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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-12-04 Planning Board Minutes PLANNING BOARD AGENDA SPECIAL MEETING MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2006, 7:00 P.M. THIRD FLOOR COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL Transcript Board Members Present: Chairman Guerette Hal Wheeler Dave Clark Nat Rosenblatt Miles Theeman Laura Mitchell Allie Brown Jeff Barnes City Staff Present: David Gould James Ring John Hamer Peter Witham Bud Knickerbocker News Media Present: Bangor Daily News PUBLIC HEARINGS Item No. 1: Conditional Use and Site Development Plan approvals to construct a 209,816 sq. ft retail store with a 9,450 sq. ft. outside garden center located at 888 Stillwater Avenue in a Shopping and Personal Service District and a Stream Protection District. Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, applicant. Guerette: Good Evening everyone. Welcome to the Planning Board meeting of December 4, 2006. This is a special meeting and this meeting was convened two weeks ago and the Public Hearing was opened so by way of announcing this meeting I am also reopening the Public Hearing on the matter of before us which is to entertain a conditional use and a site development plan for Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust is the applicant. In keeping with our regular format for Public Hearings, I will ask the applicant to make a presentation and then we will ask for there will be an opportunity for any proponents, or anyone who would like to speak with regard this matter before us to come to the podium and please state your name and address and then make a brief comment about your position. I would only suggest that if you are in one way or another influenced by the type of business that Wal-Mart represents and whether you like them or not if not really the forum to be making those kinds of discussions or comments this evening. We are here to see and to ascertain that their proposal meets the letter of the law of our Land Development Code and it is those kinds of comments that we would like to hear. Without any further adieu, I’ll ask for the applicant to begin the presentation. Mr. Bearor: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board. My name is Ed Bearor. I represent Wal-Mart, the applicant before you this evening. I’d like to take just a moment to introduce the people from the James Sewall Company and some of the consultants they have retained to address various matters of concern under your Land use or Land Development Code. If I could just take a moment. Jeff Allen with the Sewall Company will be addressing the Board primarily on stormwater runoff issues. Michael Young is the project engineer and he will address the Board on a host of site development issues. Michael Waugh who is seated here in the front row will address the Board in connection with the traffic related issues as outlined in your Ordinance. David Moyse, with Moyse Environmental Services, will address the water resources, shoreline preservation and like environmental impacts as found in the Land Development Permit application standards. And, finally, Fred Marshall, could you stand up Fred just so that they could see you. Fred Marshall of Plymouth Engineering is a landscape architect and he will address any questions that the Board may have concerning the landscaping proposed for the project. I don’t need to tell you where the project location is although I will. It is out near the intersection of Hogan Road and Stillwater Avenue behind the Crossroads Mall. You’ve all or most of you anyway were there for a site visit a couple of weeks ago and had a chance to familiarize yourself with the site. What I would propose to do this evening unless I’m given direction otherwise from the Chairman or from the Board at large is to simple go through your Land Development Permit requirements and ask the appropriate person to address the standard that is in question. Is that acceptable Mr. Chairman? Guerette: That’s very good, thank you. Bearor: Thank you. We will begin with the standards found in Section 114 – Land Development Approval Standards. It states that when reviewing any plan for approval of a land development project under this project under this Chapter the Planning Board shall determine whether the application meets the following standards. This is not a subdivision so we won’t have to address the first one. The second standard and I am going to ask Michael Young to use the portable microphone and avail himself with the various maps that are in various places around the chambers here to point out the relevant things to you. The first standard that we would to address reads on-site parking, loading, and access. The applicant must show that the proposed parking and loading layout including the impertinent drives, turnarounds, maneuvering areas and on-site travel lanes are arranged in a reasonable and safe configuration including the provision of safe pedestrian travel to all on-site uses. Mike Mr. Young Okay, the first item I’d like to address is the sidewalks. The way this is laid out we have a sidewalk crossing Stillwater that will run up along the side of the site, cross over into the store area. We have a second sidewalk that runs the length of this parking area. Again for access to the store from the various parking areas and then just general walk in in these striped areas. Access to the site, this is the main entrance, this is the entrance to the site. It was laid out to accommodate tractor trailer traffic so that tractor trailer traffic can come in, go all the way around the site, deliver their material, if it’s in this one use the turn around back in here, if it’s this one you need to back out these shaded areas. The areas have been laid out using what we call auto turn to insure that tractor trailers can make all of the turns for access. Traffic, again comes in the same way. We have two parking areas the main one in the front of the store and the secondary one to the side and then one is designated associate parking off in this little area here. There is 948 parking spaces which exceeds the parking requirements for Bangor for this size store. This is a 209,000 sq. ft. store. Bearor: Mr. Chairman, I can either have Mr. Young address all of the criteria that he is here to address or we can take them individually with questions from the Board. However you wish to proceed. Guerette: I think we’d like to hear your presentation and then we can move into questions. Bearor: Okay, all right. Michael, could you address for us the driveway or access to the site. The standard reads the applicant must show that all proposed access drives from the site to any public right-of-way are reasonable necessary and safe. That the Planning Board may limit the number and location of access points to insure that access and egress from the site is safe and will have minimum impact on vehicles traveling in any public right-of-way or private street. Could you describe the access to the site? Young: Okay, the access to the site is right here right off of Stillwater Avenue. This is the ALSID site, this is Blue Seal, this is the Cross Roads. So it’s between the Cross Road and the ALSID site. It’s a four lane entrance. Two lanes in and two lanes out. It is the sole access for the site. There is a secondary frontage over on this side but because of wetlands and its close proximity to the stream it was undevelopable through our discussions with DEP. Bearor: Is there a particular slope, steep or otherwise leading to Stillwater Avenue from the site? 2 Young: Yeah, excuse me, the slope is set up to meet Bangor’s standards. Ah, I believe that one’s about 5%. Bearor: In your opinion do you think that the access to the site is reasonably necessary and safe? Young: Yes, again this is the only location that is workable for the site. It will be a signalized entrance. It will be a traffic signal out here which Mike Waugh will talk about on the off-sites. Bearor: Mike I’d like you to address the outdoor storage, outdoor display storage and lighting. The standard reads as follows: The applicant must show that all display and outdoor storage areas are situated and properly screened to avoid unreasonable adverse affects on adjacent properties. All outdoor lighting shall be designed, installed, and maintained to avoid unreasonable adverse effect from light pollution. Could you address those issues? Young: Okay, for the outdoor storage there is a fenced off area right in this section of the front which will be utilized for outdoor storage and the garden center and that is all screened. I call your attention to the elevations. These are screened areas so the garden center ah supplies will all be on the other side of this screening area. Bearor: How large is the garden center? Young: I believe it’s 9,000 sq. ft. in that area. Bearor: So about 4 percent of the total store Young: It exceeds the 1 percent minimum requirement. Bearor: And it’s to the rear of the store as Young: Yes, it is the, again this is the main entrance, this is Stillwater, here’s the store and this is the front of the store and the garden center is located actually on the back side of the store. It faces the rear of the property. This area of the property is not being developed at this time so this will be ah remain in place and is a significant tree growth along the outside of the property. Lighting Bearor: Yes could you address lighting? Young: Lighting is provided by a series of poles throughout the site. The poles along the outside edge of the property are designed to keep the light from going off site. Basically the lights are 400 watt versus 1,000 watt for all the other interior lights and they also have convex lenses which concentrate the light downward rather than allowing it to spread outward. Bearor: And the lighting along the edge of the parking areas is that a reduced level of lighting? Young: Yes. The 400 watts along with the convexed lens the lighting here is less than the lighting in the interior. Bearor: Why? Young: Because of the 400 watt versus the 1,000 watt. Bearor: As a design measure why did you choose to do that? Young: Oh, the as far as the luminums at this area all meet the requirement throughout the parking area they just die off quicker as you go to the outside. 3 Bearor: And finally Mike, with respect to building location the applicant must show that the location of the building meets all required setbacks and is situated to avoid unreasonable adverse effect on adjacent properties or public rights-of-way. The nearest public right-of-way is Stillwater Avenue? Young: Okay, this is the building, this is the site, the site is a little over 50 acres in size. The building as I said before is about 209,000 sq. ft. The impervious area is about 17 acres. All of the off site and setbacks have been met for City requirements. We’ve also maintained this area this darker green area will not be developed and the existing tree line will remain in place to provide additional buffering. We’ve also had our landscape architect develop the buffers around the outside of the property to meet City requirements. Bearor: Thank you. Mr. Chairman and Members of Board that’s all that we have for Mr. Young until we get to the conditional use requirements and he will return to address a couple of those. If I can follow thru with the Land Development Permit requirements. Jeff would you be prepared to address stormwater? The standard in the Ordinance requires that the applicant show that stormwater runoff from the proposed development will not have an unreasonable adverse affect on abutting or downstream properties or protected resources such as wetlands, lakes, streams, or brooks and that all downstream channels or municipal stormwater collection systems have adequate capacity to carry the flow without significant negative effects. An unreasonable adverse affect may result from effects such as but not limited to, water pollution, for example, particulates, chemicals or thermal, increased erosion or flooding. So, Jeff could you explain to the Board how we have addressed this standard? Jeff Allen: Yes, the standard here had to meet the City’s standard as well as the new DEP standards which went into effect about a year ago and there are a variety of different methods that we’re using to meet both the quantity and quality standards of water quality of the stormwater runoff. It’s sort of a phased approach. The water will go through several different treatment phases. The first ones are these ah in several areas in the parking lot here and here that are bio retention cells which are shallow depressions in the parking lot that filter the water runs into those and then is filtered before it is allowed to runoff. What doesn’t go into there will go into these orange chambers here located around the site. These ones right here and those are underground chambers that have a filter built into the bottom of them so again the water will all be filtered before it leaves the site. Lastly, the roof runoff in the area in back of the store goes through some very simple filtering here and then goes into an underground wetpond. Now this is the wetpond technology is the same as has been used for years but it is all located underground in ten foot diameter culverts. So this water will be collected and kind of snake its way through here a couple times and then be discharged by level spreaders. These other chamber systems out front here also will discharge through level spreaders and either go back to the stream where the water is running now or be discharged out to Stillwater Avenue, run down and rejoin the stream right where the new culvert is or where the existing culvert under Stillwater Avenue is. In addition, all of the catch basins will have snout inlets and those are sort of an inverted inlet so the water has to go under them before it is discharged. These are, they will collect all of the floatables like cigarette butts, Styrofoam cups, and stuff in there. And those will require periodic cleaning. This schematic also shows ah these are what the underground chambers will look like with a gravel bottom and the filter area below that. Ah, this will all be under those portions of the parking lot and areas in the parking lot. So, we do meet all of the, the standard of quantity being reduced to predevelopment levels or less than predevelopment levels for all the 2, 10 and 25 year storms. And, these new standards are the new way that DEP wants to have these things done. This is we worked quite closely with Ken Libby and Jeff Dennis at DEP to develop some of these systems and they have had some considerable input on that. Bearor: So with this design there won’t be what is commonly known as a retention basin or a detention pond? Allen: that’s right, there is not surface detention ponds. All of this will be underground. Ah, these chambers in addition to filtering the water will also store it because the water collects faster than it can be filtered so these will retain the water until it can be filtered and the outlet of those is all controlled through a regular outlet structure. Bearor: And the photograph that you were pointing at most recently with the orange tubes that’s in the midst of construction and those will be underneath the ground somewhere? 4 Allen: That’s correct. This is a photograph of what these look like while they are being installed and you can see these vertical pylons here actually I believe are lights in a parking lot and so that’s, these will be about four to nine feet below the ground. Bearor: Does that have any impact on the temperature of the water that’s discharged into the stream? Allen: Yes. We found that in a lot of instances the water really heats up when it sits in the surface ponds and we don’t have any area for the water to sit in the sum and be heated. It’s all underground so it’s going to stay very similar to ground water tables. Actually, S. W. Cole did an analysis and we presented that to the Mall Marsh Commission. Bearor: Do you recall what that analysis found? Allen: It actually found that we’d be reducing the water temperature slightly which makes it easier for the fish and other stream inhabitants to breathe. It’s I think reducing it about l or 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Bearor: Jeff in your opinion then is the stormwater management plan that you’ve designed and just explained to the Board effective in preventing an unreasonable adverse affect on abutting downstream properties? Allen: Yes it is . Bearor: Okay. And, in addition to the local approvals that are required and the DEP Site Location of Development approval it is my understanding that the Penjajajwoc Stream is an impaired stream, an urban impaired stream? Allen: Yes it is and one of the DEP requirements is that we as part of that impact that we’re creating on the stream we, that it’s based on the impervious area and the size of the development. We’ve going to be donating to the City about $74,900 as an urban impact fee that’s prescribed by DEP. Bearor: Then do you have any idea what the City does with that donation? Allen: There are several there’s a Penjajajwoc Task Force that’s looking at priorities for how to best use that money and it will involve some sort of treatment system, not necessarily for this project, but somewhere in the Penjajawoc watershed it will improve the water quality in the watershed. Bearor: And finally, if you could go back to the photo to the left, the snout or snub. Allen: Yes, the snout inlet. Bearor: That raises the question about maintenance. What is the plan for maintaining this system? Allen: Part of the DEP requirement is that they have a maintenance contract with a maintenance company that will come in and periodically vacuum those out. Oh yeah I didn’t mention they also have deeper sumps in the bottom so that will collect some of the sediment so that will have to be maintained. In addition, these chambers, you can see one here that’s sort of wrapped in fabric is the inlet chamber and those will have to be maintained by flushing those out every. They have found it varies depending on the type of development. But every 3 to 6 months they will have to be inspected and periodically after some silt or whatever has accumulated on the bottom that will be cleaned out. Bearor: Thank you Jeff. Is there anything further regarding stormwater? Allen: No I think that’s it. Bearor: Thank you. I would like next to discuss landscaping. Mr. Marshall who is with Plymouth Engineering has provided the landscape plan for the project. He may need a moment to set up 5 Marshall: Good Evening Bearor: Let me first of all introduce the standard for you Fred. Landscaping of unpaved areas or other treatment of the site. Landscaping shall include as a minimum the following and it goes on to describe that the applicant must show that the development is properly screened to avoid unreasonable adverse affect on adjacent properties and public rights-of-way. So, can we start with that. Could you show us what the screening is between this project and adjoining properties in the public way? Marshall: There are really three sides of the screening. There is the screening along this abutting property for Crossroads. Screening along the Alsid which goes all the way around here and then there is other than this small little buffer along Stillwater Avenue that constitutes the public right-of-way screening. All the buffers are primarily what the call D Buffers are all the way around except for an A buffer which goes along the Alsid property along the entrance road. Bearor: Could you describe just briefly for everybody concerned what an A buffer or a D Buffer might. Marshall: The difference really is the width or actually the A thru D buffers have different requirements as far as the number of plants be 100 feet of frontage or lot line and off the top of my head I can’t tell you which exactly what’s what. But effectively it gets increasing the number of plants, trees and shrubs. It tells you how many deciduous trees, how many evergreens, how many shrubs and sometimes whether there is a fence that needs to be involved or a berm. I think you’ve probably gone through a bunch of those iterations in other projects Bearor: Can you just show the Board that the outline of the parcel is the dark green represents an area that is not being actively developed at this time? Marshall: Right, Correct. Bearor: Do you know if it is being maintained, if the trees that are there are going to remain? Marshall: The trees will remain. I think Mr. Moyse will address it a little bit more of the whole conservation and environmental side but it far exceeds what the buffer requirements are and which is one of the reasons the two sides are not buffered because there is sufficient vegetation existing that there is not need to add any more. Bearor: Thank you Fred. This is a project as you well know that does require approval under the State Site Location of Development Act and an application has been submitted and is presently pending before the Board and a requirement of your Land Development Code is that such developments needing approval apply for and receive it. And as I said we have applied and would expect to have that approval in hand within the near future. I want to make sure that I didn’t leave anyone out. David Moyse is the principal of Moyse Environmental Services. It is primarily responsible for wetland delineations of this site. I am going to ask David to describe the site characteristics to you generally. And then we will address item h and I in the Land Development Permit review standards. But David if you could just describe your findings for the Board and give them a sense of how large an area of the wetland impact will be for this development. Moyse: Yes. Good Evening. The dark shaded areas are wetlands that we have identified on the entire property. As Mike said earlier the site is about 50 acres. About 19 acres of the site is being proposed for development. Out of that 19 acres we’re proposing .89 acres of wetland alteration for the entire project. The remaining acreage this is obviously the wooded area here is forested so it is forested wetland, the wetlands that are in the open area are common known as wet meadow wetlands, they are emerging marsh wetlands dominated by grasses, sedges. Bearor: Is there a plan for the future treatment of those particular wet meadows. Are we mowing an area? Moyse: As part of our wetland mitigation as Mr. Bearor mentioned, we are going through the permitting process with the Maine DEP. The wetlands are also regulated as you know by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. So 6 we are in a parallel application process with the Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water Act. For both of those agencies we are required to mitigate for the wetland alteration that is occurring. Actually, the Corps because we are under an acre of impact typically your not required wetland mitigation but they are reviewing the wetland mitigation plan because we are required to do one under the Natural Resources Protection Act with the DEP. The proposed wetland mitigation plan is essentially three parts. One of the primary parts which coincides with some of the issues that the Mall Marsh Committee has identified is of course the impaired stream that we have already talked about and the threat of sediment discharge and pollutants and such to that stream. One of the things that we are going to do is there is a small tributary stream that begins approximately right here which is essentially fed from most of these wetland areas are essentially converging. We saw them during the site walk when we went over and look at the stream. That stream segment dumps down and eventually dumps into the Penjajawoc Stream. One of the parts of our proposal for the mitigation is stabilization of the banks along that stream. As you saw during the site walk that is constantantly is imploding if you will it’s a marine sediment fine texture. It is eroding and there is certain sedimentation every year to the stream, reaching the stream. So one of our proposals is to the stabilization of that by the use of natural checked dams, v logs, some rocks that will be used in natural checked dams placed to reduce the velocity and also the stabilization of those stream slopes. One of the other parts is enhancement of this wetland area here that Mr. Young talked about that DEP doesn’t want us to do anything in this area but one of the things that they would like us to do we’ve met with Inland Fisheries and Wildlife who is one of the technical reviewers for DEP. We’ve also met with U.S. Fish and Wildlife out there. But with Inland Fisheries and Wildlife we met with both the wildlife biologist and the fisheries biologist on the site. In this area here we’re proposing plantings that will improve the shading both in the primary and the secondary floodplain areas along the stream we’re going to improve the shading there to help again help lower the water temperature you know in the part of the stream that we can affect in this area here. So it will be primarily a mixture. I’m working with Mr. Marshall on that of scrub shrub and shade tree species in this section here along some perioon area . Basically we’re going continue this tree line here that you see right here on down through to Stillwater. The third segment which we are currently discussing with the Mall Marsh Commission and also with the State and Federal Agencies is some version of doing something with this remaining land. Basically in a conservation easement or retaining it in impertuity or something along that line but there’s approximately 24 acres of remaining land here that will be set aside in some form. We’re currently working on what that vehicle will be. Certainly we’re required of any area we do a stabilization or enhancement we have to protect that in perpituty all but this area here we’re still not sure on that. But that basically the three facets of the ------------- plan. Bearor: David under the Ordinance requirements of the City of Bangor it states that the applicant must show that the proposed development will not have an unreasonable adverse affect (end of side 1) . . . . . . . . . . .