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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-11-04 Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Minutes Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Minutes Councilors Attending: Geoffrey Gratwick, Frank Farrington, Hal Wheeler, Gerry Palmer, Susan Hawes, Patricia Blanchette, Peter D’Errico, Richard Stone Staff Attending: Ed Barrett, Jim Ring, Brad Moore, David Gould, Chief Ron Gastia, Dana Wardwell Others Attending: Carol Epstein, Kathy Moriarty, Kim Marchegiani Committee convened at 5:00 p.m. Consent Agenda 1. Sewer Abatement Request: 89 Larkin Street – Account #043067 Councilor Stone moved and Councilor Blanchette seconded with no discussion. Regular Agenda 2. Discussion – Landscaping Requirements of the Land Development Code A. Carol Epstein has requested the opportunity to address the Committee regarding concerns about existing landscaping requirements for development projects. Carol Epstein, developer in Bangor. She said when they were working on a small potential project on Odlin Road, they started looking at the landscaping requirements, and had some concerns. Carol wanted to share those concerns with the Committee in a constructive way. Carol said they were not against landscaping and would really work to enhance their buildings with landscaping with nice lobbies, sculptures, and all kinds of things. And she thought those things do wonderful things and most of their tenants really appreciated it. For landscaping, they go beyond with seasonal, both flowers and perennials beyond what the City required. She did become concerned with that project (laid out the plan for Committee review) that this was a little 10,000 square foot building on Odlin Road, recently approved. It was a multi purpose building with office, perhaps retail service. They were trying to accommodate some potential tenants who had needs for both office and storage. This building offered good visibility and access. It was approved, but quite honestly was hoping not to have to build 1 it because of costs. When they do the landscaping that was in the City Code, it required a perimeter of a lot of trees and shrubs that block visibility and line of site and viewing the building. They felt that landscaping should enhance the building not block the view of the building. The City Code favors the latter rather than the former. This being a commercial district and one would want to go there because it would be accessible and visible. The landscaping requirement was so heavy around the perimeter that it would block the signage and visibility and some safety components. When spending out on the perimeter it would consume the budget, and would not be able to put landscaping next to the building which would be a much more attractive place to put the landscaping with a mix of both. She was concerned that the City Code offered no method for waivers and there were times when the general topography of the site may slope up at the back, which acted as a natural buffer. She said there was no way to say was there a need to put in the bushes when it was not accomplishing what it was geared to. She said she clearly understood why there was a heavy buffering between a commercial zone and a residential zone. But VIP Auto was neighboring and not sure what they were buffering from them. The cost was of concern. For a few years her friends in Portland had asked how she built in Bangor because the rents didn’t justify the cost of construction. She said it used to be able to work through that, and honestly now didn’t see how that can be done. The construction was not just building materials, site costs, moving dirt, not just pavement. They had budgeted $7,000 for landscaping. They did’t have a quote on landscaping and don’t usually because they felt comfortable with the numbers they figured. They started running some numbers on an acre plus site which required 22 coniferous trees, 17 deciduous trees, 35 coniferous bushes, and 35 deciduous bushes. Installed trees run between $300-$400 minimum, when multiplying all this was well over $20,000. That didn’t take into account loom, mulch, and seed. Carol said again, she hoped not to have to build but had a proposal out to a tenant and if they said yes she would have to build. That location was a good niche and good use for that property. She said they weren’t just throwing up a metal building; it would have a lot of glass, brick, with attractive front, something that would enhance the neighborhood and stand out as a quality project. She said from a cost point it was unworkable. Carol said something was wrong with the City Code when it forced someone into that kind of position. Councilor Gratwick said he thought this would be the initial phase of discussions. David Gould asked for suggestions on what he should comment on per Councilor Gratwick’s request to provide an overview. The best reference David could provide was the last ½ dozen projects that had been built in the City using those exact same standards. The bank (Merrill Merchants Bank) and Walgreen’s on Broadway, the Shaw’s on Stillwater Avenue their building hadn’t been built but the landscaping was put in. He said that’s what the Code “gets you to” as opposed to looking at a plan, looking at a site what it looked like out there as you drove by. Councilor Gratwick said part of the homework was to bring this back and for each Councilor to go look at those sites with that in mind. David said he thought they would get a better feel for what the standards looked like on the ground when going by a site