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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-12-13 Planning Board Minutes COMPREHENSIVE PLAN WORKSHOP TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2005 MINUTES Board Members Present: Robert Guerette, Chairman David Clark Nat Rosenblatt Hal Wheeler Alice Brown Laura Mitchell City Staff Present: David Gould Jim Ring Peter Witham Bangor Daily News Dawn Gagnon Five additional people attended from the community Chairman Guerette opened the meeting at 6:30 pm to discuss Element 5. Mr. Gould explained that Planning Element 5 was laid out in two major sections, to represent the broad brush for Land Use Concepts and more detailed for Zoning Policy. But they also spent much time on traffic and corridor studies. Much of the data are now out of date and are indicated to be struck out. To integrate what the Board discussed in transition areas there is a section added to replace the corridor studies at the end. Mr. Guerette concluded after reading the section that there need to be a lot more trees planted. Ms. Brown asked if the Board would be going through page by page and Mr. Guerette agreed. Ms. Brown read the section from standpoint of a developer for content, but picked up grammatical errors, too. Mr. Gould said that it was difficult to read some passages, for instance where it refers to “traditional anticipation.” Ms. Brown recommended breaking up some of the sentences. Mr. Wheeler agreed that clarity of language is important in City documents. The Board discussed the grammatical structure of another sentence. Mr. Wheeler said that when he read this section he skimmed over the grammatical sections. Mr. Guerette said that after the grammar is resolved it reads as if there are problems we have inherited. Mr. Rosenblatt offered some changes to clean up the sentences. Mr. Ring said that the traffic issue seems to focus on the Mall area, but traffic does come up in other areas of the City. Things have changed not just after a century of development, but after 10 years. It is worth noting that there are other areas of the City that could be mentioned. Mr. Wheeler said that it he didn’t disagree that with the phrase “century of development”, but observed that two particular years could be mentioned when there were large changes. 1912 was the year of the great fire downtown. The other pivotal year was 1968, the year the Air Force Base closed and $15,000,000 payroll in 1968 dollars was lost. Mr. Guerette asked if some of the thoughts should be added, but Mr. Wheeler said they were just his observations for references. Another set of grammatical and language particulars was discussed related to recent discussions around the marsh. The purpose of this section was discussed and how much background needed to be included in the update. Mr. Wheeler suggested outlining the content for each section rather than going over each word. Ms. Brown asked if the lines on the Developmental Policy Map are tied to particular locations. Mr. Gould said that it is an estimate on where sewer and water can serve but a developer would have to prove what can and can’t be served. Mr. Guerette asked about the Primary Service Area boundary and if it is much of an issue anymore, especially because of the large subdivisions in the rural areas such as on outer Essex Street. Mr. Rosenblatt had questions about the green colored areas. Mr. Gould did too. He said the section is about the Bangor Mall Subarea section. The Mall/Marsh area is a different subsection of the Bangor Mall Subarea. Mr. Wheeler asked about the section in parentheses, which seemed to be an area description and referred to the mobile home park that is no longer there. Mr. Gould said that he wanted to leave it for the Board to decide what to do with it. Mr. Ring asked if the appendix refers to the Bangor Mall Subarea, but if that is going to be dropped, the heading should be changed. Mr. Guerette gave some suggested language to refer to the Mall/Marsh report. Mr. Rosenblatt asked about the 11 planning areas and if they are still current. Mr. Gould thought they could be struck as irrelevant with the transition areas being the focus in this update. Mr. Guerette thought the use of “etc.” should not be used. It seems unfinished. Another sentence unidentifiable from the audio tape was dissected. Ms. Brown said that the statement on Page 8 — “past housing policy have ignored the correlation between density and housing type”, seemed like a slap to the people before and wondered if it should be changed. There was a discussion on rewording and on the purpose of the Comprehensive Plan. Doubt that it is used by developers. Concern about the 5% who read it and that it could be used in court. Mr. Guerette said that there are different outlooks on areas and neighborhoods now as compared to the past then it is worthwhile to have those observations in the CP. Mr. Rosenblatt found a grammatical correction, but talked about the use of “Water’s Edge” that seems to be a smaller and smaller and he did not like that. Maybe some difference of term could be used to distinguish them. Mr. Guerette