(beginning of side 2) . . . . adverse affect may result from effects such as but not limited to water pollution, for example, particulates, chemicals or thermal, increased erosion or flooding. In your opinion does the application meet this standard? Moyse: Yes it does. Bearor: Thank you. And in your work on behalf of the applicant did you have an opportunity to visit the site with various Federal Fish & Wildlife officials to determine whether or not there were any significant wildlife habitats or rare of irreplaceable natural areas on the site or historic sites of significance. Moyse: Yes we have along with the Sewall Company we’ve contacted the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, the Maine Indian Tribes, these are required as part of our application to the State and Federal agencies. The Maine Natural Areas program, Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and also U.S. Fish and Wildlife. And as I stated earlier we’ve had meetings on site with actually with DEP and the Corps Staff with U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists and two biologists both a wildlife and a fisheries biologist from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and their response is that there are not areas of rare or threatened species, no unusual features, historic architectural, archeological, essentially there are no rare features or threatened features on the site. Bearor: David the standard that we have to demonstrate for this Board is that the applicant must show that the proposed development will not have an unreasonable adverse affect on the historic site, significant wildlife habitat or rare or irreplaceable natural area. An unreasonable adverse effect may result from effects such as but not not limited to habitat destruction, degradation of habitat value, disruptions of historical drainage patterns, water pollution, 7 noise pollution, lead pollution, or other negative consequences of human activities. Do you believe the application has met this standard. ???? Moyse: Yes I do. Bearor: Thank you. Mr. Chairman that’s our presentation in connection with the Land Development Permit requirements. There are a few requirements under the conditional use standards and I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind if I could beg you to have about five minutes to get set up because a lot of that deals with traffic and I would like our traffic engineer to have moment. Guerette: Okay. Bearor: The others members could certainly of our team could answer questions in the meantime if you’d like or just plow ahead with that presentation. Guerette: Ah, you have whatever time you need to set up for your next part of the presentation. M. Waugh Are we on now? I’m Michael Waugh, I’m the Senior Traffic Transportation Engineer with the James Sewall Company. What I get the task of doing is explaining what all is happening as far as the Stillwater Avenue Hogan Road Corridor. To start off with we’ve projected based on the Institute of Transportation Engineers Standards that the Wal-Mart store will generate 1,152 trips during the Saturday peak hour. In consultation with the City, BACTS and DOT we’ve established that the combination of traffic for the peak hour of the generator of the site and Stillwater Avenue is the Saturday in the early afternoon sometime between 12:30 and 2:00 p.m. depending on which Saturday it is. Peak hour would be in that range some where. As I said we’re looking at 1,152 new trips to the site. Now let’s remember that a trip is a one-way destination so a person say leaving home going to the site that’s one trip. That same trip coming from the site back to home is a second trip. So, based on this we’d be running a little bit over 550 vehicles into the site during that peak hour. Now are those vehicles new to the area? No they aren’t. Ah, we’re projecting based on previous studies that have been done in the Mall area and previous other reports and national standards that approximately 60 percent of the trips due to be generated at the site are already on Stillwater Avenue or within the Bangor Mall area. Now these would either be pass by trips, trips from Stillwater Avenue that would be going past the site and already stop in or what we call diverted link trips? Which somebody in this case we’d define a diverting link trip as somebody that has another origin or destination somewhere in the Mall area and then also goes to the Wal-Mart site. So 60 percent of the trips that we’re projecting are already in the area that we’re projecting. The remaining 40 percent of the trips were distributed along the network based on a gravity model. You put then a 25 mile radius around Bangor, the population, we took the remaining 40 percent of the trips and divided up into the population and then we assigned then to the what appeared to be the best roadways into the site and that’s how we can about with the remaining 40 percent of the trips. The detailed traffic study has been submitted to DOT. It was submitted back in August. We had a sit down meeting between ourselves, DOT and the City in September to discuss the mitigation plan which I will be presenting in a minute, and everybody seemed to agree that the mitigation plan was sufficient for the site generated traffic at that time. We are expecting approval of our traffic impact study, or excuse me our traffic study and a draft Traffic Movement Permit to be coming in the next two to three weeks. We don’t see any problems with things right now about getting that. Ah, one thing before I get into the mitigation plan. Have you noticed how we’re going to define northbound here as traffic on Stillwater Avenue that is heading towards Orono and Old Town, southbound traffic would be traffic heading down Stillwater Avenue towards Bangor. Ah have you noticed even in the peak periods that we’re in how much smoother traffic flow is going north than it is southbound? There is considerable different out there and it’s because of the extra lane that is added to northbound traffic. For the most part we have three lanes in the very congested sections of Stillwater Avenue. Two lanes are heading north, one lane is heading south. Can you all see the plan here? . . . .everybody. This is Hogan Road coming in here, Kittredge going out, this will be Stillwater Avenue heading south down to the south mall drive. Excuse me I didn’t mean to scare anybody there. Ah, what we’re proposing is to add that additional lane onto Stillwater Avenue southbound. Plus we are proposing to add a center two-way left turn lane all the way through the section here. In some areas like up here around our site drive, this is our site drive right here, around our site drive that’ll take the number of lanes from two which is existing out there right now to the five. Based on our preliminary designs ah, we feel that all of this can be done within the existing right-of-way. We’ll have a new signalized intersection at the site drive, you’ll have a left turn storage lane and a left turn phase going in here. We’re also providing a left-turn lane 8 and a phase for traffic in this new drive right in here there will be going back to t he Lambs Book Store. Both DOT and the City and ourselves have some concern about traffic backing up especially in this left turn lane passed the Lambs Book Store drive, the existing one. What that would mean would be people coming south on Stillwater Avenue that wanted to turn in would have to stop in the thru lane and interrupt traffic flow that way. Ah, instead of that we’re proposing a whole new drive in here coming out behind their store and then back into their parking lot. We’ve discussed this the Royce Cross Agency who owns the property there and they are satisfied with the proposal that we’ve made to them. Our drive itself will have two lanes going in and two lanes coming out. We will continue the widening on down the road through the Penn Plaza signal, we will provide a sheltered left and a sheltered both directions sheltered lefts. We will have to modify the traffic signal to accommodate the widening of the roadway and move some of the poles back, gets some longer mast arms, in there we will continue the widening on down to what is the north Mall drive ah its kinds of opposite JoAnn Fabrics in there. There is an existing signal there which we will also modify, we’d have to move some poles and the controller and a couple other things that are going on in there. At this point, this diagram up here is the traffic improvements that are associated with the Widewaters Development that had come before you five years ago I think it was. Ah, they did get these traffic improvements permitted. They have contacted us recently about doing a joint construction for next season up here so that we can do our improvements and they can do their improvements all in one construction season together. Have the road torn up, reconstructed for one season with the completion of this we will have five lanes of new roadway from Hogan Road all the way down to the south Mall signal which will then go into the improvements that were done to Stillwater Avenue by the First Hartford project at the Parkade. We’re looking at spending somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million dollars in off site improvements as you see here just for this project. One other thing I did forget to mention is that the intersection of Hogan Road and Stillwater we are widening that out. We’re going to provide a double left turn lane coming off of Hogan Road going onto Stillwater Avenue which will help us with the stacking room that’s presently available between Stillwater Avenue and Longview Drive on Hogan Road. It will allow us to get some more vehicles in there and not have them stacked from Stillwater Avenue through the Longview intersection. It also let us increase some the signal timing in there by providing two lanes for the timing. A couple of other things I’d like to point out as far as our plans are going. Ah, we’ve tried to look at what was going to be the impact to the abutters as much as possible on this project. The new Lambs entrance was one that we did. We’re also looking at providing a drive from our signalized intersection around drive down to the backside of the Crossroads Plaza so they will have a signalized entrance to enter their site or exit their site to come in. We’re also providing an area for a cross connection from our site over to the abutting property which was part of the old WS Project that went in. Ah this is in line with the, excuse me, the Stillwater Avenue corridor study approach to put in some kind of an alternate route between, if you remember right we had the parallel service road concept at one time, um that’s been changed now and adopted by eh Marsh Mall and the City so that what they’re providing is interconnection between parking lots and we’re trying to get as much of that in as possible. I’d also like to point out that this signal which it is new, okay, was planned for as a part of the Stillwater Avenue Corridor Study this will service commercial development in this area. So it is not something that was not planned for it’s something that was in the plan, was accepted by BACTS and accepted by the City. Ah, other than some question, that would be the extent of my presentation right now. Bearor: Michael let me ask you, if I could Michael, to address the very simple standard contain in Section 165- 9 of the Land Development Code of the City of Bangor. Ah, it’s our obligation as applicants to demonstrate that the proposed use will not create unreasonable traffic congestion, or hazardous conditions on contiguous or adjacent streets. It is your opinion as to whether this project, what is your opinion as to whether this project will create an unreasonable traffic congestion or hazardous condition on contiguous or adjacent streets? Waugh: Ah, the answer to that question is no I do not think it will create a hazard or adverse congestions. One thing I did forget to mention in there in my presentation too was our modeling shows that all intersections form Hogan Road down to and including the Parkade with this with the improvements here will work at Level of Service D or better with the completion of this project and with the completion of the Widewaters Project. Bearor: Thank you Michael. Before we leave traffic, I wanted to not necessarily put my cart before my horse but I wanted to address an issue that I know you will hear about if you aren’t already curious about and that is access to our site under the application before you and before the DEP is as Mr. Waugh has demonstrated off Stillwater Avenue. There is as everyone is aware an alternative access that has been discussion and I don’t see a plan readily available for me to show it too well to you ah but I’m going to just walk over here if I might. This plan will show, and I apologize to the audience, this plan will show you the intersection of Hogan Road and Stillwater Avenue and 9 there is a lightly dotted line leading into our site here. Here’s the Crossroads Mall, here’s the hotel the County Inn over here. PA Hamilton This one shows it. Bearor: Thank you Andrew. It’s shown in red on this particular plan here. At present, we’ve not been able to secure the rights in the land to access our site there. Ah, we recognize that that would be a viable alternative access. We’re not here tonight promoting an access that’s an alternative to what we have proposed because what we have proposed meets all the standards for the DOT as well as for your Ordinance Requirements as well. What we are prepared to do, thank you Michael, what we are prepared to do is to offer that if an approval should be forth coming that it could be certainly granted upon a condition. And if you could just bear with me I’ll read you a paragraph of what we would propose. And I’ll offer it up to you. I have it in writing here. As a condition of approval, the applicant agrees to the following: In the event the City of Bangor secures necessary rights for construction of the Hogan Road Extension, so-called, and obtains all permits needed for such construction for a road, excuse me, of a road comparable to the applicant’s proposed access off Stillwater Avenue in order to start construction by June l, 2007 a complete construction by October 15, 2007 then Wal-Mart shall contribute $250,000 to the cost of such access. What we are not able to do because this project will not support both accesses is that we would have to scale back the access that we have before you tonight to a right-in, right-out so that if this comes to fruition, if the City secures the rights necessary to build the Hogan Road extension. Waugh: So there’s no mistake we’d like to have it as a right-in, right-out and left in. There’s no reason not allow a left-in there because we have the center two-way left turn lane. Bearor: Right, absolutely right, I stand corrected. Ah, at what’s before you tonight is an application that meets all of your standards and calls for access off Stillwater Avenue as Mr. Waugh has described it to you and the standard in your Ordinance is quite simple and quite direct and that standard was that the proposed use will not create unreasonable traffic congestion or hazardous conditions on contiguous or adjacent streets. Now there is not much doubt and Mr. Waugh could speak to this if he wishes that at times the exiting driveway into the Crossroads Mall will have traffic in front of it from the light that we propose at our site at times that is going to occur. That doesn’t run contrary to your standard. Now I understand that there will be people who will stand up here tonight who have hired professionals to argue to the contrary but I think that we plainly meet your standard and we offer you in the alternative a condition whereby we would relocate our primary access to the Hogan Road extension if the City of Bangor is able to secure that Hogan Road extension so that we might do so. Mr. Young will address next the proper operation of the conditional will be insured by providing and maintaining adequate and appropriate utilities, fire protection, drainage, parking and loading and other necessary site improvements. Young: Okay, the conditional use portion is associated with the garden center, the way it is set up the garden center has two loading centers, ah that’s what these its probably hard to see but there is two lines built into the structure, well its buried now underneath here that allow for the loading of materials purchased at the store and that’s the loading portion for the for the conditional use. Ah, the fire protection, there are fire hydrants all the way around the building for as if needed. An access all the way around the building is provided as previously noted there is not side to the structure that cannot be accessed by fire equipment or any safety equipment requirements. Bearor: There is sewer and water confirmed with the Water District and the Sewer Department? Young: Yes. Sewer and water – we have met with both departments and gone over the design elements and they fall within the parameters that’s acceptable to them and the lines of the design accordingly. Bearor: Thank you. And Mr. Young brings up a good point in his introduction he said it’s the garden center that which makes this is a conditional use. If we were not proposing a garden center this would not be a conditional use and the traffic standard that we have just discussed and the statements just made by Mr. Young would not be before you this evening. Ah, I think that that’s worth noting. We’re not suggesting that ah you necessarily are limited to reviewing the impact that the garden center has which is what makes this a conditional use you’re welcome to review the entire project as a whole because it contains a garden center. But the way your Ordinance is written 10 that is the conditional use that is before this Board. And I don’t believe to go back to Michael Waugh that we’ve actually broken out the number of trips to a garden center versus the shopping center itself. Waugh: No we haven’t. Bearor: ah, okay finally Mr. Young the last conditional use review criteria states that the proposed use although not appropriate for every site in the zone is appropriate for the location for which it is sought because the proposed use will conform to the general character of the neighborhood, excuse me, character of the development in the immediate area as to architectural style, building bulk and extent and intensity of site use. Can you comment on that? Young: Yes, what we did we looked at ah, put this one back up here, we look at facilities around the general area of the site, we looked at the Blue Seal, the Cross Roads and the VIP and looked at their structure and how they are built, what they are built out of and their style and the proportion and bulk of the size of the building to the site. The building as proposed is a masonry structure ah which is similar to the Crossroads construction. It is a flat roof which is also the Cross Roads. The style that has been incorporated into the front of the building is colonial and it has been broken up help alleviate that one long front center to it. Ah and the colors have been used to again ah blend it into the site and to the adjacent buildings. Bearor: And I believe that we Did we submit any narrative on the size of buildings and things of that Young: Yes, we looked at the proportion of this building to the site that it’s on compared to the proportion of the Cross Roads and the site it is on and Blue Seal and the site it is on and actually this less on a percentage basis than the structures we compared to. Bearor: Thank you very much Michael. That completes our presentation. If you have any questions for us we’d be happy to respond. Guerette: Thank you. Any immediate question from the Board? Member Rosenblatt Rosenblatt: Thank you Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Bearor maybe I’ll direct these to you and you can figure out who among your group is the most appropriate person to respond. I’ve a couple of questions pertaining to traffic and access and a couple of question arising from the Memo we received from the Mall Marsh Management Commission. First of in terms of access one question I have and it may just reflect my ignorance but the parcel does go around to Kittredge Road. Was there ever an access considered there? Bearor: I’ll ask Mr. Young or Mr. Waugh to address that but I can tell you that there are significant wetland impacts by accessing off Kittredge Road. Would that be correct David? Moyse: Yes it is Bearor The area you ask about Member Rosenblatt is here and the wetlands that have been mapped are fairly significant for an access road there off Kittredge Road. Rosenblatt: Okay, thank you. And then with respect to traffic it does seem to me if we look at this whole Stillwater corridor one of the bottlenecks even with all these modifications ends up being down at the Parkade/I-95 intersection where it which is a challenging location today and would seem to me to become a lot more challenging with a significant additional volume of traffic and may be you could address that concern. Bearor Before Michael addresses that I’d like to address what I saw in the newspaper this weekend a letter to the editor suggesting that we were widening Stillwater Avenue all the way down to Howard Street which is plainly not the case as you can see our widening efforts even if combined with those of Widewaters would only be to what Mr. Waugh refers to as the south Mall entrance where it is already five lanes from there out to the Interstate access. Michael could you address Member Rosenblatt’s questions? 11 Waugh: The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we installed a new set of traffic plans in the existing controllers at Stillwater Avenue from the Parkade you know all the way up to the Penn Plaza signal in there. Those seemed to have significantly improved the traffic conditions on the whole corridor and especially between the intersections at the Interstate and the south Mall drive. We’re not seeing any, we’re not getting any reports now of congestion in that area coming through either northbound or southbound. On the day after Thanksgiving we did have some reports of traffic not being able to get out of the Parkade parking lot. We went into the controller we looked around and we did find a timing error that was put in at that time. We corrected that immediately and since then we’ve had some reports from just this last weekend that everybody is being able to get out of the Parkade satisfactorily and that we still have no big traffic backups, queues in from one intersection to the other between he Parkade signal and the south mall signal. So I think we’ve done as much as we can right now to you know relieve that problem. When you know that we’ve had for the last couple of years in that area. I think with our improvements in there that’s even going to help the situation its going to allow us to have (end of side 2) . . . . . . . . (beginning of side 3) . . . . .make all the signals and I think that will take care of that. Rosenblatt: Thanks and then just a couple of things from the report from the Management Commission. And you have touched on this a little bit with respect to open space one thing the memorandum encourages is proceeding to try to incorporate some flexibility with respect to possibly accommodating other open space opportunities that might arise in the area. I’m sure you’ve read the memorandum. Bearor: Sure Rosenblatt: Do you have a particular response to that point that is raised in there? Bearor: To the extent that I understand the comment in its context it is that there is concern as we understand it that we not limit the possibility of development of our remaining land . . . of our remaining land which you see here basically in dark green and to the west back in here and we are have indicated or signaled our willingness in both meetings with the DEP at which the Marsh Mall Commission Chairman and the City Engineer were present that if a proposal were made that warranted access through that parcel to get to it we would be open to discussions with the person making such a proposal. We can’t propose to build a road through wetlands and one of Mr. Moyse’s earlier plans showed the extent of wetlands in that area you can’t disturb wetlands unless you have a purpose in doing so and can demonstrate that there isn’t an alternative access to get to your proposed development in accordance with the Chapter 310 standards. Chapter 310 being regulations administered by the DEP. We are open to that we border I think perhaps Mr. Davis and Ms. DeBeck and we’re open to discussions with them with the City if there is a development proposal out there. The plan that we have presented to the City does not carry with it any limitations on the future development of that area. The plan that we have filed with the DEP would place this land under a declaration of covenants that it not be, that it be preserved for conservation purposes. But that is not enviable and we could go back to the DEP and what was signaled to me and I believe that the engineers who are with me from Sewall Company would agree is that if the City were desirous of having access ways built through that property and were involved in that process that the DEP would look at it seriously. Rosenblatt: Thanks. That’s it for right now. Guerette: Member Theeman? Theeman: If Mr. Bearor will do the same thing Bearor: Sure Theeman: Have several different questions in no particular order. Wal-Mart, I’m sure is aware of a recent ordinance passed by the City regarding the size of light poles in parking lots and wondered if you’d share with us the size of the light poles prepared, proposed for this proposal. Young: 40 feet. 12 Bearor: 40 feet. Theeman: I have a question of I think it really to Mr. Marshall and wondered if he might describe for me the screening on the land abutting the Crossroads property as well as to the left and along the border of the access road. Marshall: The screening along Cross Roads consists as a D 2 what they call a D 2 buffer. Bearor: I’ll take this over closer so that you can see it. Theeman: No that’s I can see it I just wanted hope you can describe it for myself and other members and the audience and what it consists of. Marshall: Basically along the road excuse me, the building in the back of Crossroads Plaza there is a retaining wall its going to be because of the grade change and on top of that there’s a fence well not exactly on top of the wall but there is a fence and then there is a series of plantings of the trees. That’s effectively what that does. Then when you get away from the building and as far as the right behind the excuse me get away from Cross Road Plaza we have more room so the buffer is deeper so it calls for less planting. But it is fairly intense. I don’t know if that answers your question. Theeman: How wide is that buffer? Marshall: The buffer behind the building is 15 feet up beyond on the other piece that was the office retail that you permitted approximately a year ago the buffer is 30 feet and then when you get closer to the Stillwater Avenue the buffer widens up to 35 feet. Theeman: If you would describe for me the buffer to the left of the access road and along the adjoining property. Marshall The Alsid property? That’s an A 3 buffer which is required by Ordinance actually the Dee is a little stronger than was necessary. That there is really a, its 10 feet there is a distance between the required. However, the buffer itself there’s a Jeff is that a 4 or Mike is that a 4 or 5 foot sidewalk, I can’t remember? Jeff: 4 Marshall It’s a 4 foot sidewalk that runs up along the entrance road in between so we’re really left with six feet and there is a rather intensive packing that required number of plants into that buffer well the buffer let me see let me restate that. It’s ten feet wide you really only end up with about six feet that’s planting area and there’s 350 feet so we have 16 deciduous trees 16 evergreens and then 12 shrubs. So those actually the evergreen trees are about six feet apart. And then we have some trees picked up down by the entrance. Theeman: Thank you. I think these are questions primarily for Mr. Waugh. Mr. Waugh in his presentation noted that 60 percent of all the existing trips planned for the development are already in the Mall area. Help me with that. Waugh: There are three types of trips that we study. There are primary trips which have travel path of basically home to a site back to home. The primary destination is the site and the primary origin was home. We have pass by trips. A pass by trip is somebody that was we’ll say was already on Stillwater Avenue. He was going in the evening he was leaving work in downtown and going to his house in Old Town. On his way he stops at Wal-Mart to pick up whatever. The standard pass by trips. We also have what we call diverted link trips. Those are trips that somebody diverts from their normal path and goes to the site and then gets back on their normal path to continue their journey. In the Bangor Mall area and this was defined