that’s built as opposed to looking at a piece of paper, a plan. Ed asked David to give the Committee a summary of those sites because they were not all comparable, in particular the Walgreen’s 2 site, it abuts residential which increased buffering. He asked if that was correct. David said Walgreen’s was a private business which would require heavier buffers. Ed suggested providing the Councilors with a summary of the site and any particular situation that might make it different from the proposal. Councilor Blanchette thanked Carol for bringing this forth and that this had been a problem around the City which she had a great number of complaints about. Buffers were required on developments but never stopped to think of the severity of our winters, winter kill was really high. When plowing, if you have a parking lot and you have to plow it, you go up and knock the trees down. That meant next year going through the same process of planting them. She said she had no problem with buffers adjacent to residential zone. But Odlin Road did not have too many ranch houses for single occupancy. She stated it was a business district. If the buffers for the City reflected on the Shaw’s project, we’re in trouble. Because they tore down paradise to put up a parking lot and took the buffers away from the residential neighbor so all the carbon from the cars would go into neighborhood areas. Councilor Blanchette suggested looking into it because there was a difference between a residential neighborhood and industrial neighborhood and what should be required. She had people complaining about Code Enforcement going out and really being gung ho on re-plantings. Her comment was if that’s all they have to do, maybe there was overstaffing. She also said the City went through this when a resident cut down a tree over on one of the streets. There was a need to look at, but was not saying they were going to change one thing, and may not find one thing out of line, but should be reviewed for appropriateness. The last thing in the world that should be done to a business was to be over-burdensome. She felt it should be looked at and work with Dave and the Planning Board and find out. Councilor Blanchette said to Carol “as government we move slower than a snail”, a process that municipal government required, so it would be the new Council to look at this, but it had been long overdue that they go in and separate the impacts on a residential neighborhood from industrial. Jim Ring asked Carol about the comment she had made about landscaping up against the building, (beneficial) they were carrying an allowance of $7000, and looking at $20,000- If they were not required to do the $20,000 if they had a preference of doing something different how much planting would be done up against the building? Carol stated she didn’t have a sense of dollars, but on that site there were clearly nice spots next to the building. She recalled 824 Stillwater Avenue where they placed trees, bushes, and some perennials and annuals right up next to the building, same with Key Plaza, 900 Hammond Street, 12 Stillwater Avenue which enhanced the look of the building. Jim said he liked the look on some of her other projects. And asked if still required to still place the same number of plants, but had flexibility to do that up against the building or separate islands, would that be preferable? Carol stated, absolutely she would love to be able to get the cost down, but if not able to she would much rather take some plantings and enhance the look of the building. Councilor Stone said he agreed with Carol. And stated sometimes there were opportunities to have exceptions. He said he was going to take credit for this because he was the one who pushed for it, but he also recognized there were times it didn’t make sense. He, however, didn’t agree with Carol on the safety issue and visibility because of all the other buildings. He hadn’t seen 3 anything where visibility was a problem. He mentioned Ames Corporation. and two or three landscaping architects. The original plan was changed because of their concerns about safety and those issues were addressed then. The intent behind it was to shield the general public from vast spances of parking lots. He stated he agreed with Carol and Councilor Blanchette that if there was nothing in the backyard, why put something there. He also said there was room for everybody to work together and come up with something. Councilor Gratwick said this was in an information sense to get the wheels turning. He asked Ed and Dave how they would begin to look at that more carefully because it wasn’t a decision that was going to be made today. Ed said what could be done first was to follow-up on David’s suggestion to give examples of what had been done and expand that, to go back historically and take pictures that showed how things had changed over time, so they could see how beautiful Bangor Shopping Center looked in places. To provide an example of when there wasn’t a standard so they could see how that had changed over time. Also, to take a look at what was required and see if there were other approaches to take, example take a look at performance standards as opposed to particular levels and say we want sufficient trees on the property to provide X degree of whatever. He suggested taking some time and see what might work. Ed agreed that what they were after was to make the properties that look nice. And that historically, properties that didn’t have much landscaping didn’t look nice. He said there had to be some way to look at potential ways to be more flexible, as