said that it did seem like a narrow description. Mr. Rosenblatt said that because the City Council will ultimately decide, maybe there should be a statement that the ultimate layout is undetermined. Mr. Gould said that he was not describing the depth, but that the area closest to the water is the most valuable and should be reserved for public open space. The reason for this to be here is that there have been entities who want to put in residential uses right on the water. The concern is that once there are private residences there it will preclude or conflicts with the use of the space by the public. He said the distance back could be flexible, but each proposal for use will have to be looked at for what it offers and what it will be. Mr. Wheeler said that point made sense because we can’t give everybody everything they want. By retaining that statement it keeps it flexible. Mr. Ring said isn’t that we are trying to see that the space is highly valued? Mr. Wheeler said that it goes beyond that to be essential. Mr. Gould said that it goes beyond that with the way the area is used now. Along the edges of the Kenduskeag Stream there are areas where the landowners can tell people to leave the private property. It goes beyond just access and right of way, but having enough room for the public to not be infringed on by the private uses. There was discussion on page 11 of two sentence fragments. Mr. Rosenblatt wondered if page 12 was the location to put discussion of the seminary. Mr. Gould said that it did not come up because it was not identified as a transition area. He is comfortable with the policy as it is, Low Density Residential, even though it is zoned G&ISD. Mr. Guerette questioned the sentence on Airport Development District. Mr. Gould said that the issue is that the district has no standards and staff can’t tell applicants how to lay things out if there are none. Mr. Guerette said that we should state what the goal is then, that in order for there to be standards amendments to the Land Development Code will have to be made. On page 13 Ms. Brown had a question about the use of “reasonable” and “land value” in a sentence. There was some discussion about the sentence. On page 14 there was some sketchy grammar in the rural section. The Union Street section used “in lieu or’ which could be reworded. Mr. Gould remembered the struggle in the 1980’s to keep fast food and auto dealerships off of Union Street. It seemed as though every application coming in tried to convince the policy to change. The work of 10 or 20 years to maintain the policy finally paid off with the latest development in the Hospital complex. Another area that developers pushed to change to commercial was outer Mount Hope Avenue area. Finally the residential development has begun and will help to secure that area. Over decades the work that the City does produces the results. Mr. Wheeler appreciated the discussion on the gestation period of development policy. On page 15 it was noted that there were some missing words in the first red section. Alternatives were discussed. On page 16 there was a question of “naturally” in the phrase “where low density housing should naturally occur.” It was decided to strike the word. On page 18 there was a question on the mention of the Belvedere Condominium and its status that was approved by the Planning Board. On page 21 in the final paragraph, second sentence beginning with “juxtaposition” a suggestion was made to rewrite the sentence and reduce it to its essential statement. On page 22 there is discussion of “unsightly” gas station and what to use as an adjective if any, or to strike several whole phrases. On page 23 the second sentence in red there was something missing. “Et cetera” was also used at the beginning. “Parking on the street provides some heavy buffering at peak hour on the street” was confusing, but explained. Request to change “try and anticipate” to “try to anticipate” or rephrase it “to anticipate” On page 24 “properties on the street back on to..” was requested to be changed to “abut.” On page 25 “somewhat unfettered unplanned individual site developments...” request to change the phrase or eliminate the excess adjectives. “In recent years..” sentence has some grammatical errors and was discussed more than briefly. On page 26 “to try and anticipate” should be changed. There was a discussion about the traffic count on Broadway and that it recorded the highest count in Bangor. Mr. Ring said that the counts on Stillwater are still less than 33,000, and he believed that Broadway was still the highest, but he would check. Farther down the page the “commercial development on Broadway to limit extent it to Husson Avenue” then discussion about State Street recommendations. There were questions about the recent zone change and conditions. Use of “fortuitous” was pointed out. There was a discussion earlier about transition areas and sections from those writings were inserted into this text. The issue is access management and green space and that is why it is included in this section. The old plan says that a good job has been done