for this project, it was defined for the Widewaters Project and it was defined the same way for about any other project in the area. Diverted Link trips were ones that were defined as having an origin destination somewhere else in the Mall area so that they would be shopping say at Macy’s or Sear’s or whatever and from there they decided to go into a Wal-Mart to check prices, maybe to pick up something else that they wanted that they could not find somewhere else and then get on their travel path. With the 13 combination of the pass bys, and the diverted links we feel will be about 60 percent of the entire trip volume at the site. Theeman: I appreciate the additional definition but I’m still not comfortable with how you determine that it is 60 percent and not 30 percent or not 90 percent. Waugh: I’m not going to say that it’s exactly 60. The standard for a Wal-Mart type use based on ITE – the Institute of Transportation Engineers national averages as I remember right is 40 percent primary, 35 percent pass by and 35 percent diverted link trips. That’s the national standard. That’s what has been accepted on the other projects in this area the similar projects as you know a given to work with. DOT has accepted it. We’ve also done some checking on some of the other projects that we’ve completed in this area and it seems to be fairly close in that range as to what is happening. Theeman: So if we accept the 60 percent then the assumption is that 40 percent into the traffic into the Wal- Mart is new traffic on that area of roadway. Waugh: That’s correct. Theeman: You had mentioned in your presentation the Cross drive into and behind the Lambs Book Store area. Waugh Yes Theeman: and that doesn’t appear in any of the material that we are looking at tonight or has been presented so help me with that a little bit so we’ve gone from a T into Stillwater Waugh Four way Theeman Stillwater into a four way on Stillwater. Waugh That we’d considered that possibility of connecting you know on the other side there with you know to the Lambs you know ever since we started the projected but we could never really, actually we had a hard time figuring out who owned that piece of property to begin with. The Assessor has one name on it and it turns out that that is not really who owns it. How they get the bills paid, I’m not sure. So we had some trouble chasing it down and we finally chased it down to the Royce Cross and we talked to them just last week about the possibility of doing them. DOT had some concerns about the proximity of their existing drive to the signals and for the reason of the stacked up left turning traffic going into the site and then left turning traffic into their site being you know delayed by our traffic and so we talked to them and we worked out a deal with them to put that drive in. Theeman: In your professional experience does a T increase or decrease congestion compared to a crossroads. Waugh With the amount of traffic that we’ve got to talk specifics here. We can’t necessarily talk in generalities. With the number of vehicles that going that are going into the Lambs frequenting that establishment at this time I see very little different between the two. Theeman: Mr. Bearor you had mentioned in your presentation the possibility of the interconnection to the adjacent property and I can see it on a dotted line on this presentation and this may also be a question for Mr. Ring. Is that the way that is drawn and the way that access appears that’s a two lane road at the present time? Is it not? Thank you. Bearor: This, are you referring to this? Theeman: I am, yes Bearor: Shown there as an extension off that road? 14 Theeman: Well and the entire roadway from the entry point. That’s all two lane as you as it’s being constructed and then as it is proposed. Bearor: This is two lane, that’s correct. Theeman: And my final question. In your comments Mr. Bearor you said and I think I got the quote right that this project will not support both accesses. Help me with that, please? Bearor: Economically the cost of this project is at a point where we cannot justify the full build out of two full signalized intersections. That’s what I meant by that. Theeman: Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman Guerette: I have a question that I would like to direct at Mr. Waugh if that’s possible. As you know there’s a lot of concern about traffic on Stillwater Avenue and I think that your mitigation work will go a long ways towards addressing that. But you made reference to having a Level of Service of D and I’d like you to explain for us what exactly what that is and how does it compare to other levels of service. Waugh: Level of Service is a major shall we say of congestion at an intersection. It’s actually the factor that you use to figure it is average vehicle delay. How much time is an average vehicle going to be delayed on an approach to an intersection? If you figure an intersection totally then it’s a weighted average of all the approaches to the intersection. Level of Service A generally says that you have very little delay to vehicles. Level of Service B says you have a minor delay to vehicles. Level of Service C says you have a little bit more delay to vehicles. Level of Service D says the average vehicle is going to wait in excess of 35 seconds before he can go through the intersection. Level of Service D is considered locally by DOT and nationally as the minimum acceptable level of service for an intersection. Guerette: Thank you. Any other questions from the Board at this time? Yes, Associate Member Mitchell. Mitchell: I have a question for Mr. Waugh. With the traffic entrance into Crossroads that heads up towards Unicel that’s right next to the proposed entrance into the Wal-Mart site looked at and were any considerations made for how to kind of handle the traffic that’s going to be trying to turn left into there right after this new light? Waugh: We did look at that. We have discussed it with Merrill Merchants Bank we’ve discussed it with Mr. Valley, the owner of the Crossroads shopping center. We do project that during peak periods we will have or traffic will be queued from the intersection past their drive. We also project that that traffic will clear. This intersection is going to operating at a Level of Service C when completed. We also project that traffic will clear once the signal turns green and there will be sufficient room in here sufficient gaps in the traffic for left turning to be made. Also, with the demand for traffic turning left into Lambs we don’t see that its that significant of a demand where the left turning traffic going into the what we’ll call the south entrance to Crossroads will not be able to get in to the two-way center lane, get out of the path of traffic and wait for the gap to occur before they get it. Will they have some increased delay from what they have at this time? Probably. Is it going to be a critical delay? We feel not. Mitchell: I think you were describing it as southbound on that . . . is it going to block the other entrance to the Cross Roads? Waugh: No. we don’t project that at all. We’re looking right here is the Hogan Road intersection and the worst th case we’re looking at somewhere around in this area and that’s with absolute peak flow the 30 highest hour of year. Okay which is occurring now. Mitchell: And are there peak flows considering the build out of the Widewaters site. Waugh: Yes, we considered Mitchell: 15 Waugh: and with some other additions in there too. We are required by the rules of the Traffic Movement Permit with DOT to figure into what our background traffic. What not only is on the roadway at this time but the additional traffic that will be generated by developments that have been permitted but not constructed. So not only did we figure in the entire Widewaters Traffic we figured in some of the additional traffic from where the Black Stove Shop is up here. They have another 100 trips that is permitted in that area that was calculated into it. Let’s see what else there were a couple of other things that were calculated into it too. But everything that has been permitted, you know, up to when we submitted the report was included in as a background traffic. Then we added the Wal-Mart traffic above that. Mitchell: . . . tried to make a left into there off of Stillwater Avenue on the southbound lane is there going to be queuing on the other side of Stillwater Avenue heading north? Waugh: Yes there will be queuing. I’m not sure that it will get back to the Comfort Inn Entrance but it will affect the Docs gas station. It will affect their drive closest to the intersection and again we do project our modeling shows that all that traffic will clear on one cycle length and that there will be sufficient gaps to make that maneuver. Also, the Comfort Inn does have another access signalized off of Hogan Road, too. Guerette: A question from Member Clark. Clark: Before you go too far away. Waugh: If you don’t mind if I pace for a while. Clark: Ah, no, just remember it’s our carpet. Okay, if your model is to use the term totally whack it doesn’t work out the way you want and we end up with a gridlock that Parkade had when they first opened up are you required to go back and fine out what went wrong and make the changes or does that become a City problem? How is that handled? Waugh: I don’t really want to get into why necessarily the Parkade problem we had but it was a matter of permitting and when you occupy a building, and so on and so forth, we didn’t know it was going to be occupied when it was or we would have not let them get in at that time but you know, anyhow. They got in before they were supposed to, right. We’re going to finalize the improvements on that project the traffic improvement tomorrow. Between the time it was opened up and the time until tomorrow if everything gets, you know, approved. The developer and myself personally were responsible for how traffic goes on Stillwater Avenue at that time. To show you what we did is we were having the problems at the intersection there. Remember we took out the island that was in there put a whole additional lane in. That was not part of the original proposal. We also widened out some on the entrance lanes so that we could get two full traffic lanes going up to where the intersection is to go over to the Texas Roadhouse. That was after the project was finalized. We’ve been doing signal improvements. Some of them worked and some of them didn’t. Through that whole corridor for the last year. And we think we’ve finally got everything working about as well as it can right now. So, we’ll stick with the job. We’re not going to let it go. Guerette: Well this is a Public Hearing and this might be a good opportunity to ask for any members of the audience who like to make comments with regard to this proposal before us and I’ll begin that by asking for any proponents, anyone who would like to speak in favor of this motion and of course I’d ask everyone to step to the podium and speak clearly into the microphone, introduce yourself by name and address. And the purpose of the public hearing is to capture these public comments and we like to do that. We don’t really want to engage in a debate with the developers or the Board but to the extent that you have any questions, it would be appropriate to ask those and then towards the end of the meeting we’ll ask the developer to make final remarks and address as many of those questions as possible. Wheeler: Mr. Chairman Guerette: Mr. Wheeler 16 Wheeler: As a point of procedure may I request that the Chair recognize at first those individuals who wish to speak who are legal residents of the City of Bangor and then after all residents have spoken invite those who are not residents if there any present to make their comments. Guerette: Thank you Mr. Wheeler and we’ll approach exactly in that manner starting with any proponents. Yes sir. Cimbollek My names I Bob Cimbollek and I live at 188 Howard Street. I’m really speaking tonight for Gary Bolduc my neighbor who is not here today. Although he and I share a lot of thoughts together as the City well knows. This is the Letter to the Planning Board and all City Officials, Thank you for allowing my neighbor to read my comments as my employment is taking me out of town this week. On Monday, November 20, 2006 I received a postcard from BACORD stating that the City of Bangor and the Planning Board needs to hear my voice. The card also stated that increased traffic has not been adequately addressed and to let you know the development will affect me and my family and my neighborhood, my job and my community. I attended the meeting of November 21, 2006 that was postponed. I sincerely wish I could be at the meeting tonight and perhaps express my thoughts in a stronger fashion. However, I have tried to emphasize my thoughts in this Letter. 1. To BACORD, please do not use our neighborhood traffic issues, i.e., Howard Street in your cause to defeat Wal-Mart. Your distain is obvious but please do not use our neighborhood traffic concerns as part of your agenda. We as a neighborhood will address our traffic concerns and have. We have never heard from any support from any group concerning traffic issues on Howard Street so please BACORD do not use us or our street for a rallying cry against Wal-Mart. 2. In my line of work as an employment specialist I am grateful to the Wal-Mart for providing employment opportunities and also a place that people in our surrounding area can feasibly shop. 3. In closing I would hope that the people can step back, put aside their prejudices, and look at the best interest of all the people. Its time to move on forward. I stand before you with representation wishing Wal-Mart all the best in their endeavor and encourage the Planning Board to recommend a full council their approval of same. I also want to make clear that I am not affiliated with Wal-Mart in any way nor have I been in contact with any representative of Wal-Mart in discussion of this matter. Thank you. Gary E. Bullock, 196 Howard Street, Bangor, Maine. And as his neighbor at 188 I say, I second the motion. Thank you. Guerette: Thank you. It might be appropriate to point out to Members of the Board that we also have another letter from a citizen who was not able to attend this evening and I will distribute that right now – a Mr. David Lavoie who speaks in favor of the project. Any other proponents? That would be people for the project. If there are none, yes. I see a hand. Yes Sir. Rand: My name is Glen Rand. I do work for Wal-Mart. I live in Orrington Maine and I have worked for Wal- Mart for 7 years. I’m not connected in anyway but knowing the people who shop here I do talk to them everyday. And I did I was instrumental in bringing the Olive Garden into Bangor a way back because I lived in Florida, I had a home there, I went to the people I knew down on Lakeland Florida and got them to come up here. And everywhere that Wal-Mart goes they do bring in business. It helps the surrounding area. As far as this road being built on Howard Street I did not know anything about this and I never had it brought up. But I know at all the other meetings that I’ve been involved with I never you know as far as congestion I think the word congestion is thrown out there as something to hit it with all the time. I drive in from Orrington everyday that I work. And I work from 9 to 2, 2:30, I’m retired. I’m 78 and I’m still working and proud of it. And there’s a lot of retired people that work at Wal-Mart. It gives them something to do. And they do pay fairly good wages, too. I’ll admit. It takes me approximately, I live on the Brewer-Orrington Line. It takes me 20 minutes everyday to get to the Wal-Mart if that’s congestion then I’d better stay home. But I have never, some days it takes a little longer but I don’t break the speed limit either. I just want to make sure that’s not brought up. It could be but I also feel that the Parkade Mall was built and that’s closer to Penjajawoc Stream. We have a lot of people that shop in Wal-Mart. When the Penjajawoc Stream by the by the signs on their car going out of the Wal-Mart and there’s been many a person explain that they like the Wal-Mart. The Wal- Mart has been very good to the Children’s Miracle Network of Bangor, Eastern Maine Medical Center has been given. I haven’t heard of any one non profit organization has not has been turned away from the Wal-Mart in collecting funds for their organization over the years. The only thing I say is that they never said anything about all of the professional offices over on Stillwater Avenue when they were built and the parking lot is right next to the Stream. Nothing was ever said about that. It’s also Wal-Mart and big store. There are a lot of big stores in Bangor. A lot of them came here because of Wal-Mart. Any of the stores Hannaford Brothers has six stores in the area. (end of tape). . . . 17 (beginning of next tape) . . . and I do know that the Cracker Barrel is planning to come to town. Any where where the Wal-Mart goes it does bring extra people in but it also brings extra customers in to the area businesses and I’m sure it brings a lot of extra taxes to the City of Bangor. Thank you for your time very much. Guerette: Any other proponents? I understand there is a few people in the audience that have identified themselves as being neither for nor against but they have to be recognized as such and this might be a good time to hear their comments beginning with Mr. Harris. Shep Harris: Thank you. I’m Shep Harris, 100 Linden Street, and I’m also the Chair of the Marsh Mall Management Commission. I was prepared to come today to be entirely in favor as a representative of the Commission of the project but the traffic issue today is a little bit of a wrinkle so I would like to go through what we as a Commission did approve of and then also highlight some attention to the Planning Board. We met on August 9, September 8, September 14 and October 6 and we reviewed the site layout, the wetland impact and mitigation, the stormwater management. Regarding site access and traffic impacts the primary site access is via a new proposed access road from Stillwater Avenue located several hundred feet southwesterly from Hogan Road. The project will need to obtain an MDOT Traffic Movement Permit which will require considerable off-site improvements which you have been shown tonight. The Commission noted that the Marsh Mall Task Force recommendation presented in 2005 identified an extension of Hogan Road as the preferred location for primary access for future development in this area. The project’s traffic consultant indicated that the proposed primary access location in conjunction with off site improvements will adequately mitigate traffic impacts. He also indicated that the extension of Hogan Road as a primary access is preferable but is not currently proposed because of securing the necessary right-of-way. The applicant has indicated a willingness to construct the primary access as an extension of Hogan Road if a right-of-way becomes available prior to completion and to relocate the primary access to the Hogan Road Extension if it is constructed subsequent to project completion. The Commission supports this approach and you have seen that Hogan Road extension proposal in red tonight. Also, which Members of the Planning Board asked questions regarding tonight was traffic circulation. Internal traffic circulation appears to be sufficient for the project’s needs. However, that’s just for the project itself. However, the Commission recommends subject to regulatory approval the provision for public easements be provided to allow for public circulation connections to future development on adjacent parcels as recommended in the 2005 Marsh Mall Task Force Report. More specifically, the Commission recommends that a public access easement be provided through the built portion of the proposed project for possible entrance/exit to Kittredge Road and that the parcels identified as Lot 8 on the City of Bangor Tax Map R-60 and Lot 4 on Tax Map 61 is such access as approved by State and Federal regulatory agencies. In other words we don’t want the adjacent properties to be boxed in. We have development features and elements which include lighting and landscaping, trash and litter control, invasive plant species, and with all those recommendations it was the conclusion that a considerable amount of time and discussion by the Commission has been devoted to the review of this significant development project. The Commission recommends that the Planning Board approve the project subject to the specific recommendations outlined above. Some of those have changed so I can’t speak for the Commission to say because of those changes that we are going recommend those. I’m just highlighting the areas we have in question. The additional discussion of open space. As noted above, this development as proposed designated 25 acres as open space. Over the past year the Commission has analyzed the issue of open space at it relates to the Marsh and has prioritized various areas in accordance with their environmental and habitat values and also its land owner and development interests and the availability of City water and sewer. The project’s proposed open space. While of value in addressing the open space and mitigation requirements for this property does not fall within the area of highest interests of highest conversation priority identified by the Commission. The Commission is in the process of arranging meetings and discussions with the involved environmental regulatory agencies to discuss an overall approach toward conservation and mitigation within the Overlay Zone. One element of this approach may involved the potential for proposing a substantive open space plan determined to have a high environmental value. At this point the feasibility of such an approach has not been established. At the same time it would be unfortunate if the designation of this project’s open space was accomplished in such a manner as to make it impossible to substitute more environmentally valuable property at a later date. While this approach will require the support and approval of regulatory agencies, we would recommend that the project approval be granted in such a manner in with such legal arrangements as would allow for potential open space substitution in the future. Are there any questions? Guerette Thank you. 18 Harris Okay, thank you. Guerette: Attorney Hamilton. Is there, I’m sorry Wheeler: Well I would simply like to ask. Tim can you give me some level on this Mike, please? Peter rather. Thank you. Mr. Harris are you speaking tonight primarily as a result of what you have heard in the presentation or are you speaking with the full authority of the Commission? Harris: I am speaking from the full authority of the Commission. There has been some new information today that the Commission has not been able to consider and therefore, as a representative of the Commission I cannot say that the Commission has fully reviewed the new considerations that have been brought to light today. So therefore, its particularly surrounding the traffic and the roads. So I can’t put a stamp of approval on something that has not been fully considered by the Commission. Wheeler: What I asking – were you directed by Members, a majority of the Commission, to make these comments tonight? Harris: Yes I was, last Friday. Wheeler: Thank you. That’s all I wanted to clarify. Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, if I could, if you could ask if there any others neither for nor against before I speak because I think my presentation may make the segway to the next group. I would like to present to you in just moment Tom Gorrill a traffic engineer here in the State of Maine who’s done a great degree work along the Stillwater corridor. He has served as the neutral traffic evaluator for BEV, Inc. The Land use arena is a bit of a fraternity or sorority. You see a lot of your colleagues at various proceedings and I often see folks from Sewall or Dave Moyse or Mr. Bearor, himself, either on the same side of a project or on the opposite side. In this particular instance, Eremita & Valley has historically worked with Mr. Waugh. In this situation, because Mr. Waugh and Mr. Gorrill are colleagues in the traffic engineering fraternity we had asked Mr. Gorrill on behalf of Eremita & Valley since Mr. Waugh is working for Wal-Mart to do an independent evaluation for Eremita & Valley. Mr. Gorrill has been quite clear in this proceeding. He is not here to critique all of the detailed findings of the James W. Sewall Company and Mr. Waugh in particular. He only is here to raise concerns from a traffic engineering perspective as to the implications this project will have for the Eremita & Valley, BEV, Inc., Crossroads facility. And I think you should hear from him. I think the basic position of Eremita & Valley is that we would like to see commerce and certainly Wal-Mart brings commerce. But sometimes too much traffic particularly if not distributed in a manner that could otherwise be distributed can hinder commerce. And with changes, we think this plan can be improved. And I will have more in just a moment. But, I just want to correct a couple of things that have been stated by the applicant. Again, we’re not here to contest all detailed findings of the applicant’s consultant but we really want to emphasize why the Hogan Road extension is so critical to the proper and prudent flow of traffic through this area. I think Mr. Harris on behalf or the Mall Marsh Commission stated it well. That I think there is no one in City Hall that wouldn’t prefer to see the entrance to the Wal-Mart be the Hogan Road extension. But various forces have pushed for the Stillwater access and there is one small issue associated with the Hogan Road extension that has made progress on that path slightly difficult. But I think that’s certainly an issue that’s manageable and can be overcome and that’s the acquisition of right-of-way. Not across either the BEV or Eremita & Valley properties but across the property of an abutter, the Country Inn that will need to be worked out. And I think that that is a very manageable issue. And we’re in the process of working through that with the City as we move forward. Mr. Bearor’s observation is that you should apply the conditional use standard to the Wal-Mart development not just to the garden center but as you heard Mr. Waugh did not do a break out of the general store versus the garden center. The Conditional Use standards are in play as to this application. As Mr. Bearor’s comments also reflect the applicant is focused on resolving the traffic access issue at Hogan and Stillwater and constructing a Hogan Road extension. I’m here tonight on behalf of five members of the Eremita family, Mark, Joe, Peter, Carolyn and Lisa who are the Eremita family members of Eremita Valley. And five members of the Valley family represented by Tony Valley tonight and they include Tony, Joe, John, Elizabeth and Mary. Those are the members of a corporate group called BEV Inc. which has been a long-time property owner on this section of Stillwater Avenue called the Crossroads Plaza. Together with Eremita & Valley who is represented tonight by Cliff Goodall, BEV owns most of the property of the Cross Roads Plaza including the business spaces that house Merrill Merchants, Day’s Jewelry; and I note that Mark 19 Ford is here tonight and Wights Sporting Goods. Both BEV Inc and Eremita and Valley own the property that immediately abuts the Wal-Mart parcel and will directly affected by the development of the Wal-Mart project and wish to