Jim suggested. Ed suggested to maybe to look at performance standards, because trees, plantings, and shrubbery not only played a part in aesthetics but also with stormwater and it would give ways to manage and treat stormwater on site and that would be a big push in the future, probably on a City-wide basis. Right now that focus was on impacted watersheds. He said there were a number of factors and give Staff time to see what they could come up with. Councilor Gratwick asked if it would be reasonable to turn back to Staff, then come back here in four/six weeks. He noted that it was the tip of the iceburg which included TIC and the Planning Board. David said there were a couple of things that needed to be looked at. He said as long as he had been in the Planning Department, since 1983, they were always working on the buffer standard which had evolved over a ½ dozen times. Historically, the biggest problem was getting the stuff to show up on the sites. Part of what needed to be done, was to get the Committee to understand what the requirements were because it changed district by district, some district like this one required a buffer around the whole property. There were other districts that don’t, it would only require buffering of the parking lot. He stated it was important to understand the regulatory scheme then get Councilors out to see what the current Ordinance looked like when it was in place. The plans weren’t good representations of what it would look like in the field. Councilor Gratwick asked if at some point there would be a workshop where David would give what the current standards were and provide examples. He said it may be done in conjunction with the Planning Board and that they and the whole development community all may be educated. Councilor Farrington said they seem to be talking about two general principles: cost and what is the quality, art or beauty. If it were possible to set something up in a general principle sort of way so that when someone came in to develop everyone would know there were 4 two goals in mind. Is this something that was a percentage of the value, there must be some guideline that they could come up with about what was appropriate to put into a building? He said the court building wouldn’t have much because it was just built on a plot of land, very little land. Was there a ratio? He suggested Dave come up with a general set of principles which would be helpful. Ed said anything in the Ordinances had to be in sufficient detail for someone who read the Ordinance would know what it required. One of the difficulties would be to make it specific enough so it was not a subjective judgment. Councilor Blanchette pointed out that it was election day and there would be two/three new people that would need to be brought up to date. It would be wise to put this to Staff and waiting to update the newly appointed members. She would prefer not to rehash and get bogged down. It would give the Planning Department snap shots of different developments in town so they could look at what would be appropriate for Stillwater Avenue, Odlin Road. Councilor Gratwick said it would go back to the Council at a time uncertain. Note for the Council that Councilor Gratwick and Jim had been talking about roads and road widths, also talking about having a bus tour for the Council. Councilor Wheeler asked Carol if there was a timeline for her that needed to be considered. Could she wait out the process? He sensed that there was a great deal of understanding and sympathy for her concerns. He said that these things did’t happen very quickly, it would involve the Planning Board as well as the Council and the Planning Board could vote thumbs down and the Council would have to override it with a two/thirds vote. That would be just one of the political humps in the road. Councilor Wheeler asked Carol how soon she’d need some action one way or the other. Carol said they had already been through the review process and if they received the go ahead to do this, she would be doing it with those standards. She stated she didn’t have any illusions and recognized the complexity of the issue and that there would be no quick solution. Councilor Stone noted there was one time where they were in the process and made something retroactive for things that had been approved for a date and nothing had happened by that date, something on Broadway with Andy Hamilton. He stated that obviously there wouldn’t be planting this fall, and he was not going to stick to something he felt was right but also wanted to be flexible with Carol and other developers. Ed stated they could look at and if there was a retroactive change it would have to go back to the Planning Board to make sure it met the standard. David said they had done this because the standards were heavier than they were in this particular plan. There had been a number of sites with revised plans approved with less landscaping. There were more plantings than that a few years back. Carol had a question on the process. She noted there was an item on the Agenda for changes to the Ordinance and wondered if she were allowed to comment on that. Councilor Gratwick said the next item was Section B. B. Possible Ordinance changes – Attached is a draft Ordinance amendment to §165-135 that would clarify plant type requirements for submitting additional landscaping information for projects exceeding $1,000.000 in construction costs. 