containing development up to Husson Avenue. Now we recognize the area between Husson Avenue and Burleigh Road still has an area of residential that we would like to maintain. On page 27 there was a question about several phrases “need for additional trees”. Is that a part of the current plan? It was noted that is one of the attractive features of Bangor is that trees are replanted and forests are extensive here. On page 28 it was noted that un-serviced can stand alone. On page 31 there were several grammatical things in the red area and redundancies. On page 32 the second paragraph on Union Place, Mr. Guerette hoped we could give a better sense of direction on what should be there. He wanted to know what the area would be appropriate for. Mr. Gould said that it suggests mixed use as appropriate. There was discussion how best to rephrase the section on this and also on Curve Street to specify that any commercial developments not overwhelm surrounding residential developments. On page 33, the last paragraph on “land adjacent to Godfrey Boulevard zoned industrial “again”. Again should be struck. This section came from a discussion of the changing zones along Maine Avenue. On page 35, in the first paragraph, the description of industry needs punctuation. The dilemma in “dilemma of two industrial zones is complicated” and needed explanation or changing of terms to maybe inconsistency of use. “With construction of Bangor Mall” needed punctuation. On page 36, the old language description of traffic and trees needs clarification or deleting. “Opportunity fast-approaching” needs fixing. The issue in 1989 at the time was there was undeveloped property there, but in 2000 there was less space to be developed, so there was less opportunity to set a pattern for curb cuts and landscaping. The whole section may need to be rewritten, rather than redo the old language. Page 37, “the corridor study proposed to add lanes to Stillwater Avenue” was questioned. Mr. Ring explained the corridor study and recommended improvements. He said that the addition of the extra lane at Parkade did make a difference on Stillwater Avenue. Mr. Guerette thought it would be in the jurisdiction of the Planning Board to recommend that there be impact fees for open space for small subdivisions. Impact fees for traffic were also discussed again for small projects that do not require MDOT permits. Ms. Mitchell asked if these items are on a “to do” list. Mr. Gould said that needed to be developed. In the second section “future considerations” several changes were recommended. The last sentence needed to be changed, too. One too many continues in the last red line. Also commas were needed. On page 39 reference to “visual clutter” and what is it. How can it be legislated? There was a discussion on if there are standards for “accessory” use and if there really is a set of specific standards in the ordinance. The Board had to judge whether the car wash on Stillwater Avenue fit in with the architectural character of the area. Because there are mixed styles, anything could fit in with no grounds to deny it. The discussion was that if there isn’t a set of standards, then we should not say there is. The rereading of the particular sentence several times revealed several faults in it. It was decided that the terms “standards” and “guidelines” used were not accurately in the sentence. Mr. Guerette talked about a recommended policy that the Board would discuss recommended changes in the Land Use Code as amendments. On page 40 a sentence under objective “City of Bangor shall adopt land use controls that promote the highest & best use of land law minimizing conflicts between incompatible activities optimizing public investment” as a mouthful and generalities of the phrase. There was a discussion of methods calculating “highest and best use”. It was pointed out that if the objective was confusing, then one should look at the associated goal regarding spatial arrangement of activities. There was a discussion about goals and objectives and whether they should be lofty generalities or restrictive specifications. There was a discussion about researching the term “Highest and Best Use” to consider if it was the “best” term to fit in this sentence as public policy. There was a discussion about all of the goals and objectives that they were fine as they were. Also who was responsible for them once they are written and how are they enforced. Page 41 or 42, a policy involving historic preservation was discussed for modification to include some other terms. Page 43, Goal 6, was discussed as being nebulous and considered for modification. Policies 8 and 9 were also discussed. There were questions on harvesting and clear- cutting. There was a reminder that these policies are broad and for guidance on developing the Land Development Code. There was a discussion of the banning of lighted signs and projecting signs in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and how dark downtown has become since then. Then in the late 1990’s projecting signs were allowed again. The meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m.