and he just didn't put that in the packet. I think that's what he said is we have one IT guy so he can't televise the KPA meeting here and the public hearing for the BP zone at Star Theatre at the same time, right? He's really good, but he's not
[1:10:04] Planning Board member: that good. Schedule it for November 12th for now at least to get it on the books.
[1:10:13] Planning Board Chair: Does that work for a notice because the staff has to do all that? He wants to do
[1:10:18] Planning Board member: a lot of advance noticing on this. November 12th is here though, correct? What's that? We have to be done here. Yeah, and it's and it's up, it's a scheduled planning board meeting. Leah had a comment. Did you, I thought I heard you, I was just saying as far as I know the Port Authority has not cancelled their December meeting, but I thought you asked if I had inside. I was wondering, so again I suggest November 12 just to get it on the books. Yes, something else comes up we
[1:10:56] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: can always reschedule. We should have enough noticing time to, I should hope. Yeah, it's a month. Yeah, do
[1:11:05] Planning Board Chair: we need a motion for that or I don't, yes you do. All right, I move we
[1:11:09] Planning Board member: schedule a public hearing for the business park zoning amendments for Thursday November 12th
[1:11:14] Planning Board Chair: in council chambers. Second. All in favor. All right, hi Leah. Yes. Okay. Yes, smiling and waving. We made this short just for you. [Planning Board member: Thanks guys.] Not over yet though. I
[1:11:36] Planning Board member: move. It could be over, right?
[1:11:40] Planning Board Chair: Did we get minutes to look at that? I didn't see any. Pending Board member items. [Planning Board member: Housing] committee is continuing its amazing work. This
[1:12:02] Planning Board member: is my stack of business cards. The climate committee was a really good meeting, wasn't it, this week? I think so. Yeah, I am. So they didn't, they canceled the September meeting. You're gonna hire a consultant yourselves, aren't you? They are, they are soliciting outside consultants because that's, that'll juice it. Yeah, we've started the process of
[1:12:29] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: That, and I think that's all I can say legally. I could say more, I don't know. I just wanted to sound serious.
[1:12:36] Planning Board Chair: Staff, is that your staff comment? That's it?
[1:12:39] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: I guess a couple of things. I'll have more details on this later, hopefully, but the Climate Action Committee and the Housing Committee are tentatively planning a workshop on November 4th. Planning and Development Commission on the benefits of infill. Was it November 4th, right?
[1:12:59] Planning Board member: I can figure out election day by day.
[1:13:05] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: So when I have more information I'll share it with the planning board and anyone who's interested in attending. It's about the climate and economic benefits of infill as a development
[1:13:15] Planning Board Chair: practice 5 to 7 KCC on November 4th.
[1:13:23] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: I forget if I mentioned this at the last meeting, but I will not be in attendance on October 22nd. Jason will be covering it for me. I'm going on vacation the end of the October.
[1:13:35] Planning Board member: You were just on vacation. How much vacation do you get?
[1:13:40] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: I have to cancel the Pats 3, so I actually was, well, I planned to leave on Thursday the 22nd because we were, we were certain there was going to be a public hearing on the BP zone, and then two days after I booked my ticket that changed, and I'm not changing it again.
[1:14:00] Planning Board member: Makes sense to me.
[1:14:04] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: And then this is not in response to any zoning amendments being reviewed, but if anyone has questions on housing affordability or that, they're welcome to reach out to staff on kind of the pro forma or zoning calculations or what people look at. I don't think anyone wants to hear me monologue about that right now, but happy to chat anytime or send resources. I might take you up on that. I mean, okay, yeah, there are the numbers that I'm seeing that I've, I've been right where you were. I'm still there, but oh, and it's very slow going, but I am working on that housekeeping list. Jason said the first step once I write it is to get staff input on things to add, and then we'll probably go to click first and then planning, where I think I've incorporated the
[1:15:11] Planning Board member: things that come up in the past click conservation committee. There is a conservation commission, I know, but you're gonna send your cleanup to them
[1:15:20] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: too, right, the housekeeping cleanup, of course, there you go, of course. I'm, yeah, I'm probably gonna propose it in kind of chunks, so one's actual housekeeping, one might be kind of looking at the shore land ordinance again, so small shore land projects like what happened tonight don't have to come as often, but that's pending, so what
[1:15:47] Planning Board member: Happens with all the state like the LD laws and whatnot, like you guys got to pose amendments for every single ordinance, and then we have to redo them, and then it'll be one. I'm just like thinking, like we're talking about this one, we've been talking about it for eight months. Yeah, it's
[1:16:01] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: going to be one big package that the process for LD 1829 is going to be shorter because it's required. The last LD was in 2023, that was before you LD 2003, that took longer because they were the required amendments, and then there were a list of recommended proposal, proposed additions to the amendments that were brought by Click and Housing. So that one law, and then and after seeing that process, Jason and due to the fact that LD 1829 is going to be a lot more complex, he's just gonna propose the amendments as far as I know. He's just gonna do the amendments required by state in one big chunk. It's gonna be a lot. One potential benefit of the MU zoning amendment currently being reviewed is it'll give us an opportunity to incorporate the LD 1829 amendments for that zone, so it'll take a little bit off his and your plates, but it's not gonna be one item at a time. It's you're gonna have a packet of a lot of, a lot of pages. Yeah, it's it's it's gonna be pretty similar zone wise as far as, far as I know. I don't think they're proposing differences. That might be a good time for a workshop. Absolutely. Yeah, at some point he's gonna start working on that, probably gonna start next year.
[1:17:27] Mary Alice Lapointe, Conservation Commission Chair / CLICK member: Can I ask a quick question? Not that I want to throw in a bunch of things if you're doing housekeeping, but there was a project in front of this board last meeting that was causing a lot, awful lot of consternation between the, I can't remember exactly what it was, two different definitions of the setbacks for wetlands. You recall the project? It says two different things in two different sections, and that was causing a lot of consternation, and I hate to throw a bunch of things in, but if we're doing housekeeping, shouldn't
[1:18:01] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: that be fixed? Why don't I, why don't we, I'll email you asking for other suggestions, but that is a good suggestion. I'll write that down. People have, if planning board members have ideas, I can't promise it'll make it in the draft that comes your way, but I will, I'll put it on the list, and whether it stays there is not entirely up to me, but Leo
[1:18:28] Planning Board member: probably have a lot of sleepless nights. She can contemplate that. Oh yeah, I'll think about it. May help you sleep.
[1:18:44] Planning Board Vice Chair / Roll-call member: Any more mix? That's it for now. Anyone want to make a move to
[1:18:51] Planning Board Chair: Adjourn. Second. All in favor. Aye. Thanks, guys. Bye.