5 David said the amendment came about from specific concerns about species of planting people were putting on sites. The Planning Board didn’t require people to identify a certain kind of tree or shrub. They only asked they identify deciduous, evergreen, and shrubs. There was concern about people planting shrubs and calling them evergreen trees. Councilor Stone requested the Planning Board develop a list of plants, to say if you don’t pick from our list, not going to count what you’ve got. They opted to site a universal source, the bible of landscape materials which identified trees and shrubs. The other item of concern was the issue of Home Depot and their huge loss of plantings. They put into the amendment that if a project were detailed enough, they would be done by someone that was certified to do that and submit that to the Code office to ensure the developer got what he was paying for. This would be sort of a quality assurance. At a certain value of development should be another step in the process. Councilor Gratwick pointed out page 25 under planting details. Councilor Blanchette asked where they acquired the book. David said they may have gotten across the road. Councilor Blanchette mentioned she would get her own copy. Councilor Stone stated, as an example, every couple of years the electrical code mirrors the national electrical code when updated for the protection of contractors and the owners. The intent would be the bidder would be required to provide the intended product. Carol said she appreciated the goals of what this was trying to accomplish; to ensure things actually got planting, and stay alive. She asked regarding Section 2.1; a million dollar, why a million dollar? Her project was over a million, being a smaller project. Under plant materials section the concern would be an allowance for substitutions when the nursery didn’t have something in stock and offered others in its stead. Planting details, specifying soil amendments, watering schedule and maintenance plan would not be realistic. Nobody would check whether it was done. She didn’t think putting that on the paper would help and said that inspections would be more important. Meeting or exceeding the American standards there would be no issues. Some of the large nursery chains may not meet those standards. Requiring certain types of engineers, she said she was surprised because she felt the City had not been flexible in not specifying credential issues with engineers and letting the licensing boards do that. She said she found that to be a different direction for the City. The biggest issue would be enforcement and needed to be addressing that. Ed said the City had started trying harder to enforcing the landscaping standards. One thing the City would be doing on a regular basis would be after a year that landscaping had been done, see how much had died off and deal with that. They also had started picking areas of the City and reviewing those during the summer. Ed said, for instance, they did a lot of locations in the mall area, they found that pretty much everything had been taken out so they had to put it back in. Ed said they were trying to be more systematic and concurred with Carol that it wouldn’t be any good to have standards if they were not enforced. He also said they were trying to keep an eye on it more than have in the past. Ed suggested taking time to think about what Carol had presented. He suggested perhaps instead of using dollars, they could determine by acre size, which would avoid the one million today being the five million tomorrow. He said Staff would look over and come back with suggested changes and modifications. David said he had contact with the local 6 nursery and landscape architects. They would love the City to require it on every plan. He said it would also help keep the bidding fair. Councilor Wheeler thanked Carol Epstein for a very insightful commentary on the wordings of the Ordinance and he didn’t think this was the only Ordinance that they needed to look at, with a little more objectivity rather than subjectivity. He said the majority of actions by the Planning Board were initially Staff originated, or Staff driven as a result of an application from a developer. Once again he thanked her for pointing out, from her experience and practical knowledge, that there needed to be a little less over-reaching and try to involve developers who may not even be involved in the particular project in the process of refining and making Ordinances as practical as possible. Councilor Gratwick thanked Carol for coming and showing the deep geological faults. 3. Discussion – Winter Parking Regulations Ed gave a brief introduction that Jim Tyler suggested the City take a look at this. There had been a little bit of a chance to talk about it at Staff level and felt that it would be a good chance to initiate a discussion. He stated they had the emergency situation in downtown for two years. He said it was generally working well and not had very many problems with it. Public Works and Engineering were amenable to trying it on a City-wide basis with a couple of caveats, they had run into one little confusion factor because not only did they have the overnight parking ban there was the odd/even system. During the winter parking was allowed on one side of the street depending on the day so there was always clearance for vehicles to get down streets as widths lost due to snow and the opportunity to pull snow out of the areas. If the parking ban was eliminating right now, the odd/even system runs from six in the morning to midnight. Between midnight and six you can park wherever you want but when it comes six o’clock cars better be on the odd or even side of the street. They would have to work