appear tonight to participate in your proceedings before you deliberate. I should also note that for Merrill Merchants Bill Lucy and Ed Gould are here to represent the interests of Merrill Merchants. Tom Gorrill I would like to introduce to you has been a traffic engineer for 25 years here in the State of Maine. He is a principal of Gorrill Palmer of Gray, Maine. He’s originally from Orono, he’s the son of an Orono Engineer professor who became the founder of Jordan Gorrill. Tom has done numerous studies for Jim Ring and the City of Bangor as well as the Bangor Area Comprehensive Transportation System or BACTS. It was Tom’s firm, Gorrill Palmer that worked on the Stillwater Corridor Study. And so I would introduce to you Tom Gorrill and then I’ll have few further remarks. Tom Gorrill: Thank you Andy, as Andy said my name is Tom Gorrill with Gorrill Palmer Consulting Engineers. And we were retained by BEV Inc. to review the impact of this project on their property on their access. We’re familiar, certainly, with this site through our work with the Stillwater Avenue Corridor Study which was completed for BACTS and the City of Bangor and contained a lot of recommendations which I see several of them in this Plan tonight. We’re not as Andy said here to contest all the detailed findings that are contained in that report. But, we’re here really to talk about why the Hogan Road extension is we believe an important component of the plan to be considered. Mike had stated correctly, certainly, that when the Stillwater Avenue Corridor Study was completed there was an access a signalized access considered and in fact part of the plan for access to this development. There is a couple of differences there, though the primary being that it also included the extension of Hogan Road and traffic was assigned to that so it was a fairly vital component of that corridor study we felt at the time and the interconnections that are associated with that. What I would like to do is just to take a couple of minutes to go over a few of the movements in and out of this driveway that would be occurring. Well I can speak up. Let’s see. This is the plan you took a look at earlier I think obviously this is the Wal-Mart project located here, Stillwater Avenue here and I think Mike was talking about north generally being oriented toward Orono and in-bound if your will to the City being in that direction. The I’ve highlighted the Crossroads’ driveway here in green and the what was considered for the Hogan Road extension at one time which we believe is an important component through here and in red. There are obvious in associated with any driveway that comes out as a T intersection four movements in and out of that driveway. There would be the right turn in to each driveway, the right turn out of each driveway, the left turns in to each driveway and the left turn out from each driveway. The right turns aren’t of are not of great concern to us. There will be some weaving associated with those but that is not insurmountable. The concerns that we have would be the starting with the left turns in. They did provide for a fifth lane to help that occur which is definitely a step in the right direction. But the issue would be that this queue that Mike referred to certainly blocks that driveway and it look to me like it blocks for a fair amount of the time. I did take a look briefly at the queues that are indicated in the capacity printouts which are actually in the very last page of your report. You have some queues that says intersection 51 site entrance and Stillwater Avenue all intervals and that will show you for certainly the southbound movement that would be this movement here that the traffic is going to stack up. It appears to say that it is going to stack up the average queue southbound seems to be about 600 feet I believe and on this plan the 600 feet but I’m not positive if that one’s to scale, actually but if we this one’s 40 scale so if I went with 40 scale 600 feet takes me back almost to the intersection. So, that’s a fairly long queue. Now that’s not going to be there all the time but certainly a vehicle is going to have to sit there for a while waiting to make a left turn in. Similarly to that queue with another queue the northbound queue at the intersection of Stillwater Avenue and Hogan has somewhat less of a queue but it is still a fairly substantial one that is going to block again that driveway. So left turns in are going to have to wait certainly quite a while. Now the left turns out I have a couple of concerns with. One is that the driveway being blocked at times you can’t get out. The other concern with it is that the one on the queue does dissipate. Certainly as traffic even the first few cars that get in here make it difficult for somebody that is turning left out to see past the queued traffic so that they can see an on-coming northbound vehicle. It blocks your sight lines when you have a queue so you’re trying to see out and around. I think we’re all pretty familiar with that when we’ve got a driveway close to an intersection the driveway is under signalized, the intersection is signalized you a queue sometimes they let you out but when they let you out you’ve got to see by the queue so that you can see a vehicle traveling down. Now this center turn lane helps some but again that’s certainly going to be a lot less convenience to get in and out of here than it was. Convenience is one thing what I guess I’m a bit concerned about is just the safety getting in and out of here. Clearly there will be increased congestion associated with these but the safety of those movements I think is the really the issue. Now the did propose and we should have highlighted that there is an interconnection here and it’s a step in the right direction. The issue with the interconnection I think is it’s proximity to the main drive, for one. 20 Hamer: It’s a new battery but . . Gorrill: We’ll stick with this one. So the proximity to this main drive is a bit of an issue for lefts out from that and then they are going to wait again here. Also, where this driveway comes into the site it doesn’t seem to fit very well with regard to on-site circulation. So again, it’s our concern for left turns in and out of both these driveways. We feel its going to be a safety component where a safety concern and also some increased congestion. Certainly they will operate at a Level of Service F but they probably do today. It’s not uncommon in an unsignalized driveway but its going to be the delay is going to be certainly increased quite a bit. Now, if again if this Hogan Road extension were put in which was part of the original plan as we envisioned it then you could certainly have access, convenient access from here to the signal and then we don’t need to worry about the lefts and the safeties that are associated with that. So, that concludes my presentation. Hamilton: If I could Tom just ask you a couple of quick questions. One is do you see the Hogan Road extension as a drive that is proposed as part of the Wal-Mart plan currently. Gorrill: I do not. Hamilton: Okay, and so with the addition of Hogan Road extension drive is it your testimony that the traffic issues that you alluded to earlier can be managed satisfactorily? Gorrill: Absolutely. Hamilton: Thank you. I would ask for questions of Mr. Gorrill before I conclude. Guerette: Member Clark Clark: One think that I would like to ask you is the entrance/exit from Crossroads right now is not a very good exit to start with because it is very difficult to get in and our of there sometimes. Would this not be an opportunity for the owners of Crossroads to move their entrance and exit ramp to a better location rather than whatever your proposing? Gorrill: Your correct right now its not idea getting in and out of there. They can do it much more easily in my opinion that then can or will be able to do upon if nothing else is done and everything remains as it is except the roadway is widened and the driveway is put in here there going to have much more of a difficultly getting in and out of there and I don’t I’m concerned about the safety. In terms of whether they could do some thing so make that more safe. That was considered in the Stillwater Avenue Corridor Study and that was one of the key connections as I’ve mentioned the extension of Hogan Road. That’s the easiest way to take care of access to that corner development. Guerette: Thank you. I guess we have a question from Associate Member Mitchell. Mitchell: With the use of the Hogan Road extension as access to Crossroads would one of the other two entrances on Stillwater Avenue be closed off? Gorrill: As I mentioned the right turning traffic, you know, that was what I would have envisioned those to be but that is you would certainly have to talk to the applicant. Our recommendation would be probably to not allow the left turns in. That’s the concern we have left in and left out. Guerette: Thank you. Are you all set Andy? Hamilton: I just would like to conclude with a few observations, if I could and now is where the segway will occur because the plan as presently proposed and I just want to be clear and genuine and sincere in opposing the current plan even though we are not in opposition to the commerce that the application presents so this shifts into I think opponent comments just to be everybody on fair notice if I may continue. Mr. Gorrill needed to provide his neutral evaluation but I wanted to just provide you with a few further observations. The Board is aware of the fact 21 that in this area that the confluence of Stillwater Avenue and Hogan Road two mighty rivers of commerce join. This plan proposes only a single tributary of one river with no immediate access to an existing owner. Stillwater Avenue has long been planned as a major arterial to serve the retail businesses at and near the Bangor Mall. During the tenure of John Lord, John required that site developments along Stillwater provide for a set back and sufficient right of-way so that at least 100 feet of right-of-way could be provided along the full section of Stillwater so that when the time came the various segments of Stillwater could be widened to five lanes of travel. And Jim Ring had worked with John and is working with the current Planning Office to make sure that those improvements could be made. You see that very condition five lanes of travel at the opposite end of Stillwater. The intervening development is that Stillwater has in more recent times been interconnected with Interstate 95 and a new set of businesses have opened. Even since Tom Gorrill last studied the effects of a Super Wal-Mart at this end of Stillwater that’s occurred. During these same two to three decades Hogan Road has been built out and used consistently as the access to the Bangor Mall and the large volume stores north of Hogan Road. Hogan Road has for all purposes during this time been interconnected with I-95 and carries some of the highest traffic volumes in the City. In the last several decades in addition to the widening of Stillwater Avenue both BACTS and the City of Bangor have been examining the concept of alleviating some of the traffic congestion on Stillwater Avenue by means of a lateral service road. This Hogan Road extension has been reflected in the Bangor Comprehensive Plan since 1979 and reports of the Bangor Area Comprehensive Transportation System for a timeframe similar to the official City Street map which has designated this road on this property on the Official City Street Map since 1998 and through the amendment that occurred in 2006 as part of the Mall Marsh Commission recommendations. For the last ten years property owners at both ends of Stillwater and many in between have been required to recognize a lateral service road on their properties and to setback any and all development from that road as it has been depicted on the Official City Street Map since 1998. Now we come to this development which my clients could only support if it did not substantially aggravate the existing congestion conditions along Stillwater and Hogan Road and most importantly does not deprive them of critical access onto the Stillwater arterial. Listen carefully to the remarks of representatives of Day’s Jewelry Store, of Merrill Merchants and other developers at this Crossroad location. As Tom commented those congestion concerns can only be alleviated and this relief can only happed if critical interconnections at a lighted access a cub cut or driveway at a traffic light are provided so that additional traffic on already congestion arterials does not choke off existing access points for left turns in and out of the existing Crossroads development. We believe that a Hogan Road extension is good for Bangor and is necessary for the safe and efficient access and egress for business patrons of the Crossroads. Because this development requires the issuance of a conditional use permit one of the traffic standards that must be satisfied is found in Section 165-9 of the Bangor Land Development Code. That section provides the proposed use will not create unreasonable traffic congestion or hazardous conditions on contiguous or adjacent streets. Stillwater Avenue could be such a street. The standard can only be satisfied by completion of construction of two access points into and out of the proposed Wal-Mart development. Connecting this large traffic generator according to the traffic report prepared by Sewall approximately 1300 total trips for vehicles. To both of Stillwater Avenue and Hogan Road and allow an existing abutting development to interconnect with an efficient and effective traffic pattern. (end of tape . . . . (beginning of next tape )… it would be unreasonable to allow the congestion that will otherwise result from having only a single interconnected and traffic lighted driveway with only one of the major traffic arterials that serve this area. I just want to repeat that what we think would be unreasonable under your conditional use standard is that you have within your authority the means to require that second access that Mr. Bearor in his remarks says the applicant is willing and ready address. You need only condition any decision in this matter to make clear that Hogan Road extension. It’s been envisioned by the City for almost three decades now will come to pass. Wal-Mart has publicly committed before the Mall Marsh Commission to cover the cost of constructing the actual Hogan Road extension drive. All that is left to do for the City is to secure the appraisal of the right-of-way interest and to secure the transfer of that interest so that this access road can be built. I would like to provide I guess that I don’t need to provide a copy of your own standards. You have 165-9 and you have a copy of the Mall Marsh Commission recommendation that recommends Hogan Road extension as the preferred access point to the Wal-Mart property. We would propose that Wal-Mart not open for business and place traffic as a major traffic generator until Hogan Road is constructed as a road comparable to the applicant’s currently proposed Stillwater access. And that the right-of-way be acquired by the City of Bangor. We ask you to address these three questions as you deliberate this evening. First of all, what would you do? If you owned a property in a business development that had been in place at the cross roads of Hogan Road and Stillwater for more than two decades and if you have been asked to setback your development your development so that the City could build this interconnecting Hogan Road Extension for more than a decade, would you speak up at site plan, a site plan for the largest single retail store on Stillwater Avenue showed up on the property next to you and only showed a single driveway located within 140 feet of your closest driveway. If an interconnection, second if an 22 interconnection of your business access onto Hogan Road extension as long planned by the City to address higher volumes of traffic on Stillwater is not addressed when such a large development comes to the property next to yours is not your community’s planning board the very board that you should address? Third, if traffic safety and congestion can be addressed before the new major development opens for business why wouldn’t the City and this Board act to insure that this important piece of infrastructure is in place before the activity that requires the conditional use permit and places 1300 trips on Stillwater Avenue and then opens for business. Thank you for listening to the concerns of the ten members of the Eremita & Valley families, to the concerns of businesses that occupy the Crossroads Plaza including the local Bangor based businesses like Merrill Merchants, Day’s Jeweler’s and Wight’s Sporting Goods. Promises have been made to the residents of this area and before this major traffic generator opens at this location please help to assure that those promises are kept. Again, we have respect for this applicant team. They’ve worked hard. I think with a little bit of additional work with the City and with the abutters these issues can be worked through. Mr. Rosenblatt Rosenblatt: Mr. Chairman could I ask a question, please of Mr. Hamilton Guerette: Yes Rosenblatt: Thanks. Mr. Hamilton I just want to be sure that we, that I precisely understand where you all are. You were in the room I think when Mr. Bearor recited the text of a draft condition pertaining to this access, this alternate access issue. Hamilton: Right. Rosenblatt: Is that draft condition okay by you and your clients? Hamilton: The answer to that is that we can be but we’re not presently. There are some contingencies in that condition that we don’t yet find acceptable. Rosenblatt: Then can you tell me what those what the disagreement is. Hamilton: Sure, first of all it suggests that Wal-Mart’s obligation as applicant is contingent only if the City gets the right-of-way within a certain expressed time frame. That actually could work against the City’s interest. Will Wal- Mart agree to construct the road? I think this road has a public purpose that is far above access to a single site development and that purpose is as consistent with the Bangor Comprehensive Plan Revised in 1979 and the Official City Street Map adopted in 1998 makes clear Bangor has long contemplated traffic movement through this area. I want to give the City ample time to be able to work through issues associated with the right-of-way and I am confident that if they have that time they will be able to do that. Rosenblatt: Anything other than the time issue? Hamilton: I think there’s been a proposed dollar amount set on the cost of constructing the road and I think I would have to defer to the City Engineer and to road constructions engineers. As an attorney I don’t those numbers well but we want to make sure that that is an appropriate road. I think Mr. Bearor’s language gives me comfort when he says it’s to be comparable to the currently proposed Stillwater Avenue drive which is a very substantial driveway. But I would defer to the City because the City has spent years if not a decade on planning and engineering for that road, Rosenblatt: And finally, my other question was as you well know, we don’t shape the applications that come before us. They appear and sometimes an application might not we might not think it’s the best in all respects but nonetheless it meets the criteria that we have for review purposes and so if it does we must approve it. And I just want to be sure as to the existing application that we have before us what criterion or criteria do you believe the application does not meet. Hamilton: Clearly 165-9 is not met because as Mr. Gorrill has testified and laid upon the public record there are congestion and safety hazards associated with the traffic queue lengths that are reported in the applicant’s report 23 now. The applicant will try to appear to make those different but I think if there is a conflict in testimony between two traffic engineers that’s enough. Our objective, I just want to be really clear, Mr. Gorrill and I were quite careful in the way we formulated our thoughts for this evening’s presentation. We do not want to see this project to go away. In many ways the way that Hogan Road extension may get built is associated with this project but I don’t think we should take the applicant’s time horizon as the City’s time horizon. And I think there’s been a lot of wisdom that has gone into the last ten years of debate about the lateral service road but that particular segment of lateral service road has never been debated and it’s stayed on the Official City Map. The only difference is that the 2006 amendment makes clear that across the Wal-Mart property it’s public easements across the applicant’s private site development but the applicant’s private site development has to connect with the end of that red road over to the other boundary. Where they have proposed to interconnect does not connect in the location that the City’s Ordinance requires a connection. And so I really respect that the applicant was as forth right as they were as part of their presentation that where it is shown in red and Mr. Gorrill drew the red in showing the Hogan Road drive but when they used Mr. Gorrill’s board to illustrate what they’re prepared to do I think there is a reason that they are prepared to do that and I think that that’s the wisdom and I don’t think because the applicant has some time pressures means that as abutters we’re subject to those same time pressures nor certainly is this Planning Board. I think you can do the right thing and I think the Mall Marsh Commission and certainly the immediate abutters asking you to do the right thing. Guerette: Question from Member Clark. Clark: Okay, I want to be careful how I word this because if I work it wrong I’m going to sound like a twit or I am going to sound very argumentative. Hamilton: Don’t worry about it, Mr. Clark. Clark: I’m not going to worry too much. Hamilton: You and I are used to those exchanges, go at it. Clark: Okay. About half the stores at Crossroads are vacant right now. Is it the contention of your people that should the entrance be where it is they stand to lose the other half? Hamilton: I think if I’d carry the meaning of your question the thrust of your question is that not all of the storefronts on the Crossroads Plaza are occupied currently, I think if you look to downtown Bangor and you look even to Bangor Mall you will see from time to time storefronts vacant. The people who are here tonight include Mark Ford from Day’s Jewelers who has been there and has just continued his lease on the understanding, in part, on a series of considerations, but in part his staying at that location was in form by the Hogan Road extension being placed there so that some of the traffic issues that he’s experienced and his patrons have experienced would be addressed. You’ll hear from Merrill Merchants who has been there. There is not a representative of Unicel here to my knowledge, tonight but I think you’d hear from them as well. So, I can’t address future tenants who might might be there. I can tell you that I’m not going to stand here and say that traffic conditions were the reason why some of the tenants that were at that location left. I’m told by developers and business folks in my years of practice that what influences whether you locate in a particular location location, location, location. They may have chosen a different location for reasons that are specific to their business. Clark: I was just, you know, sitting here thinking that if the road, the entrance way is blocked a sufficient amount of time that obviously people don’t enter, things go down. So it has an economic impact on the stores that are there. Not because they deem it to be such but you know I’m just thinking of the economic impact of one entrance versus the other. Hamilton: Well we do have the concern, I think Mr. Gorrill testified to this that Merrill Merchants, for instance, is serviced principally by the southerly curb cut into its business and if the queuing condition is reflected in the applicant’s traffic report occurs how do their patrons get in and out, left-in and left-out under those conditions. So, yeah, there are times where commerce is a good thing and you like to see commerce come to your neighborhood. But with too much traffic it could choke off existing commerce and one of the things that I’m always been sensitive to 24 in the economic development arena is business retention not just business development. You want to, you want to retain these businesses they are Bangor based businesses. Anything else? Guerette: A question from Member Wheeler. Wheeler: More of a statement. It appears to me that Mr. Hamilton either has a crystal ball or well let me just not put an or in there. He seems to be very confident that the rights-of-way which are required in order to facilitate and bring about the Hogan Road Extension can and will be obtained. I’d like to ask the City Engineer with the permission of the Chair to address that issue at this point. Because this seems to be the lynch pin of the whole discussion and the direction that it is now taking. I also would like to ask Mr. Hamilton what he meant when he made the statement that certain forces have pushed for the Stillwater Avenue access. Hamilton: Do you want me to go first, Mr. Ring or do you want to go first? Guerette: Why don’t you answer the question first. Hamilton: I’ll answer your second question first and then come back to your first question. I think that certain forces are clear. I mean anybody that knows the proceedings of the Mall Marsh Commission, and the interests of businesses that are developing along Stillwater knows that access is a critical issue along Stillwater. So one only has to look to abutting properties that are either improved or in most cases unimproved to know why certain people are pushing for a Stillwater access. I’m not, we’re not arguing against a Stillwater access. I just want to be clear on that point. We’re saying that the City has always planned for the Hogan Road extension as the principal access to that Kittredge Road parcel. Wheeler: You’re not arguing against the Stillwater Hamilton: Yeah, we don’t have a problem with two accesses going into the Wal-Mart. I made the point earlier that I think that Stillwater and Hogan Road are two mighty rivers of commerce. But I submit to you having been on rivers and streams that fee rivers if you can get to a piece of land by means by two tributaries coming off two major streams you’re always better off. Alternatives are a good thing. And Mr. Bearor is simply saying, I think on behalf of the applicant, that the applicant is not opposed to having a Stillwater access drive. He’s simply that right-in, right-out might be the way. I don’t want to choose between the two alternatives. I don’t think they’re alternatives, frankly, I think you’ve got one access and then a second access and I think you’ve heard the applicant say that they can build both accessed but they are going to have to be careful as to what the total budget for building access is. That’s up to them and this Board. What I am saying is standing here as a representative of the Crossroads Plaza is we care about the Hogan Road extension drive and you’re going to hear from others that are here from the Crossroads Plaza so I don’t want to speak for them. Wheeler: Well I would like to ask Mr. Bearor to clarify did the applicant state that you could build both accesses? I understood you to say that building both was prohibitive. Bearor: We are not in a position as I said this project would not bear and I think that Mr. Theeman asked me to explain that. The project will not bear the economic cost of two full fledged intersections. The one that we propose presently and a full fledged access off Hogan Road on our nickel only is not possible. If, my condition is that we would, we would provide up to a quarter of a million dollars for the construction of the Hogan Road extension is the City obtains those rights and does so in a timely manner that’s consistent with our development projects. We can’t wait. For instance, we would need to scale back the intersection that we propose to build to a right-in, and a right , right-in, left in? ? Right in right out, left in Bearor: Right in, right out, left in. No signal. We just can’t bear that freight for this project. That’s why I made the condition that I did and it had certain time lines in it. The reason that it has time lines in it is as Mr. Hamilton has so eloquently stated for quite some time now, the City has had this thing in it’s sights for a very, very, very long time and we’ve had discussions with City Staff for quite some time this year and nothing tangible or 25 substantive has happened to secure those rights. We don’t have those rights and as Mr. Rosenblatt says we can only bring you a project that encompasses rights that we have which is what we have done and Mr. Waugh, obviously, responded to Mr. Gorrill’s comments but the project presented meets those standards. Wheeler: Thank you Mr. Bearor. I needed that clarification because Mr. Hamilton almost had me convinced that I was at a different meeting a few minutes ago. Mr. Chairman may I ask for comments from the City Engineer regarding the rights-of-way. Guerette: I think we’d all like to hear from the City Engineer. Thank you. Ring: Yes, Jim Ring, City Engineer. Just, I want to be clear on your question Member Wheeler you wanted to know what , if the rights could be acquired or if the City had rights? Is that Wheeler: I want to know what if any hindrances exist and how they may or may not be overcome. Ring: Certainly, I think without going into a lot of detail it is pretty clear that from others that you have heard from tonight that the extension of Hogan Road at this location makes sense for a lot reasons. And indeed, the City does have interest in it. It is in the Comprehensive Plan that has been reviewed, it’s on our Official City Map. Having said that the City does not currently have the ownership rights of the right-of-way within which to build the road. A municipality, as you may know, can secure those rights. It has authority to do so for a public purpose. That’s a statutory provision. And, again with the indication that this as this appears on the Official City Map, we feel that there is certainly a public interest or purpose. However, the as I said the City does not currently have any rights. The City has spoken with landowners that would be affected or from whom we would have to obtain property to build this Hogan Road extension in to this site. We always prefer to negotiate and pursue that way rather than go further and that’s where we are at right now. So, is it possible? Certainly. Wheeler: I don’t feel that I had a very definitive answer from you Mr. Ring with all due respect. My question fundamentally is what’s it going to take to get these rights-of-way. Ring: The City when contemplating such an action the City’s position is always to initially try to negotiate rather than do a taking. And that is the position we’re at. We have no direction to do a taking or anything and our preference has been demonstrated by many projects when we’ve dealt with property owners is to attempt to negotiate. That has not been concluded yet. Wheeler: Are negotiations continuing or are they at a standstill or have they been rejected? Ring: We have had contacts, as I’ve said earlier, with all the property owners. My opinion is that we’re perhaps further along with some than others but we are pursuing in terms of contact even as recently as today with all. So we’re going to pursue that but we’re going to attempt to negotiate with property owners before we consider an alternative means to acquire this right-of-way. Guerette: Jim if while you’re here, if you don’t mind. I don’t think this issue is going to go away and I know that the so-called parallel service road has been an official on the map on the Official City Map for some time and I also know that some of the development that occurred prior to this one where land abutting the parallel service road was in question of being developed that the City retained at least as I remember the rights-of-way to that street and that the developer was asked to work around it. Now, I understand that there have been some recent changes to the configuration of the so-called Parallel Service Road but I’m curious to know why the City already doesn’t have rights to this particular segment of road identified in red on that map and it seems that the City would have a very very compelling case to make that land available. Ring: Okay, I’ll try to take your questions in order. You are correct that we there was at least one prior development in this area that, I think you referenced the Parallel Service Road that was required number one to set back from such a proposed road which is, in fact, in the Ordinances and there was a provision of that right-of-way provided but that was before the project was constructed. In fact, the project is still not constructed. The, in this particular case actually the City had some prior agreements that provided some of the right-of-way for a period of 26 time but this dates back along time ago and that has not, that’s no longer in effect. So we are faced with pursuing acquisition here of right-of-way is that’s in fact what we wish to do and I believe, I hope I was clear, that there, from the City’s standpoint there’s a lot of, considerable amount of good logic and reasoning that supports doing an extension of Hogan Road. But the actual process by which we will acquire those rights that we do not now have will have to depend on negotiation with the property owners and other steps, if necessary. But until we, until the City feels that it has exhausted the a negotiated approach in acquisition of any property whether it’s for buildings that might be on another project or right-of-ways such as this we’re going to the City’s practice is to approach from a negotiating standpoint to try to come to an agreement rather than a taking. Guerette: Associate Member Brown Brown: Going ahead with what you’ve just outlined, what do you envision as a timeframe or is there no such timeframe that you’re looking at? Ring: Well, as I indicated, we’ve had some discussion, we’ve had some very recent discussions with the property owners here. It’s hard to predict and I’m not trying to be evasive in my answer. To suggest a week or two, no. Particularly if we have to take a more difficult or more a legislative process shall we say, meaning a taking. That takes some time. The municipality cannot take property without just compensation. That’s part of the negotiation process. I don’t think it would take a year, certainly. A few months versus a few weeks, certainly not a few days. And I am sorry that I can’t be more specific that that but it will take a little bit of time. But, you know, it’s not many months, I don’t believe. Brown: Right, but the point that you’re making is that if the City was to move forward that it would be reasonable to except that it could be accomplished within a year timeframe. Ring: I think much less than a year of time, you know, what I said was it’s not a matter of a few days. Brown: Right, and I understand that. Ring: A few weeks perhaps depending on how you define a few but also depending on our continued discussions with the property owners. I personally feel that as City Engineer, that this is something that we ought to pursue. But, that is going to take a little time to actually secure those rights as opposed to saying that we can guarantee them right now. Brown: Thank you very much. Guerette: Thank you Jim. A question from Associate Member Mitchell. Mitchell: Jim this is actually for you. Part of the draft condition of approval that Mr. Bearor proposed on if the Board wanted to condition this project on the Hogan Road extension involved the, doing the permits for the build out of Hogan Road extension. Do you see any environmental concerns in that piece of land that would hold up the permitting process for that? Ring: I don’t anticipate those at this time, no. There little if not, no wetland impacts that I’m aware of for this particular strip because much of it largely is through developed area now. Guerette: Thank you very much. This is still a public hearing and I think we’re at the point of hearing from opponents. Are there any opponents, first those who reside in Bangor that would like to speak. Mr. Gould Gould: Thank you Mr. Chair. Guerette: I was reluctant to let another member of the legal profession to capture our Gould: I’m a resident of Bangor, my client is a Bangor company and I will say something that may be rare out of the mouth of an attorney but I will at least try to be brief. I’m here tonight representing Merrill Bank. Bill Lucy 27 is here as well. It is really with great regret that we are here tonight to oppose this proposal. Our opposition is based on one very narrow and limited issue and that’s the traffic issue. We’re here both for the convenience and more importantly the safety of our customers. Merrill Bank occupies the corner of the Crossroads Plaza development. The primary means of access to the bank is that southerly entrance. The green entrance on Mr. Gorrill’s map which is the closest entrance to the proposed fully signalized entrance to the Wal-Mart development from Stillwater Avenue. Our concerns are the concerns that Mr. Gorrill raised. I’m not going to repeat them here, you’ve heard them already. Let me make it clear we do not oppose Wal-Mart. But we certainly do not oppose economic development in the City of Bangor, Again, our concern is for the safety and convenience of the bank’s customers. In fact, because of the concerns relating to congestion that Mr. Gorrill has raised we think actually as this is constructed that this proposal could actually discourage commerce at least in this area surrounding that entrance and surrounding the Crossroads Plaza due to the traffic back-ups. And the thing that I think is may ironic is that I think that everybody that we’ve heard tonight so far and probably other speakers that will speak as well is the fact that there is a good solution here. It’s the solution that everyone is in favor of, it’s a solution that Mr. Ring is in favor of and that’s namely the Hogan Road extension. That’s the best way in and out of this property. The Hogan Road extension would alleviate all of the traffic concerns and the safety concerns that my client has. That’s the preferable way in and out of this project. It’s a proposal that the City has been in favor of for a number of years, it will reduce congestion, it will promote development in the entire area by promoting interconnection between this development and other developments. Yet it is not a part of this particular application and it explains our narrow and limited opposition. But what I am going to ask this Planning Board to do when it considers this application is to be forward thinking. I want you to take a look at this as a catalyst, as an opportunity to do something that’s right both for the abutting property owners for the property owners in the general area and for the people of the City of Bangor. Use this application as an opportunity to make the Hogan Road extension happen. Would the Hogan Road extension and if this approval of this application were to be conditioned on the Hogan Road extension being an entryway into the Wal-Mart development the bank would fully support it. This is an opportunity that we should not allow to slip through our hands. We support this application with a Hogan Road extension and we would ask the Board to condition any approval on the Hogan Road extension being a part of this project. That’s all I have to say. (end of tape) Beginning of side 6) Rosenblatt: Have you had an opportunity to sit down with Mr. Bearor and see whether you can work out a condition that is satisfactory to both sides? Gould: We have had discussions with Mr. Bearor. To date, we have not been able to come to an agreement. Part of the problem is that there are eventualities or possibilities that Hogan Road extension may not come to fruition. If there are guarantees that the Hogan Road extension were to be a part of this project, yeah we would fully support it. Rosenblatt: Okay, thanks. Guerette: If you don’t mind it’s sort of an obvious question but it seems that with the present configuration, that there are questions about the potential negative impact on you businesses in this corner but with the right access to the Wal-Mart complex probably a huge positive influence on the businesses on this corner has there been discussion amongst the parties that you represent to be financial contributors to this solution of acquiring the Hogan Road entrance and to own having a financial contribution towards making that happen? Gould: My client, Merrill Bank, has not been a part of any of those discussions. Guerette: Okay, I’d like to ask the same question of Mr. Hamilton and I know that you are representing folks that do business there. Hamilton: I want to say two things. One is to support Mr. Ring who has been working hard with the parties to see if we can work this through. The short answer to your question is yes. We are working to contribute the right-of- way across our property which is a major part of the Hogan Road extension going in. The question about permitting that Member Mitchell asked was a very important one. Essentially that’s over pavement so the environmental issues 28 are not considerable. The related question is are we in discussions about contributions towards this effort. That is a possibility. Thank you. Guerette: Thank you very much. I think we’re still at opponents. Yes sir in the red coat. I’m still taking those from Bangor, first. Flannery: Mike Flannery, 178 Forrest Avenue. Guerette: What was your name again? Flannery: Mike Flannery Guerette: Thank you, Mike Flannery: I just moved up from New York to start a small business here. And I started my business on Central Street and everybody is speaking as though this Wal-Mart already exists and I don’t really know how things work yet although I hope to soon. But if I could just take this opportunity to speak out against a large behemoth, center of commerce coming in and bringing any foot traffic that I could hope to expect away from downtown and to a bubble by the Mall it just infuriates me to think that this is a possibility and will probably happen. But I just want to go on the record saying that I don’t agree. I don’t think this is a good thing at all. I mean you use the word development to describe what this is and development in my mind being this advancement and moving forward to good things and really what we’re doing is encouraging people to leave their homes, get into a bubble with four wheels, drive it maybe not get there as quickly as they would like to but drive it there and then go into this other big bubble that has all the things that they could possibly want and then they get back in the bubble and go back to their other bubble. And I don’t like that idea. I like seeing people on Central Street and saying good morning to each other and going in to locally owned businesses and knowing everybody’s first name. You know, that’s sort of the beauty of what I was hoping to find when I got here but instead I just found a bunch of empty buildings in downtown and that really upsets me. So thanks for listening. Guerette: Valerie Carter Carter: Hi, I’m Valerie Carter, I live on Birch Street in Bangor which is a tree street which is one of the adjoining streets to Stillwater Avenue. First I’d like to thank the Planning Board Members for listening patiently to what’s going to be actually not as much comment as I thought there might be. Secondly, I would like to state that as a concerned citizen I ask the Planning Board Members to keep in mind that the fact that Planning Board meetings such as this constitute just about the only forum that exists in Bangor for the public to express concerns about the wide range of issues and impacts arising in proposed land development such as this. I mean there is, there was a Comprehensive Plan process and that was very important. Am I still on here? Yes. There was public input into that but in terms of the issues that specific developments bring there is not other arena or forum that exists that I know of in Bangor to raise issues that people are concerned about even if they don’t even if they aren’t all falling under the specific legal criteria which the Board is empowered to consider. So I am speaking in opposition to this opponent, to this proposed development. If there were criteria governing other things there were there are a lot of things I would like to speak to that I won’t. I would like to speak to the possibility that Shaw’s and Hannaford’s might close in the Mall area with the competition. But I won’t speak to that. I’d like to speak on the outflow, or out migration of people from Bangor because of quality of life reasons which increased traffic will contribute to but I won’t speak to that since its not in the criteria. Okay, and I’m also concerned also about the loss of open space and potential agricultural land but I won’t speak to that either. What I will speak to is very short. First of all I’d like to answer question about who will conduct the ongoing environmental monitoring for the Wal-Mart if it is permitted and if it is constructed. I don have some concerns about the ability and motivation of the applicant to provide effective environmental monitoring given their documented record of repeated environmental violations in many of their stores. I have a couple of examples in here in the paper that I’ll provide so that it will go into the record. I am also concerned about the possible risk of toxic contamination from garden pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals. This could be a potential risk to the Penjajajwoc watershed which as people know is already impaired. And, in addition the Wal-Mart site application cover page indicates that the location is not in a sensitive or threatened watershed which I believe it is. Okay, one more concern I have is that although site application does not mention this I understand that this will be 29 this is yes this is expected to be a 24 hour superstore and I think that’s something that the Planning Board might discuss about the possible cost, additional cost of security and police protection and crime issues. The Planning Board might recall that last year there was a woman at the Broadway Hannaford who was almost forced into her car by a man around 4:00 p.m. after dark. Okay, last but not least, the crash data in the applicant’ traffic study in the traffic movement permit application, Section 7 I noticed that the crash data were all taken from 2002 through 2004. Given that the Parkade project did not open until October 2005 I think that the analysis of the crash data is in need of being modified and updated. I think the applicant should provide data about crash data on Stillwater Avenue after the Parkade project was built and even more so after the LL Bean project opened which has increased traffic even further. Anyway I do see traffic as a major issue. I am concerned as a resident of a tree street that it will impact on me personally. I’m also concerned that by turning Kittredge Road into a more developed area I had visions at one point of being able to bicycle to the City Forrest up Stillwater Avenue and then down Kittredge Road to the entrance to the City Forrest. If you, if one does bicycle around the Mall area at this point you take your life into your hands and I mean that literally. And its, you know, I can see, when I look at the possibility of Stillwater being turning into a five thoroughfare and I didn’t mean to suggested in my letter that Wal-Mart plan to do it down to Howard Street that was kind of a conjecture. You know, it’s really sad people cannot bicycle safely to the City Forrest and right now its possible that people could do that if there was adequate bicycle lanes and signaling so that people could cross intersections safely which right now they can’t. But if Kittredge Road becomes also turned into a commercial thoroughfare then I fear that’s going to be even more impossible to bicycle to the City Forrest which is really too bad. Thanks very much and I will give Chairman Guerette my copy of the extended version. Guerette: Thank you. Any other opponents? Yes, Leslie Dickinson: Hello, Good Evening, my name is Leslie Dickinson I live on Norfolk Street in Bangor. I’ll try not to repeat Valerie’s comments. I guess I’d like to start out with the tremendous resources that Wal-Mart is able to bring before you in hiring their experts and thankfully this evening we actually did have an alternative traffic perspective but that really focused just on that Hogan Road area. So when Mr. Waugh answer in the affirmative that he that Wal- Mart will be meeting the standards the reasonableness standards, anyway for the traffic there’s not really an alternative position. That that’s like that widening the Stillwater Avenue to five lanes is really going to address what they claim it’s going to address. So, and when Mr. Marshall spoke to the stormwater about the ness the standard for not impacting wetlands, lakes, stream, brooks, etc. there is really nobody to counter that position. So I hope that, and I know that there is the DEP and the Army Corps of Engineer but I’m not sure to the extent of the resources that they are putting in compared to what Wal-Mart in able to put into their position on that. So I just hope that you’ll keep that in mind that this is not your typical everyday small business coming before you with this application. I’d, regarding, specifically regarding the traffic and Mr. Waugh’s discussion about widening five lane oh no wait the 60 % he makes a lot of predictions and when he was questioned about the assumption that 60 percent of the traffic would already be in that area his comment just had something to do with this is the accepted standard and everybody accepts on our projects and I’m not really sure where he is getting this information because it wasn’t like he really, he didn’t back it up. It was just sort of that’s the accepted standard so I think that that is something as well to be considered. With regard, I’m not as organized as Valerie, with regard to the widening of the Stillwater whether or not this will address the traffic concerns it doesn’t take into account the increase in danger for pedestrians, bicyclists, and those and bus riders. Some of whom actually have no other choice. You know, some of us would never go to that area not in a car but some people have to take the bus or walk and some of us would like to be able to ride our bikes but are concerned about taking our lives into our hands. But is just, its not just I mean it makes it all about cars like the man here who spoke about his opening his own business and about people, you know in their bubbles and you know gets in and drives here and drives home. Maybe things should be thought about in a little bit of a different way. There are people who don’t drive cars and there are fewer and fewer of them because it is too dangerous now to not drive cars. But, ah and I’ll just close with saying that since there is no other forum to express my dismay about some Wal-Mart activities I’ll just mention briefly that nationally, probably internationally, Wal-Mart has been accused, fined, charged and sued for numerous labor violations such as gender discrimination, requiring people to continue working after they have punched out, locking workers in those stores, anti union activities, as well as, a recent proposal requiring that all workers will be part time and have to be on call. Imagine that at a 24 hour store so I hope that we can perhaps do a little better in our economic development. Thank you. Guerette: Thank you. Any other opponents? Yes, sir and then Ma'am in the yellow sweater. 