through that. They thought it was important to keep the odd/even system for safety, ability to remove snow, and avoid the necessity of pre-posting areas if there was a need to do snow removal. The Police Department was concerned because this would result in more of a need to ticket and tow. He said there were times when the Police Department has had a hard time keeping up in a snow storm. There would be additional workload and delays that may result in trying to get vehicles ticketed and towed. Jim Tyler, 154 Parkview Avenue he stated he lives on section between Garland and Mt. Hope. The houses were vintage 1910-1920 when the land standards of the lots were postage stamp Bangor lots, 50x100 / 50x75 house nestled in behind houses. What had happened over time was that many of the larger colonel homes were converted into multi-family dwellings. The Land Development Code recognized the higher density in the neighborhoods; that the Ordinance was consciously encouraging a decreasing of that density over time. He said in the meantime there are lots of dwelling units in very dense areas with very small st driveways. The winter parking ban November 1 to March, there are 100’s- 1000’s of people who are scrambling around trying to get a car off the street so they don’t get a $20 dollar ticket when there was no need for snow removal. 7 The problem with the downtown area and the residential area was that the downtown area had alternatives, such as the garage. When on Maple Street, couldn’t go to the school, nearest business, where would you go with a car? For many who have college kids, etc. for three to four weeks over Christmas, their dogging $20 tickets every night or shuttling back and forth to the parking garage, which was very burdensome. He said initially he thought this was a pretty simplistic request after it had already been downtown. He said he wasn’t even sure what to do with the odd/even, but it would certainly be nice for those who avail themselves of on-street parking didn’t have to get out of the way for 150 nights. Chief Gastia said he would concur there were a lot of people who left their cars parked on the street; they know that from the amount of tickets written during the winter months. He said he agreed there was a lot of scrambling going on, particularly when there was snow, people trying to run to their cars before they actually get there or before the tow truck arrived. In the snow months parking wasn’t a problem and it did create issues with the odd/even. It would take some thought on how they would work around that. He said the concerned was that it would stress the Police Department resources. They don’t typically tow when the plows aren’t running, but ticketing was done. The first of November cars are ticketed to let them know they can’t do that and more importantly to train them that it was better to get a ticket now than towed sometime when it does snow. He said there was a warning period before the first of November. When Public Works notifies the Police Department they’re going to plow then at the earliest chance they start driving on their beats to put a ticket on a car and call it into dispatch, a list is started, and the tow company is called. That’s after midnight, between eleven and 1:30-2:00 in the morning being the busy time with bars let out, and busy with many calls. Sometimes they don’t get there as fast as some of the Public Works workers would like them to. The concern Ron had was if they allowed parking during the night without restriction during the winter, when it came to the snow days when it’s posted on television and radios the Police Department would be required to get out there as soon as possible to start ticketing and towing. The numbers would increase significantly. He said Portland did this, they allowed parking on the street except when notification was made. He said he was unclear on the number of vehicles towed/ticketed. If this was something the Council would prefer to try, they could try for a year and put a sunset clause on it and said that would be his recommendation/request. There needed to be a chance to evaluate, as he didn’t know what it would do to the resources. Jim said he was speaking on behalf of Public Services, that it might be workable. Ron outlined some valid concerns. He said he didn’t know, over time, if they might potentially end up not ticketing, less work on a routine basis, but it would take a while to get to that point. He also stated he would be very concerned about limitation odd/even- some years it hadn’t been a problem. Dana Wardwell, Public Works Director said he didn’t have much different to say other than last year Public Works posted 29 bans for downtown area, the year before posted 17. Councilor Stone said he was not even sure what Staff’s final recommendation would be, and in the interest of time, rely on the Public Works Director and the Chief to come back with something that would be workable for them, not the Councilors. Ed concurred there needed to be more time to work through the odd/even issue, because that 8 just came up today. They would have more conversations with Jim and see what they could come up with. Staff would come back and report if successful or not. Councilor Blanchette said this would not be a fast fix, and suggested to look at it. She also suggested City Staff contact the media for them to place a “scrolling message” on the channel if there was a parking ban, like Portland. People needed to be informed and should be able to work with the local media. If the policy were to change, they would have to depend on the media to get the word out. Councilor Wheeler asked Ron Gastia when he said he would be agreeable, all things considered, did he mean a calendar year, or snow season? Ron said he was thinking about a snow season from November through March. Councilor Gratwick said it should be reasonable to bring back in two to four weeks. Ed said it should probably come back next time with an update. 