30 Goodall: Hi my name is Barry Goodell, I live on 103 Howard Street. I’ve lived there for over 20 years and I think there’s already unreasonable congestion on Stillwater Avenue already and I think many people in the City recognize that from the many letters to the Editor in the Bangor Daily. We do have a river of commerce on both Howard Street and Stillwater but the southward flow of that river goes right into the neighborhoods of Howard Street and the tree streets and we’re essentially the delta which is getting this overflow and being flooded. So I’d really like the City and the City planners to consider how e might reduce some of that flow. A new Wal-Mart store isn’t going to help things, certainly. If you can change the flow of traffic so that it is not flooding our neighborhoods that would be greatly appreciated. I don’t have the solution. Hopefully, you do. Guerette: Thank you. Yes, Ma’am. Alcott: My name is Sasha Alcott and I grew up here in Bangor, 182 Cedar Street and now I live at 178 Forrest Avenue. I am a teacher at the High School. I teach Chemistry and this is after ten years teaching high school chemistry in New York City and in New York City which most people don’t think of as being a place of beauty like they do Bangor, Maine. I rode my bike everyday without fail. And I did not fear for my life the way that I do riding my bicycle here in Bangor, Maine, And what I want to talk to a little bit is about this environmental impact. I again, like a lot of the other speakers who are opposed do not have the laws before me. But I do know that a 40% increase in traffic presents a huge increase in CO2 emissions and other very dangerous emissions here in our area. And as we pull in more people coming from outside of Bangor in the adjacent areas as far as a 100 miles away to come in and shop here in Bangor. Although that does bring in commerce it also brings in incredible amounts of environmental pollution and it really does reverse what I feel is one of the most important things about living in the State of Maine which is the natural resources and beauty that we have here. And one of the things that brings people, young people like myself who maybe have left Bangor for other economic opportunities but come back here in search of something pure and beautiful and then find something like this proposal right in our back yards which is going to increase you now the traffic unbelievable. It’s going to make it unsafe for us to walk and bicycle in our communities and it is going to increase detrimental environmental impacts is very personally and professionally as a teacher upsetting because it’s provides a future for the youth here in Bangor that is very bleak. It provides a future that is not about abundant opportunities, value service, valued service and quality of life. It provides a sort of mass culture that is not based on individualism, a rugged individualism which I certainly associate with the State of Maine or the idea that we can be entrepreneurs or that we can value the place and the people in which we live which is the community of individuals who want to make a place and home that is safe and inspiring for our youth. And so I, although again I don’t have the environmental statistics to oppose this proposal based on environmental impact or the traffic but you know traffic impact I would say you know personally I’m very much opposed to this and I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Guerette: Thank you. Still calling on opponents. Yes Ma’am. Graham: My name is Virginia Graham and I am a resident of Bangor and I have 35 years experience working in small specialty retail stores and I am a customer and what I want to speak to, I guess, would be criteria 165-9 in terms of how people actually act. And the importance of what in reality even just the perception of lines of traffic or the oh it’s hard to turn into Crossroads Mall. That is it sounds to me from a small business perspective that that’s making a very hard hurdle for customers to cross. I work downtown and people are always saying I don’t shop downtown because of the parking. I go to the Mall. But when you ask them how far they park from the store they go into at the Mall they have walked further than they would have if they parked in Franklin Street. But their perception is there’s no parking downtown so they go to the Mall and the perception will be that’s impossible. I won’t I don’t really need to go to that Chinese Restaurant I’ll find one that’s easier to get into and we need to weight that heavily, I think for the small businesses. Thank you. Guerette: Yes, still calling on opponents. Yes, Sir? Knightly: My name is Andrew Knightly, I live at 90 Royal Road and I moved here from out of state a couple of years ago. I’m a professor at the University of Maine in the math department. No that that has anything to do it but just this is my first meeting here. Basically, I haven’t, I don’t know anything about the regulations and the rules and stuff but I just wanted to, I felt for my conscience, I should say something about this proposal. It just seems completely absurd to me. We have an enormous Wal-Mart in Bangor already and an enormous Super Wal-Mart in 31 Brewer already why are we even here talking about this. In terms of ah, it just seem like a gigantic waste no matter how you look at it so I guess you can write that down as an environmental issue since waste is something that we are concerned about. What’s going to happen to this empty warehouse when they move next door to build something even bigger. If they want to build a garden center why don’t they put it on the roof of the existing one. Guerette: Thank you. All right to floor is open for comments. Any other opponents? ??? Any non residents yet? Guerette: I think we’re getting very close to that. Let’s see a hand from the first non resident who would like to speak. Yes Sir. Goodall: Members of the Planning Board I am a non resident. I represent non residents. Let me tell you who they are. First, I am Cliff Goodall. I am an attorney in Augusta who specializes in land use law. I’ve been in front of this Board a number of times and other Boards in Bangor although some of you weren’t on the Board’s back then. I represent tonight, Eremita & Valley. Mr. Hamilton got a little confused and started mixing up who he thought his clients were. He represents BEV. BEV is the one that owns Crossroads and he mentioned the family members and he left out Mike Eremita and Tom Valley because they are the people that own Eremita & Valley. And what I would like to do is clarify a couple of issues right off concerning this Hogan Road extension. In I think it would be helpful if you had a drawing prepared by the City of Bangor Engineering Department back in 2003 of this proposed extension. So, I will pass that out and then we can talk about who owns which piece of property around this parcel of interest. This is part of an engineering set of designs for building the road which Guerette: Excuse me, Mr. Goodall, would you have a copy of that Map for our City Engineer, please? Goodall: Yes, Oh sure. I also have a few extra copies here, too if they would be of interest. The second page shows the road as it was designed back in 2003 and I need to caution you that this may not be the exact design that would be implemented if Hogan Road is extended today. Wal-Mart has indicated that it if this to be a comparable road to their proposed intersection with Stillwater that the first portion of this Hogan Road extension would need to be three lanes. We don’t have any problem with that. The southerly side of this Hogan Road extension is totally owned by the Eremita & Valley families. They would donate, they would deed that without cost to the City of Bangor. On the north side on the upper left-hand corner that parcel is owned by Eremita & Valley. That would be deeded without cost to the City of Bangor. The only remaining parcel is the parcel on the north side right-hand portion of the Country Inn. Eremita & Valley and BEV Inc. would assist the City in buying that parcel if an agreement is reached. They would make a financial contribution to assist this process to go forward. Why would they do this? In 1994 the Crossroads was given a permit by your predecessors on the Planning Board. Condition No. 2 deeding the necessary right-of-way to the City for the extension of Hogan Road across this parcel. Back in 1994 in reliance upon that condition with the future potential of having the Hogan Road extension at a requirement that this Board placed on them at that time they went ahead and built Crossroads. It is now time to finish that project. In 2005 the City Council made a vote by a vote amended the Comprehensive Plan and the City Map for streets making the parallel road come across Hogan Road extension as you see it in front of you. So the Legislative body of the City has indicated that it is the City’s decision to make Hogan Road extension a reality. Mr. Rosenblatt asked Mr. Hamilton how do you tie that into the Ordinance. It sounds great for us to get up here and say yeah they should do that but can your require it. Hasn’t been any focus yet on the requirements of the Land Development Code. That in Section 114, Subsection C deals with driveways and it says the applicant must show that all proposed access drives and they have two of them from the site to any public right-of-way a reasonably necessary and safe. A reasonably necessary is a judgmental call which you as a Planning Board have the authority and the obligation to make. And you can consider all kind of things including these Comprehensive Plans and this past history. Then it goes on to make it even clearer. The Planning Board may limit the number and location of access points to insure that access to and egress from the site is safe and this language is really important and will have a minimum impact on vehicles traveling in any public right-of-way or private street. So you can regulate the number and location of their driveways. And the plan has suddenly disappeared I guess behind that. There are on this plan two driveways being proposed. One off Stillwater and one that comes in from Crossroads which the will seriously interfere with their traffic pattern. We don’t want this little driveway. ??? Can you show me what you are referring to, Cliff? 32 Goodall: Yeah, the little kind of the appendix here that’s kind a hanging on just waiting to be surgically removed. ??? That would be requested by Mr. Valley. Goodall: Well its now unrequested. (end of tape) . . . . (beginning of Side 7) in here over the Hogan Road extension and in from Stillwater. And that’s what we are requesting. ??? Where are the two, where are the two locations? Goodall: Your Stillwater entrance and the Hogan Road extension. Waugh: Where do you want off the Stillwater entrance? Goodall: So in terms of this issue then the Board’s authority and the history behind it other people have spoken and clearly that one provision of the Ordinance gives you discretion and requires, I’ll give you permission to require that arrangement. Let me just then introduce the other people that I am representing which is the Hogan Road Stillwater Avenue Business Association which would like to make a presentation through its President, Ed Dennis. So Ed if you would like to come up and make your presentation. Dennis: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board I just want to thank you for the time to be able to speak this evening and I have a great appreciation for want you guys do on the as being part of the Board. I have a lot of respect for that. My name is Edward Dennis and I am a Member of the Hogan Road/Stillwater Businesses Association and I have a , you know, being Irish obviously I have kissed the Blarney Stone so I’ll try to keep it short and sweet as possible. I represent over 100 stores at the Bangor Mall area and 26 businesses located at the Hogan Road and Stillwater Avenue businesses. And we have a few traffic concerns. We have, currently have major traffic issues relating to the Hogan Road and Stillwater Avenue as you’ve heard this evening. That the proposed entrance to the Super Wal-Mart would create traffic gridlock and the new Super Wal-Mart would have only one exist where the current Wal-Mart has two exists and is a smaller store. You’d be adding one more unnecessary traffic light to the Stillwater Avenue forcing Hogan Road traffic to make a left turn onto Stillwater Avenue creating another gridlock which was mentioned earlier tonight. Heavy goods vehicles which deliver which are tractor trailers delivering to Wal-Mart will have to make wide turns on Stillwater Avenue coming from the Hogan Road taking a left onto Stillwater and then having to take a wide turn on even the proposed two lanes to make access into the proposed Wal-Mart site. This would create increased danger to the general public both pedestrians and other drivers and unfortunately we did have an incident last year where the woman that had passed away on Oak Street and State Streets so the potential is there. The additional Wal-Mart traffic will make it impossible for vehicles to exit left from at the majority of the businesses there located on Stillwater Avenue which as you can imagine what you’d have to do is try and cross those five lanes. We feel that the accident numbers will increase due to driver frustration and drivers will have the tendency to run red lights and make aggressive maneuvers to gain access to Stillwater Avenue. I have a report that I’d like to be able to present to the Board from a time period just this weekend from approximately 11:00 a.m. on Friday to 11 ah Sunday at 4:00 p.m. at a total of 13 accidents. Yes, a total of 13 accidents. Six of them on Stillwater Avenue four on the Hogan Road and three on the Bangor Mall Boulevard. And as I said this was just this previous, you know, weekend. The picture that you can see over here on the left-hand side was taken last Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. during non-peak hours. And as you can see the problem would be obviously the traffic bottlenecks on the southern end of Stillwater Avenue and also on the northern end of Stillwater Avenue. And what the picture on 14 doesn’t show that the traffic backs up even during this non peak hour that’s backed up as far as the Home Depot on Stillwater Avenue and actually extends all the way down Stillwater Avenue to Essex Street and of course with the congested traffic trying to get onto Interstate I-95 heading south. The Hogan Road Stillwater Business Association feels that the recommendation should be to build the Hogan Road extension as it was originally planned that it makes sense to have the straight ahead traffic flowing to and from the Hogan Road if you envision yourself driving west on Hogan Road towards Stillwater it makes sense that you could be go straight through the Hogan Road extension and also the heavy goods vehicles also makes to have the vehicles to straight into the development instead of having to make a left turn. We also feel that you know to accept the Bangor City Council’s Task Force recommendations that would alleviate additional traffic due to current development growth on Stillwater Avenue and its surrounding Mall areas which shows 33 and I have packets that will be passed out, also, will show your flexible parallel road which has been a proposal that makes sense also to where the Association. Because of the nature of the time , and I also several packets that I would like to be to present to the Board that shows other Cities and towns that have open Super Wal-Mart stores that eventually have discovered that the numbers were actually higher than what was presented at the City meetings and you can also think also it needs to cap the mind is when we eventually move the Wal-Mart. We’re not against the Wal-Mart building on the Stillwater Avenue but we also have to think about when you move to the new Wal-Mart site we also have to think about the traffic that will be replaced when somebody else takes over the site that Wal-Mart leaves and also the future development that will take place in the next five years for Stillwater Avenue. I think we only out, we owe it to the community and the citizens of Bangor to be able to make the right decision then having to live with the decision that’s made that can’t be corrected possibly at a future date. I thank you. Guerette: Thank you. Questions from the Board? Member Wheeler: Wheeler: Mr. Dennis. I’ve been counted the accidents that related to Hogan Road and if you include Bangor Mall Boulevard, I count, one, two, three, four, five, bear with me, six. You get 8? Okay I missed a couple. In view of that whether its six, seven, or eight, how do you perceive that an extension of Hogan Road is going to alleviate the potentially for more traffic accidents? Dennis: One of the things we should consider is that if the Hogan Road extension is in place instead of having the traffic volume that would normally be going to a Super Wal-Mart will not have to make a left and be on Stillwater Avenue for you know one condition where you know we have access going straight through the extension using the Hogan Road extension will take that traffic away from Stillwater Avenue you know the two lanes and also the traffic the would probably you know that would normally come from the Hogan Road area that’s what you’d eliminate from going onto Stillwater Avenue. Wheeler: Thank you. Dennis: Your welcome. Guerette: Question from Member Clark. Clark: Okay, I like this picture and I have been that traffic on some of those days and it’s not fun. But where I live I have to get onto Broadway and Broadway used to be pretty much like that every damn day. Then they add a couple, three more lanes. It’s not like that any more. It travels much faster, there are times when it might back up because of an accident of something but the additional lanes onto Stillwater I think will eliminate some of that that you see there. That’s just my point of view. Dennis: Sure, can I give you a response to that? In reference to Broadway I understand that I agree with you that they have done great things to eliminate some of the traffic in that area. But we also have to remember that the Bangor Mall is a large complex that obviously takes a lot of the traffic from the Interstate 95 off the Hogan Road and the new exit which is Exit 188 which can only allow you to go north on Stillwater Avenue and that’s pretty much where your heavy traffic is. Plus the majority of the hotels and restaurants are in the Bangor Mall area as a count of businesses versus the Broadway area so its I guess I can agree with what you’re saying and I’m glad that that has been fixed in your area. But unfortunately because of the Bangor Mall the hotels, the restaurants, and you know I think that anyone that travels Stillwater, I come from Veazie every morning and I’ve been working in the area for 15 years so you can see the volume of traffic is definitely building and I think that the five lanes definitely will make an improvement. We also have to remember that there’s bottlenecks on either end of Stillwater Avenue and what will happen is even though you can see this on the far side of Stillwater Avenue you’ve got two lanes and on the southbound currently you have one. But I envision that even with the five lanes and the heavy traffic volume considering that this was taken actually during non peak about last Wednesday at 3:15 that there will be considerably still look similar to what you are seeing right as you see it here. Guerette: Thank you Mr. Dennis. Dennis: Thank you. 34 Guerette: We’ll have time for the client to make rebuttal comments in a moment. Right now still calling on people who would like to speak as opponents. Yes, sir. Hall: Hi. My name is Brent Hall, I live right across the street, 47 Park Street. I’m speaking tonight as a lifelong resident of Bangor also as a Member of the Downtown Business community and the small business community in Bangor. Also, speaking as a cyclist whose been hit directly across from where the Wal-Mart is now being proposed. Well I do feel that traffic issues are mildly important and that wastewater drainage issues are also mildly important I want to reiterate the point that has been made by multiple people earlier tonight that there really is a need for some sort of public arena, some sort of public forum for larger issues that are going to impact our community not just in terms of traffic, not just in terms of environment, in terms of the thriving downtown business economy that we hope to have and that is slowly being sucked away from downtown. The accountability issues of a corporation like Wal- Mart who has no accountability to its employees who it pays terrible wages to who don’t have affordable healthcare who often time have to go Wheeler: Mr. Chairman I think these remarks are not in keeping with the purpose of this hearing. Hall: Well I’m sorry but I have to get this off my chest. This is Wheeler: Well perhaps you do but we’re here to address an application and not hear your comments about the way Wal-Mart does business. Guerette: Well we’ve allowed brief comments from everyone else and some of them have not been all that related so in the interest of getting them off you chest we’d ask you to conclude. Hall: Thanks, I appreciate that. I guess, I guess I just want to close this by saying that Wal-Mart has tried once before to muscle its way into Bangor. The citizens have stood up and said no, we don’t want you here and we kicked them out the first time and I think we can do it again and I know we will. So, take it easy guys. Guerette: Thank you. Yes, sir. Ford: Hello, my name is Mark Ford. I am with Day’s Jewelers. I’m the Chief Financial Officer. That’s what we look at. We have a store in Crossroads Plaza. Even since the expansion and the addition of new stores further up on Stillwater Avenue we’ve seen a decrease in the traffic in our store. It’s been harder to, because you said Member Clark a couple of minutes ago what are the economic realities and what are we facing. If you’re leaving home you’ve got to get through the traffic. If you’re shopping you’ll go some place else. If you’re trying to pull into Broadway and you’re trying to come back home no big deal. But in our business, we’ve got to draw people in because they want to be there. It’s got to be convenience and we try to remove all the obstacles that prevent someone from coming into our operation. This past year our lease was up for renewal. We saw stuff like this developing. We were concerned and in all honesty we seriously considered moving our location from Crossroads Plaza. We talked to Tony and Tony said there is stuff happening back here. We picked up the phone and we said that’s nice Tony thank you for sharing that with us but we want to confirm it. So I picked up the phone and called the City Engineer and he faxed up a map and we actually saw it when we first came in here almost 10 years ago. And the map called for a plan. So we kind of looked at and in all honesty I have to applaud you I’ve been in front of several communities. We have six stores. I’ve been in front of Planning Board a couple of times before and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a City that has the foresight that you guys did back in 1994, 22 years ago, you planned the expansion and you put it into place. I find it surprising that it’s kind of slipped away or I see it slipping away. It’s concerning. I went on line and did some research and not only did you put the paper map out there you had a Stillwater Avenue corridor study in 2004 which we all heard tonight. You have the Marsh Mall Task Force which reconfirmed it again. So obviously it is part of your plan. So I said why deviate from the plan. Three reasons I could think of. Growth is not coming the way you expected, it’s slower. I’m not seeing that. The costs are too burdensome to bear. Mr. Bearor said that a couple of minutes ago. Or the planning is proved to be flawed by lies, damn lies and statistics, factual changes or staffing changes. I.e., engineers and planners may have different expectations. Mr. Ring has been a part of this since day one. He has supported the Hogan Road extension as the couple of times that I have talked to him over the years. So I come back to damn lies and statistics or the costs are too burdensome. I am a CFO, I do numbers. Wal-Mart is a 35 publicly traded company. I.e., they have to file an annual report every year. They do, let’s see, their total annual revenues in America are $209,000,000. 498,000,000 sq. ft. equals an average sales per square foot of $421. An average Supercenter is about 200,000-220,000 sq. ft. Projected annual Bangor sales volume is somewhere between $75,000,000 and $92, 000,000 a year. That’s a lot of sales. 23% gross profit margin. They’re going pull out of this Plaza before their expenses almost $21,000,000 a year. I think they can find a couple of nickels to rub together to help this road happen. We have a new Wal-Mart supercenter in Waterville. I came up from Waterville this afternoon. The same process occurred down there. However, I don’t which engineering firm did the traffic studies but it passed all of the processes that you are doing today. The only problem is they weren’t accurate. We got traffic backlogged no matter how they work the lights it doesn’t work. A quote from the Morning Sentinel “Since Wal-Mart opened its new Supercenter last Wednesday, upper Main Street has seen a surge in traffic jams. Traffic lines at lunchtime and after hours reach as far as a half mile down through the thoroughfare. That was January 31, 2005. I caught with Mike Royer the local City Manger. Mike, I’ve got a screw up in Bangor what do you think? What advice do you give me? Traffic’s a nightmare. I believe they’re hiring traffic cops for the holiday season since the lights can’t handle the situation. We’re talking about a second means of egress, Mike what do you think. Is it should be required? I wish we had a second means of egress. However, if you don’t get it in the beginning from them you’ll never get it later. So, I’d ask you to do the same. Wal-Mart is a fact of life in business. You don’t It’s not whether you like them or whether you don’t like them it you co-exist. There are neighbors some you get along with some you don’t. I’m for fair trade, I’m for commerce. I’m not against Wal-Mart building a Supercenter. I guess I’ve come to accept it as a fact of life. It’s going to occur. What it does is it affects me, though. You know, if you look at, I think I heard a number of 1700 cars an hour at peak, 1300 cars an hour. If you do the math again that’s about a car, how often, about every three seconds that’s going to go by there. Think of that little old lady who’s going to be coming from my plaza trying to make a left-hand turn across two lanes of traffic plus a turning lane into two other lanes. What’s that going to do. Is there an economic impact? You’re right there is. I can’t quantify it for Member Clark. I can sit back and say common sense says it will occur. Our ad campaign right now say inconveniently located. I don’t mind being inconveniently located but I don’t want to be impossible to get to. Thank you. Guerette: Thank you. Still open for comments if anyone would like to speak that you feel that your comments haven’t been made yet. We’d like to hear from you. Jellison: I’m Jody Jellison, 103 Howard Street and I have lived there about 22 years and I’d just like to say that every last one of those cars is going to end up, it seems on Howard Street, or one of the tree streets and I think that as you discuss the impact on Stillwater and some of the directly adjacent properties that you have to think about the impact on traffic patterns throughout the entire City. You cannot have five lanes of traffic that terminate in two lanes on both sides and expect those cars plus the other depending on which figures you believe the other 500 to 1700 cars per hour at peak going down that road not ending up someplace. So I’d just like you to keep in mind that there are a number of us who have residences. There are a number of schools, three schools, two parks, athletic facilities all in the tree street, Howard Street area and all of these are seeing increasing traffic. And if there is some way that residential areas can be protected as you begin to develop in the Mall area or begin to develop, I guess not begin to develop, continue to develop in the Mall area it would really be appreciated. Thank you. Guerette: Thank you. Are there still comments to be made? Is there anyone else who would like to speak? If not, I’d like to ask the representatives of the developer to give out any further information, answer any of these questions that have come up during the testimony and make final remarks. I’m sorry. Well if you don’t mind just a pause, Mr. Bearor. There are a couple of things that I need to do. First of all, Associate Member Mitchell has a question for Mr. Ring. Secondly, I haven’t called on our City Solicitor John Hamer yet and he would like to make some remarks with regard to the service road, the so-called parallel service road. So I will ask Jim to answer the question first and then I’ll ask City Solicitor John Hamer to make those remarks. Mitchell: Jim, I’d just wanted to get your perspective on the local of the broad sidewalk like path on Stillwater Avenue that the City created and the pedestrian bike safety issues that have been brought and how the expansion of Stillwater Avenue is going to impact that or is it the City’s intention to sustain that and how is the pedestrian traffic or bike traffic on that? How’s their safety going to maintained if the road is not doubled. Ring: Sure, the, as you know, several years ago the City undertook a project to create a combined bicycle pedestrian way on the easterly side of Stillwater Avenue from basically hat we call the south Mall entrance out to 36 Hogan Road. The reason for that is for as many people cited tonight and as you’ve heard before that Stillwater Avenue before this time before that was constructed was really not a particularly safe or desirable area to either ride a bicycle or to walk. So, this facility is ten feet wide, it is intended to provide a safe haven or separation from, particularly bicyclists, in the travel way. That’s the reason it’s ten feet wide as opposed to a normal sidewalk width. In terms of you know the impacts of widening Stillwater Avenue that facility will remain. Okay and you know the I think I heard a couple of comments about well its bad now at two lanes its you know, if its going to be five lanes is that going to be worse for bicyclists and pedestrians. Again, the facility remains the same so I really don’t think so. The key is to be able to make a crosswalks, safe crosswalks, or crossing points on Stillwater Avenue. I’m in hopes that in the future that we will be able to expand this particular facility. But I do think it’s made it safer and that would that particular combined use facility will not be compromised by or eliminated by this this widening be it for this project or any other. Guerette: Yes Waugh With our design as proposed we’re holding the curb line on the sidewalk side of the Stillwater Avenue. We’re aren’t going to widen there. All the widening is going to be on the other side of the roadway. So we still maintain the ten foot sidewalk, we still maintain the esplanade as it is presently. Guerette: I see a hand there in the audience. I will let you speak, sir but I’m asking anyone else who would like to make comments to come now because I am not going to asking any more for comments from the audience after the applicant has had a chance to give a rebuttal. So, if you would like to speak this your golden opportunity. Cimbollek: I spoke before but I didn’t speak for myself. Bob Cimbollek again, 188 Howard Street. When he mentioned riding a bicycle I will challenge anybody in the City of Bangor to know the City of Bangor better than I do on a bicycle. Okay, I ride this City continually. Jim Ring is right. That’s safer for me to go to the Mall than it is to ride down Howard Street where I live. It’s as simple as that. Why, because I’ve got that eight, ten foot path, okay. On Howard Street I've got short street and cars are speeding by me. Okay, so it is much safer there. Getting to Mall though it’s a little hard because it is narrow but it is still a good four feet lane, right Jim from all the way up even without riding on the sidewalk. So it is safer there. I’ve seen the Mall grow. I have lived at 188 Howard Street for almost 40 years. And the traffic has grown immensely since the Mall stated. Immensely. And each year it gets worse and worse and worse. The problem isn’t going to go away. I can tell you. The real secret to try to control the traffic in Mall is to get the people that come up Hancock Street Extension to go up the way they were supposed to go and that is up State Street to the Hogan Road. That is the real key to your traffic issue. If you get those cars to go that way you’ll cut down the tree street problem and on Howard Street. And Howard Street is not a tree street, believe me. Howard Street is an arterial street. It’s a yellow one, you ask the State. The key is getting the cars to go up State Street. Because any car that comes from the west side across Washington Street up to the bridge they’re going to make a decision. Am I going to go left up to Broadway which is the quickest way to the Mall, you know. I’ve timed it on my bicycle and on my vehicle. The quickest way to the Mall is straight up Broadway by Mary Snow go up the interstate so I can go as fast as I can, okay and then I can get off early if I want to and get on the Stillwater stretch or I can go beyond and go up Hogan Road. That’s the quickest way to the Mall. But the problem is that people coming up they don’t go that way. They come up, if they’re coming up through up by the hospital they’re going up Howard Street. If they come up East Summer Street they’re going up Fern Street. If they come up Birch Street, they’re going up Birch Street. And then when the get to Mt. Hope Avenue they are going funnel (end of tape) . . . beginning of next tape . . . at Fern. He had to put a light at Fern because they picked up the traffic. So all I’m saying to you, the real key is getting the traffic that’s coming up that up the Hogan extension, you know up the Hogan Road from State Street. And I don’t know how you do it. But if you block that. You know, maybe if you had a toll gate and you said, you know, you get free crosses if you live in the area. So I just wanted to confirm that Jim was right with the traffic that way. And bicycling is safe. I, when the people come up and say well it is dangerous. Bicycling is not dangerous. You have to drive defensively in a car, you drive defensively on a bicycle. Thank you. Guerette: Any more public comments either pro or for or against. Thank you. John do you have some remarks about the Parallel Service Road? Hamer: Yes, and just some general comments about on the application process here. 37 Guerette: Thank you. Hamer: Keep in mind that right now the applicant does not have any right, title, or interest into the red road. And I’m going to call it the red road because Hogan Road Extension is kind of long for 10:30 at night. So, they don’t have any right, title, or interest. They have agreed that they might, they offered as condition where they would if the timeframes worked out they would construct it if the City came through and were able to provide the right, title, or interest so that they could build the road but keep in mind that it may or may not happen. It sounds like perhaps they are getting close to getting that there but in the event that it doesn’t happen the application will need to stand on its own. That means that you need to be assured that should this pass even with this condition that if the condition doesn’t come to pass and that there is no red road extension that you are satisfied that this site meets the approval standards in the Code. There are two approval standards, two approvals that are required here. This conditional use standard and the site plan standard. And as you are well aware they have different standards that you have to look at. For the conditional use if you find that the traffic will be unreasonable then it may be appropriate to deny the conditional aspect. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that that the entire site plan gets thrown out as well. If you should find that the Stillwater Avenue drive is not necessarily, is not necessary and safe, then you have the right, of course, to deny the plan or deny the plan with the condition that it could be approved if there was some second sort of egress. That certainly would be appropriate. But whatever you do, make sure that whatever condition is attached make sure that it is possible. And the applicant may be able to come up with another way to provide a second access. They may be able to work with the City over time to get that access but just be wary of any conditions that may or may not happen as the applicant currently does not have that right, title or interest. And when you do your discussions, please make sure that you keep in mind the approval standards that are in Section 9 and in Section 114. Seeing that those are the standards that you have to either approve or deny the applications. Rosenblatt: I have a question for Mr. Hamer if I could, Mr. Chairman. Guerette: Yes. Rosenblatt: John, the if we determine, for example, that the traffic criteria can’t be met without a second access over the so-called Hogan Road Extension this applicant, as you say, this applicant can’t make that second access happen. It’s unlike other conditions we sometimes impose that the applicant can control like plant more trees, or do other things with your plan. This does seem different in the sense that the condition would make the project contingent on things that other people would need to do. Is there a problem with that? Hamer: It is unusual because usually you’re dealing with conditions that are within the applicant’s ability to do. If you do a conditional approval the way the approval is written now and it doesn’t happen, you just need to be aware that you’re going to be stuck with the site without that Hogan Road extension. If you do approve it, that’s fine. If you approve it and decide that it’s, its acquirement you can do that as well. And then the applicant is going stuck trying to work through issues and their whole project will be on hold until they can figure out whether that can happen or not. Bearor: Mr. Chairman Guerette: Yes, Thank you. Bearor: I know the hour draws late and it can be that time of night when I can become disagreeable and all I want to do is disagree with a few things that have been said so I will do my best to present our points as quickly and concisely as we can. And I wish Mr. Form from Day’s Jeweler’s hadn’t mentioned his advertising campaign because that is what I was going to lead off with. His company advertises on the radios I’ve heard it lots of times. They are located in inconvenient locations. My friend, Bill Lucy, President of Merrill Merchants Bank. I consider myself one of their better customers. I don’t know if he does. But I’ll tell you going to Merrill Merchants Bank on Stillwater Avenue this and the Valley family has to admit it, too that’s not a well designed project to begin with. We’ll get into in a moment what the Ordinance requires of us as an applicant, now. But that particular location is not particularly good even in its present configuration with nothing around it. But what they are trying to do is put the kibosh to our project by suggesting that somehow it creates an unsafe condition on Stillwater Avenue. If they believe it unsafe they need merely make that particular driveway that you can see in that picture right there right-in and right-out. Problem 38 solved. Right-in, right-out. If their customers safety is of that much concern to them that’s all they need do. Now Mr. Waugh will respond to some of Mr. Gorrill’s comments amongst which will be the extent of the queuing or the backing up of cars which will take place at the intersection that we have described for you. But before he does, Mike when was that picture taken? Waugh: Last Wednesday Bearor: And were the signals operating correctly? Waugh: We had started to change time plans. Guerette: Would you please just make your comments from the podium? I know is requires a certain amount of training, but Waugh: Get it to an average height person here. We started to make timing changes. We being myself and the Aaron Larson from the City’s signal department on all of the controllers on Stillwater Avenue at 1:00 p.m. We didn’t finish until 3:00. During the time that you’re making changes like this you have no progression through your signals at all. And this is what resulted during that time. I was there until 5:00 about 4:30 it started to clear out and by 5:00 we were back to normal, better than normal operation. Since then, I think that every report that we’ve gotten back from the Police, from the City Engineer, from Public Works says that traffic on Stillwater Avenue right now is moving better than it has in the last, ever since the Parkade project went up. Guerette: Thank you. Bearor: So it can be interpreted one of two ways. First of all whether that’s a fair an accurate depiction of traffic as it typically exists on Stillwater Avenue. And I don’t think there is anyone in the room who believes that. Secondly, if you do accept or even if you don’t, and that could be the problem, our proposal carries with it millions of dollars, 3 plus millions of dollars worth improvements to that section of Stillwater Avenue that you can see in that picture widening it to five lanes. So I think as Member Clark had indicated seemed to be a benefit to Broadway and we believe to be a benefit to the present traffic situation on Stillwater Avenue. And I would emphasize that what we are proposing with out project will improve the level of Service along Stillwater Avenue. Mr. Goodall mentioned that this Board has the authority under or his referred you to a standard in Section 114 C – Driveways. The standard and he sort of glossed over the portion that I am going to focus on. The standard says the applicant must show that all proposed access drives from the site to any public right-of-way are reasonably necessary and safe. From our site there is one access to a public way period. It doesn’t implicate, this language doesn’t implicate the possibility that someday in the future just maybe the City of Bangor will move forward and actually acquire the rights to the Hogan Road Extension or the red road and then we will use it. The Ordinance contemplates that our access be reasonable necessary and safe. Mr. Young has testified that it is reasonably necessary and that it is safe. I think that standard. Brown: I think you want that the other way. Bearor: I do? Brown: Yes, you said it backwards. Bearor: Okay, I did? Well the hour does grow late. I’ll accept that amendment because I’m not even sure what it is that I said. As I indicated I think if Merrill Merchants Banks want to argue that we are creating an unsafe condition then it can employ some self help remedies on its own. Mr. Hamilton made reference to my use of this map that had been prepared by Mr. Gorrill and said that I was accepting of the red line shown or red road shown on this map for the purposes. I thought Mr. Hamilton said anyway for the purposes of its location and then he went on to say something about at that location it somehow doesn’t meet a City standard of some sort with respect to this intersection here. I never referred to this map for the purpose of saying that this red road in this location is where we would propose that it be. It’s not for us to decide. It’s for the City to acquire those right and design. I have no idea where it will be. That may be where it is. I used this plan to respond to I think it was Member Theeman’s but I’m not sure question about why we wouldn’t have considered access off Kittredge Road and I pointed to the wetlands that 39 were there. That was my only purpose in using that, that plan. Mr. Waugh will speak to this. I’m going to ask him to address any points that I leave uncovered and to emphasize those that he think necessary. But the DOT in reviewing and approving access drives onto public roads will allow an access drive such as we propose within 120 feet or excuse me, up to 120 feet from an existing drive. We have 140 feet of clearance between our proposed location and the Merrill Merchants driveway. It is worth noting because you have to follow the money if you will. Questions were asked by certain Board Members about whether or not others are prepared to contribute to the cost of building what I am going to call the City’s road because it has been on the City map for decades. It’s only now that we’re getting any movement whatsoever from the City and unfortunately we asked back in August that they begin this process of trying to acquire these rights and we were unsuccessful in doing so because the hotel owner wanted six figures or more from us before he could see his way clear to allow a road to be built there. But Mr. Valley is going to benefit greatly by this road. It isn’t just the Crossroads Mall in its present configuration, it’s his other development that’s been approved by you already, out here. He’s not contributing anywhere near what we propose to contribute to fix this problem or to provide this access if you prefer to view it that way. The City is not going to be providing any near what we’re prepared to provide. But if this project isn’t approved in its present configuration which is with the Stillwater Avenue exit being the primary means of access until such time as this becomes available then the condition that we propose isn’t going to get us where we need to go. Because without the approval of the project as presented the condition is meaningless to us because if we don’t have an approval we’re obviously not going to contribute a quarter of a million dollars for construction of a road to somebody else’s land. Mr. Chairman if there are any questions after Mr. Waugh has a chance to play clean up here, if you have any questions for us, please don’t hesitate to ask. Guerette: Well there were two questions that were mentioned during public comment that you have not addressed yet and I wish you would if you could. First is that who will do the environmental monitoring on the site once the parking lot and so forth has been constructed. And secondly, what environmental impacts are possible from pesticides sold t the Garden center. Bearor: I will take the second question to mean pesticides as they sit on our property not when taken home by someone and what they do with it. Guerette: Correct. Bearor: Okay, I’m looking to this Board for perhaps Jeff you could address the first question which was how will this be maintained and do we have a contract with a third party or how do we do that. Allen: Again, as part of the DEP application, the applicant was required to set up a contract or when the DEP application is approved they will have to have a contract with a someone to do maintenance on their stormwater system. The DEP also requires that every five years that someone go back and recertify the stormwater system is working as it’s designed or as it’s supposed to. So there is you know DEP has envisioned that sort of question and we’ve made provision for that. Toxic issue – I’m not sure exactly how that would be addressed. Like, there are spill containment plans that are in place and that have been included in the DEP application that should address those issues as far as spills on the site. I assume that a bag of fertilizer in a bag on a pallet is inert, it doesn’t do anything. The only problem arises if that bag or if that pallet is somehow broken or the bag is broken and there is spill. I believe there’s you know that clean up method and requirement is in their DEP or in Wal-Marts Spill Containment Plan. Guerette: Thank you. A question from Associate Member Barnes. Barnes: How much are you presently budgeted for all these traffic improvements/ Bearor: Including those along Stillwater Avenue? Barnes: Yeah, just the Stillwater Avenue and the Hogan Road as presently proposed. Bearor: Mike, 40 Waugh: Ah, we’re still, you know, doing some designs so that it could change but right now we’re around 2.7 million. Barnes: Okay, thank you. Bearor: Michael is there anything that you want to cover Waugh: While I’m here. Guerette: We do have a question. Thank you Mitchell: As a part of your summary can you address I guess the level of normalcy or whatever in taking a year to refine the traffic light signaling process that has taken at Parkade and is that on average what would be expected for signalization around the Wal-Mart site as well for it to take up to a year to refine? Waugh: No, that is unusual. We had like I mentioned to be in the beginning. We had some problems with timing as to when store opens and when the improvements were done, you know, thing like that. That’s been taken care of now. We opened up before all of the improvement were done. Excuse me, not we, the stores did, and we had the problems in there. It generally doesn’t take a year after the site has been opened to finalize the off-site improvements, either. We’ve had some problems with the contractor and some other things. We’re going to, we know what the problems are, we can remedy them. Hopefully tomorrow we’re going to be able, as part of our final inspection, be able to establish remote connection with the entire, with all the controllers on Stillwater Avenue so that this download process that I told you that we went through last Wednesday we’ll be able to do from you know from computer in a half an hour. And , you know, get rid of this problem I would expect that you know after you have your initial opening and things are going to be bad at the initial opening, they always are for the first, you know, three or four weeks. When things calm down we should be able to have the system up, fine tuned, running and traffic improvements done within 30 days and then we will continue to monitor the traffic system, also. That’s the one thing that happens when you get this connection made. There is a system that will be able to call us back and to tell us when it is having problems. When it’s malfunctioning and not working. We can then call the City, DPW and get some things taken care of. So, no the time was unusual last I think we, sure we can get it shortened this time. Guerette: Questions from Member Theeman and then Member Clark. Theeman: Mr. Waugh I just would like just go over some ground we covered earlier. You indicated in your analysis at the beginning, earlier in the evening that 60 percent of the traffic to the Wal-Mart site would be from my term recycled it would be traffic that would already be in the area. Waugh: In the area, yes. Theeman: But that means that 40 percent, it would introduce 40 percent more traffic into the area that’s currently there. Waugh: That’s correct. Clark: The signals as they are, will they have, well I call them a camera but the monitors so if traffic is backing up the device notices that the lines is getting long and stays on longer or does or makes adjustments. Waugh: Yeah, as a part of this system that we are proposing to set up in there and most of the equipment is already on the street. You just use a few ad ons that we’re going to take care of. What we’re going to do is make it into a totally traffic responsive system. So there will; be some cameras sitting up at selected locations throughout and not check red lights or anything. But to count cars detect the occupancy of a lane in there and based on that data and some algorithms that we have the threshold values to put in the system will select the best traffic plan then for that condition at that time in a 15 minute interval. So we can change, the system will have the ability on its own to change traffic plans every 15 minutes as need by the detection equipment. 41 Clark: Is this a state of the art system. Will you use that term? Waugh: Well there are some more state of the art. This type of system has been out for quite a while, ten, fifteen years. We’re working with the City right now on putting similar systems up on Union and Broadway so they will be work. For this area, yes it is state of the art. Bearor: I would like to respond and I’d like you to correct me if I’m wrong okay that to Mr. Theeman’s questions. Total trip generation roughly 40 percent of the trips attributable to this project which you estimate at 1152 are new trips, correct? Waugh: 40 percent of the 1152 are new to the area. Bearor: So it’s not a 40 percent increase in all of the traffic that we see out in the Mall area now. Waugh: Yes. There was one other thing said Mr. Gorrill that I would like to talk about. I wish he would have called me before he went through his analysis. As a part of finalizing our traffic movement permit the DOT has asked us to do some modifications to the volumes and that we have in the traffic study. We’re doing, we did those, we did some retiming you know of the model and as a result we are not getting 600 foot backups anymore. I did and I tell and it will happen that we will get backups past that drive. Will it happen all the time? No. When it does happen, will it be able to clear and then vehicle to be able to proceed to make a left turn into the site? Yes. It will. Overall, we feel based on all of our modeling and 40 years of experience you know in the traffic transportation field that you will have a better functioning roadway system with the completion of this project and all of its additional traffic than you have out there today. Thank you. Hamilton: Can I correct one statement that was made? Guerette: I think we’re beyond that at this point, thank you. I’m now ready to close the Public Hearing and to ask the Planning Officer for his report. Gould: I just remind the Board we’re going to get to do this again tomorrow night. ?? Where did you say you are parked? Gould: I don’t really have a concern relative to the hour but I have a real feeling that all of the details relative to what are in our Ordinance, guidance from Legal Counsel, both the City’s and other parties has all been fairly well covered and I feel that I’d be very redundant if I kind of stroll through this as we routinely do. Once again. There were two items that we pointed out in the Staff Memorandum in light of the issues that we’ve expounded upon for hours here seem quite trivial now but we did point out that we had a concern relative to the buffer on the entryway into the project. That has been remedied by a new submission by the applicant. We also been moderate toward the end of the project made the applicant aware of the City’s concerns relative to lighting, generally. Presently, the City doesn’t have a very rigorous standard in terms of on-site lighting. What they have proposed is what we typically see. Luminares at 40 foot pole heights. That’s something that the City will change. There is one portion of the site where we did have some confusion. I’m not sure whether we’re clear on that. On the outer edge of the parking lot there are lighting fixtures which indicate on the plan that they are directed towards the Crossroads development. The lighting detail on the plan says that they have full cutoffs on the rear of the lighting but we’re somewhat unclear as to how the cutoff on the backside of the light is going to help limit lighting that might go forwards towards Crossroads if the Board has a concern with that you certainly should take up further with the applicant. We have for many, many years had the Hogan Road and the parallel service road as part of the City’s Transportation Plan. Way before there was even a development at this location there was an alignment for the Hogan Road extension and something that the City has worked hard at to get to come to fruition to make sure as the Board is well aware when we do Official Map amendments that that right-of-way gets set aside as a legally binding right-of-way which you must setback from but it doesn’t bring the title of that property to the City. In some instances the City does get that provided to us by the developer because it serves both our needs and in this instances there is a property owner that does not see the extension of Hogan Road in their interest and is not interested in donating that property hence the applicant actually 42 in a bit of a spot because they cannot provide the land to give the City to give the road that it needs. As was pointed out by Assistant City Solicitor Hamer, it kind of puts us in a somewhat of an awkward position in that in order for the City to be able to make progress to acquire the right-of-way to give it to the applicant as approval of condition you in effect have to approve their plan subject to the condition. Because they do not have right, title or interest to that at this time. So it is kind of a two part. It is one way we see the City’s ability to get the roadway done. What I think is a big question in front of the Board is as to whether it is something that can be set aside monetarily in terms of this is what the applicant will contribute to it or is it in fact something that the applicant needs to carry the full cost of this roadway improvements provided the City acquire the right-of-way. Certainly, if the Board’s position is that without the roadway you can’t do the project then I think that’s where you need to come down relative to your approval. It’s not a conditionable detail. The other one actually purely provides an avenue for the City to look forward to the opportunity to get the roadway so that they can then act on the condition. I think Jim could probably tell you more about the specifics of traffic and the potential that the roadway envisioned what it would cost and is a quarter of a million dollars adequate to cover that cost. I would point to the Board. We don’t’ have a specific traffic standard as you all know. We rely heavily on the guidance that comes from Maine Department of Transportation in the traffic movement permit. That standard, as point out, it’s a grading chart much like you’d see in school A thru F. The F is absolute failure. A is free flowing, no delays at all. The standard that the State of Maine MDOT says as an overall intersection Level of Service that is acceptable is a D. And that is why you can get a lot of traffic and still be able to meet our traffic standard because it is not a level of service A that is required. On an arterial roadway, existing lefts, entering lefts are always going to be at a very low level of service. Whether you have this project or you don’t that’s fact. (end of tape) ….