4. Water and Sewer Billing Software Update Brad introduced Kathy Moriarty, General Manager at the Bangor Water District. Kim Marchegiani, Office Manager with Bangor Water District. Brad said the Board had already considered this at the Water District and would like to move forward. Brad said updates had been provided over the past couple of years regarding the selection of software that could handle the business practices. The Water District approved the direction that was being taken and brought this to the Committee to acquire approval and go ahead to continue with the process and purchase of the software. The system in place now was purchased fourteen years ago and was a DOS based system. The company that sold that no longer supported that software which necessitated moving to a different platform in order to do water and sewer billing which had been done since 1968. Through the original process, the company that had the software that they were using said they had a different platform, a windows based system that could handle the billing. They gave every reason on paper and verbally that would accommodate the needs. That software was purchased and during the first day of training it was evident that their software could not accommodate WWTP and BWD business practices. Through a number of years, this Munis had said the next version would accommodate WWTP and BWD business needs. They had never been able to provide software that would accommodate the needs to be able to operate. WWTP and BWD decided they should look elsewhere. Brad said the memo explained what they went through at the end of last year. They wanted to find a New England vendor, one that already had a Maine lien package that was already operation, which was specific to their requirements at the WWTP. Brad explained that the software had to be able to handle what the laws/statutes of the State of Maine say they needed to do in order to secure services that had not been paid for, overdue bills, which eventually put a lien on the property if it were not paid. Also they wanted to talk with people who were already using the software in New England. They invited four vendors who did presentations and it was determined that two could/could possibly meet their business practices. It came down to one that responded to a Request for Proposal that went out, Northern Data Systems. He referenced the memo with the cost of the hardware and software necessary to purchase and implement. 9 He said he did have the money in this year’s budget to purchase. Kathy said she did not have anything to add. Councilor Stone asked about Munis not meeting the needs, but they were one of the final vendors as noted in the memo. Brad said there was hope that their verbal commitment that they could. Councilor Stone asked if paying them initially $24,000 was it ever recovered or an effort to try to recover it. Brad said the answer was no to both of those questions. However, they have a plan in place to try to recover. Councilor Stone asked if the time period for recovery was past. Brad said he had Norm Heitmann in Legal look at the contract and they were not in a position to have to pay any money back. He said he should probably defer that to Norm. Brad concurred with Councilor Stone’s suggestion to not make the same mistake twice. He also added they were still going to pursue it. Councilor Stone said he must leave and supported Staff recommendation. Councilor Hawes asked if that equipment was new or reconditioned. Brad said it was new equipment. Councilor Hawes asked if Brad had a sense that their service would be what he would need from them, if there were a problem with the system. And was this a Portland/Falmouth based office. Brad said they do have specifications for the server and desktop computers to be used. They had given what was required and could buy on the market competitively. However, the software was exclusive to that company. Councilor Wheeler said he was attracted to the comment that the money was in the budget. He asked if the money was there now, or would it have an impact on water/sewer rates? Brad said the money had been set aside in the Budget as a line item for the purchase of the software and hardware, which had already been figured into the sewer rate. He said that this would not have an effect on the increase in sewer rates. Councilor Blanchette would like to know if it needed to be referred to the full Council or did the TIC Committee have the authority, where the money was already there. Ed said he thought this Committee could do this, because the Water District was the agent purchasing through their process. WWTP was contributing their share to it through their agreement with the Water District that was already in place. Councilor Blanchette said this had been something that they had been trying to update for years. The current equipment had been used and abused and served them well, but it was time to move on. Councilor Blanchette motioned and it was seconded for passage. Meeting moved and seconded to adjourn. Councilor Gratwick noted this was the last meeting of the political season and offered Councilor Farrington a great debt of gratitude for hang in for many years. Meeting was adjourned. 10