(beginning of side 9) . . . left hand turn movements in or out of sights. That’s always going to occur. I guess we in conclusion, we thought the application was in order. We did want to recommend the Board approval subject to the condition that the City get the opportunity to acquire the roadway that the applicant get the opportunity to contribute financial to the construction of that project. As to the extent of that financial commitment, I think that’s one that the Board needs to discuss and define as well as your own understanding of how you feel the applicant has met their burden relative to movement of movement of traffic at this site. I think there’s been very little debate and discussion as to stormwater quality as to impervious surface, as to layout, on-site circulation, applicant has worked for many months on these details and put together an application that is relative to water quality state of the art. This is, this is what the new stormwater rules are looking for in terms of treatment underground, returning the water back to the Penjajawoc at a temperature colder than it is in the Penjajajwoc when it gets there. So I don’t think we could expect them to do greater relative to that condition. I guess if there’s elements of 165-114 or the conditional use standards that the Board wants clarity on. If, if Jim wants to make a few additional comments. I guess I’m open to that but I don’t see the need to rehash every little detail again. Guerette: Go ahead, Nat. Rosenblatt: Thank you Mr. Chairman. And David I agree you don’t need to rehash all that and I think it for me the most helpful would be hear you views and the views of Staff on the, these two traffic criteria which I, I think are the challenging criteria. The conditional use, has Staff reached a conclusion I suppose is the question on whether the application as presented with the proposed entrance off Stillwater with these proposed improvements, has the Staff reached a conclusion even though I realize the Board is the final arbiter of this as to whether the application as proposed satisfies conditional use criteria A, 2. Gould: Well, I don’t know if Jim wants to weight in on this. Our major concern is to, is to get the Hogan Road extension constructed. And we certainly wouldn’t recommend the Board adopt that, approve the application without the condition or the ability of the City to acquire the right-of-way and then the applicant construct the Hogan Road extension. As to whether the present limitation in terms of finds for the construction of the roadway are adequate to get it done I guess I’d have to rely on Jim to do that. It was always our intention that, that if the City could provide the right-of-way the applicant would build the roadway. Rosenblatt: But David am I hearing you say that if, if there is not this other access off of the Hogan Road extension the application as presented doesn’t satisfy that conditional use standard? Gould: I don’t think that we’re saying that. I think, in our plans, long-term, we see that as the preferred. There’s a lot more benefits to that roadway that accrue to the City than when necessarily just accrue to this applicant. 43 Rosenblatt: No I think we all would agree with that. But Gould: But I would go back to what you said before. We need to deal with the plan that’s in front of us. We don’t always get to pick the most optimal solution for the problem. They have to meet the minimum standard. I would hate to see us miss the opportunity to build the Hogan Road extension on their nickel. Hamer: If I could break in for one moment. While the applicant has offered to add this condition and this amount of financing to it I don’t think the Board has the authority to require more monies to be paid. That’s why I was trying to get the Board to look at the at the project without this condition which, which hopefully will happen but may not happen. It it can stand on its own fine, and that’s appropriate to approve it. If the condition is offered by the applicant that would be great and that would certainly go a long way toward constructing this road if the City can do its part and there’s general agreement between the property owners. But I don’t think that the City has the authority to go and demand extra money to build it. That’s my opinion and I know Jim’s talked about this before and he probably would like to chime in. Guerette: I’m wondering for example, if we could make a condition that said that the applicant, we would approve the project subject to the condition that the applicant would use the Hogan Road extension as their primary entrance to the site if the City is able to acquire access. Hamer: I believe that was the essence of the condition offered by the applicant. Bearor: With the limitation that we would contribute the $250,000 to that because we have to then make the Stillwater Avenue entrance you know we have to scale that one back. Guerette: Okay. Member Wheeler and then Member Theeman. Wheeler: It seems to me that we have at least narrowed this down to a manageable, manageable perspective and quite a few minutes ago, as a matter of fact a couple of hours ago, we might as well stay here all night. We’re going to be here tomorrow anyway. I, I drafted very quickly a conditional condition. And it isn’t going to change the circumstances under which we have to vote on this right now but as a means of going on record. I wrote something like this. That we would approve this application if the necessary rights of way to construct the Hogan Road extensions are obtained prior to the beginning of construction of the project with the primary access to the project being located on that extension. But, lacking the acquisition of such rights-of-way before construction is commenced then the Airport, the applicant shall without further negotiation or appearance before this Board be approved to construct primary access from Stillwater Avenue area with the proposed improvements and widening that have been described. So I guess what I am suggesting is, is really a matter of principle rather than authority as the City Attorney has pointed out. I call it a conditional condition. Guerette: Go ahead Member Theeman. Theeman: I don’t think this application tonight is about money. I think Wal-Mart has demonstrated their willingness to contribute mightily to the infrastructure of this City and whether they spend an extra $250,000 to support the red road as we’re now calling it. I, to me it’s a secondary issue. I think this issue tonight is about traffic and in my opinion in the absence of the red road this application meets neither the conditional requirement of 165-9 or the development the Bangor Code requirement of 165-114. And for that reason I will vote against this application. Guerette: Any other comments of questions? Jim did you want to make some further comments? I think you were interrupted a while ago from Ring: Yes, Jim Ring, City Engineer. I did have a couple of questions but I guess I don’t really have the opportunity to discuss with the applicant relative to their proposal. So I guess, although I would to have that opportunity if it was available. But having said that, you’ve heard from a lot of attorneys tonight, you’ve heard from dueling traffic experts and I mean that with I say that with a great deal of respect from both the gentlemen that spoke. A couple of times people have asked me questions and about and the Assistant City Solicitor has advised you on, you know, imposing conditions and so forth with respect to the access which certainly seems to have dominated 44 must of the discussion tonight and associated traffic concerns. When I look at this application from the traffic perspective, you know, there are basically two tests or two things that I focused on. One clearly does it, the layout and access as presented meet the criteria and will it ultimately even despite what we might think or what you might rule here ultimately will do they think it is going to be successful in gaining a Traffic Movement Permit from MDOT which is something that they need regardless for this project to move forward. The other question or thing that I focus on is, is it the best solution here. We’ve had a lot references to that as well. So I guess I, this may not be of any help to you at all but I see it boiling it down to this at least from my perspective, as Staff Engineer here that its possible based on the traffic study that’s been done by Mr. Waugh and his associates at Sewall that they may secure the Traffic Permit. The research and the data that have been presented and more importantly, are contained in that report suggests that a project that that with the improvements that they are proposing major intersections will operate at an acceptable Level of Service. And by that and aside from the definitions that you may have heard also I look at a comparison to what they are now and what they would be afterwards very important and I think that based on that traffic analysis it looks, and I believe its plausible what they will get no worse in fact in some cases get better. The other thing is the will there be adequate capacity with the proposed improvements, roadway capacity on the major roadways. And, again it appears both from the traffic report and my experience and quite frankly my perception and onion of what has happened out there. I have certainly spent a lot of time dealing with, too. That probably that’s the case. Then we come down to is this the best configuration or least this is where I come down to. And, I think I have said at least in my earlier comments, that the City has long supported the Hogan Road extension both in the parallel service road. I’m really please to hear this being called the red road rather than the Ring Road tonight. For a change that’s quite refreshing. But seriously, the, compared to what is proposed and the applicant has told you that they have not been able to secure the right-of-way to proceed with constructing on the red road location. The City, the Assistant City Solicitor has advised you on the fact that they, you know, they can’t correct me if I misspeak, John, that it’s, you can’t require them to do something that they aren’t, that is impossible for them to do. Nonetheless, again the City has had a long interest, certainly I have had a long interest in that alignment or extension of Hogan Road as a primary access point for development in the area. We didn’t use the map and we can’t see the detail and quite frankly it’s faded but behind Member Rosenblatt is the map that we used in our discussions in fact our work as a former Marsh Mall Task Force and more recently as the Commission about how to affect traffic connections through this area and manage traffic. As you know, we have gotten away from the parallel service road concept which was an interconnected approach that’s been mentioned and you are all familiar with. I think it is one that will work well. We had a traffic analysis done in 2005 to test that against perspective development in the area. That will work. Two key aspects of that scheme which are reflected in the Marsh Mall Task Force Final Reports which are now part, Final Report which is not part of the Comprehensive Plan is the importance of increasing and improving current infrastructure capacity, existing infrastructure capacity, specifically widening Stillwater Avenue to five lanes which is part of the proposal. Also, as an alternative to the parallel service road but to provide that interconnectivity two connections between developments but also there are some access points on Stillwater Avenue. You can’t see them from here but I just know from working on it many hours but as illustrated on that map are two major access points. New access points to the north of Stillwater Avenue. One being an extension of Hogan Road and the other being closer down to the Stream. Not at the exact location that is proposed by the development but at least fairly close. But the point is two, with build out in that area or further development in that area there would likely would be two additional access points. The, I really believe that the, based on the all the data and, you know, all the testimony, the experience of people who have shared and frankly my own intuition that the Hogan Road extension is the best place to provide access if it is possible. Again, we have the issue on whether this particular applicant can provide that. The applicant has in working with the Marsh Mall Commission indicating, indicated a willingness to work or to provide construction funding for that extension of Hogan Road if the City was to provide right-of-way. Earlier today we had a departure from that in that there was a financial discussion on how much that would be. Which was not part of the earlier discussions, at least as I recall, nor is with the Marsh Mall Commission or as was reflected in their final report. That figure that is being offered and this is a, an offer as I understand it from the applicant, is $250,000. Is that enough to consider, to complete the construction or assist the City in its process so that this opportunity is not lost? I think it’s close. I would, I haven’t done a current estimate, but I think there certainly is some benefit to doing that. So in the end I think that you need to make a decision on whether it meets the tests as included in the Ordinance. I’ve kind of rambled here for several minutes and may have not been helpful. Maybe it’s just too late but I don think that it is in the City’s best interest in the big picture to try to figure, to work with any applicant be it this one or another to facilitate the larger vision in terms of transportation. Thanks. Guerette: Thank you. Question from Associate Member Brown. 45 Brown: Actually it’s a comment to Member Theeman. Guerette: Oh, okay, go ahead. Brown: I respect your concern about traffic. I had an opportunity to look at the full sized plans and look at the traffic report and I’m on Stillwater Avenue probably every day and knowing, coming from away from down in the Massachusetts area and knowing about congestion and the advantages to adding lanes. I used to travel continually up the Maine turnpike and boy was it great when they added that extra lane, you know from the border up to Portland. And, I think that the proposed improvements here to making it five lanes of traffic is really and truly going to do a lot to alleviate the problem. I think that the timing of traffic lights has done tremendous. Now, I was in and around the Mall area all weekend and it was reasonably comfortable being able to get in and out. It’s the holiday seasons, yeah you got to wait a little bit but for the most part you could, the traffic moved up and down and I think that It doesn’t matter which traffic study you look. It’s statistics and statistics are swayed the way you want it to be but I think that the improvement, the adding the lanes is going to significantly answer your concerns about do they, do they meet those standards. I think the fact of what they have improved says yes they are going to those, those standards. Guerette: Member Rosenblatt and then Associate Member Barns and then Theeman and then I have a comment as well and then we’ll try to get close to a vote. Rosenblatt: Actually a couple of thoughts, Mr. Chairman. One is that I’m not sure the quality of our process is enhanced by making a decision on this complex application at this late hour. I’m beginning to get concerned about that as we talk about conditions and some of which are pretty complex. I’m also concerned than in, that we’re going to lose a couple of points like pertaining to lighting that David mentioned, which we really haven’t talked about which may be legitimate to include as conditions we haven’t really talked those. There seems to be a concern about that that I’ve heard. We also really haven’t talked about a couple of points raised by the Commission Report, the public access easements, this open space issue. But having said all that getting back to I think the central issue which is the traffic, I would, I would appreciate hearing from other Members of the Board their perception on the traffic issues. I’m torn on the one hand I think that we’ve had a very good presentation as to why the proposed improvements will be adequate. On the other hand I do have a sense of sort of being burned in the past in this part of the City where we get assurances about particular outcomes and they have not come about as promised, unfortunately and that, that skews my perception of how realistic some of the presentation is. I also think it’s probably appropriate to have a vote up or down on the application as presented on the traffic issue because I don’t see, I’m having trouble understanding how we can impose a condition that the applicant itself can’t control. And as Mr. Hamer point out if we, if we include a condition along the lines that Mr. Bearor mentioned a long time ago earlier today if that doesn’t come about, those timeframes don’t come about, we will have approved the application, the application will simply go forward with the access that is proposed. So, I think, I think we do need to thrash out and vote up or down on the application as presented as far as the traffic the traffic is concern. But I would appreciate; I find hearing from other Members of the Board helpful on this stuff so I would love to hear from my colleagues. Barnes: My question is if went with the Hogan Road what would the scaled back project on Stillwater look like then? Bearor: The, a right-in, a right-out and a left-in unsignalized. Barnes: And do you have a cost associated with that at all? Bearor: As we just described it? Barnes: Yes. Bearor: Not at this time. Barnes: Okay, thank you. 46 Waugh: It really it doesn’t affect our design. Guerette: Why don’t we get back to the podium? Waugh: I’ll just, you know, get a stool. It really doesn’t affect our Stillwater Avenue design. We’ll still do the five lanes. We’ll still everything else. It will not have the traffic signal. It will not have four lanes going up to the site. It will probably be just two lanes possibly three. Okay. And there would be a channelization island built in so that it would be difficult for left-turn, left-turning vehicles to come out of the site. Barnes: Okay, thank you. Theeman: Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Ring and the Engineering Department should be commended for 12 years of trying to do the right thing and frankly I think the Wal-Mart proposal is a terrific proposal and it deserves to be approved but those two things are in conflict with one another because for me it is still about traffic and until the red road, if you will, is built and there is an alternative access to that parcel and to this project, I repeat what I said earlier, I will vote against it. Guerette: Member Clark Clark: Okay, I do think that the red road is a good idea but I’m not going to hold them hostage to something that they can’t control. I think they have done a marvelous job on every aspect of this project. You know, if they could make the red road tomorrow morning they’d do it. But I don’t think they can so I’m not going to hold them hostage, as I said. However, as I went back to Nate and other things, when they added those extra lanes on Broadway it was marvelous. I know Broadway doesn’t get the amount of traffic that Stillwater Avenue. But I do know a lot of people including the one that I’m supposed to go home to sometime tonight who stay away from the Mall on weekend because they just don’t want to get caught in the traffic. I do believe that with those extra lanes and it would make a big difference because people will be able to go straight through, other people will be in their turning lanes and they won’t be blocking the road because the people, the traffic patterns right now look like they put together by Mad Magazine. You know and a lot of people just don’t know how to drive let’s put it that way, too. And I’d hate to quibble over something that is going to provide so many jobs and so many opportunities for people because we can’t decide on, you know, what color the lights should be so, yes, I will be voting yes so I guess we cross each other out. Guerette: Just for comment, I’m in favor of the project. I know that we don’t have final authority on the DEP aspect of the project concerning stormwater and impact on wetlands but their project detail presented this evening and assisted really by the knowledge we gained at the site visit made me really comfortable with how they are dealing with those issues and those bio retention cells and the underground storage of runoff water I think are just the state of the art and they are employing them and it makes me feel comfortable about that aspect of the project. When it comes to traffic, I can’t tell you how many projects we’ve dealt with in the Mall area where traffic is always an issue and if the conditions on the roadway were remaining the same it would be a very easy no for me because I know that that northbound lane going by their entrance is just not adequate to handle an extra 500 trips one way each hour. But when I see the improvement they are making and extending that to five lanes, keeping the bicycle lane going, having a traffic signal that is coordinated with all of the other traffic signals in the roadway. I think they’ve met the standard that I feel that we can apply to this project and I still know that they have to meet the Maine Department of Transportation standard for final approval. They cannot go to the Maine DOT and say the Bangor Planning Board approved it so give us our ticket. Its, they still have a whole other level of compliance and criteria to meet before the project becomes a reality. But for the purposes of our discussion, and I believe that my task is to make sure that their project is not going to create unreasonable traffic congestion or hazardous conditions and I think that they have done that and I’m in favor, I will vote in support of the two motions. One for conditional use and the other one for site development plan. And, I would ask before we vote to have the developer address the lighting question that Mr. Gould pointed out because we both looked at the maps this afternoon and it seemed that along the perimeter of your project facing the Crossroads Plaza you have four foot lamps that are directed at Crossroads Buildings. And I think those are in error but, a big map, such a little detail. But maybe if you might just say a word about that it would help me make a motion without a condition. And, comments from Associate Member Mitchell. 47 Mitchell: I just wanted to voice my opinion about the traffic issue in response to Mr. Rosenblatt’s question of the Board. And I think a piece of this project and this decision is not just about Wal-Mart and the traffic but the City and the City’s responsibility to provide a traffic system that is beneficial for the public not just of the City of Bangor but the region as a service center. And that’s how this Board approached for more than a year working on our Comprehensive Plan that wholeheartedly supported the Hogan Road Extension and as a part of that the Mall Marsh Task Force Report that again supported the Hogan Road Extension. So I think that the Board as on-going stewards of our Comprehensive Plan the City’s overall goals to provide an effective traffic system and the voiced opinion of our traffic engineer here that some level of weight needs to be given to the desire to construct the Hogan Road extension and I don’t know that its about the responsibility of the applicant to make sure that that happens (end of tape) . . . . (beginning of Side 10) . . . major developments are made along the Stillwater, excuse me, corridor and if not just this one it’s the Widewater’s, I believe it’s the Wdewater’s that we’ve already approved and how they all connect and fit together. And I think that big picture that red road needs to be developed for the public good and we need to fulfill our goal in making sure that the traffic situation for the public is amenable in that area. And the red road is necessary to do that. Guerette: Yeah, I asked you to make that comment, so go ahead. Young: All right, the lighting in question, it’s a type B light and two of the lights face towards the site (if I can stand that up, there, stand up) and then there’s four that face away from the site and there is an error on the back deflector. The deflectors were not supposed to be put on ones facing away from the site. They were only supposed to be put on the ones facing towards the site to make sure that the light does not bleed off the site. So, a clarification on that. Guerette: Okay, Thank you. ??? Site pole? Guerette: Just to piggy back on what Laura said. I mean I, if this project had access through the Hogan Road extension I would be in favor of it and pleased that it turned out that way. I really think that if we could empower the Cit or the developer to somehow make this happen that I would be pleased to support that. And I do think that it is a municipal issue that needs to be the catalyst to make this road happen. But, I’ll vote in favor of the project on its own merits as it’s been presented tonight. Rosenblatt: I just had one last question on the lighting. As I understand it the City Council just recently passed something that lowers heights of lights to 25 feet is that effective. Do we have to deal with that tonight. Hamer: It doesn’t take effect until 10 days after enactment so it’s not actually in effect. Rosenblatt: Okay. Hamer: So, they slip under the gun. Guerette: I think they also slipped under the gun because their application was in, in process before the City Ordinance was contemplated. Yes, Member Theeman. Theeman: Yeah that not withstanding I would certainly ask the Wal-Mart folks to consider the 25 foot standard because they know that it will be in effect at the time they build their building. I know we can’t hold you to that but I wish you would take that into consideration if your application is approved this evening. Guerette: Any other comments? Would someone care to make motion? First on the conditional use. Thank you Nat. 48 Rosenblatt: To get the ball rolling, I move that the Board grant conditional use approval to the proposed development at 888 Stillwater Avenue, Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, applicant. Mr. Theeman seconded the motion. Guerette: Further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? The motion carried 3 to 2. Rosenblatt: And I move that we grant Site Development Plan approval for the proposed development at 888 Stillwater Avenue, Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, applicant. Theeman: Second. Guerette: Thank you. Further questions or discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? And that motion carried 4 to 1. Motion for adjournment? It’s a vote unless doubted. Thank you very much everyone. 49 Transcript of December 4, 2006 Special Planning Board Meeting for the Wal-Mart Project. Lynn P. Johnson Total Hours Worked: 27.0 Pay Rate at time and one-half Bill to be made out to Eremita & Valley 11 Bangor Mall Boulevard Bangor, ME 04401 MEMORANDUM DATE: November 28, 2006 TO: The Planning Board FROM: The Planning Staff SUBJECT: Maine Municipal Association Planning Board Guide The Maine Municipal Association offers a publication entitled Municipal Guide for Planning Boards. If you would like for us to purchase a copy of this guide for you please place your order with Lynn Johnson.