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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-11-22 Planning Board Minutes COMPREHENSIVE PLAN WORKSHOP TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2005 MINUTES Board Members Present: Robert Guerette, Chairman David Clark Nat Rosenblatt Hal Wheeler Alice Brown City Staff Present: David Gould Jim Ring Peter Witham Five additional people attended from the community Chairman Guerette opened the meeting to discuss Elements 7, 8, and 9. Mr. Gould updated the Board and said that most of the changes are minor updates of the existing sections. Element 7 – Natural Resources, did have quite a bit of information added on wetlands. Element 8 – Historic & Archeological, now to be called Cultural, adds some information on the new Cultural Commission. Element 9 – State & Regional, has no changes proposed. There is a new section, Element 10 – Stormwater, to be discussed at a later date, which was not finished before the last mailing. It lays out some of the State issues about Stormwater Quality. Mr. Guerette said that they are short sections asked the Board to leaf through them to see if there are any changes warranted. Beginning with Element 7 - Environmental Features he wanted to have a map included in it. Mr. Gould said that in places the section refers to the Environmental Features map, but it was not included in the section. It could be put in. Mr. Guerette turned to successive pages and asked for any changes to pages 3 & 4. Mr. Wheeler said that he was still on page 1. He had questions on surveys and statistics that claim to represent the whole community. He quoted the 1989 survey of 934 respondents out of 31,000 residents and would like to have “Bangor citizens” replaced in the text to a sample of citizens. Mr. Guerette 2005 said that referring to 1989 survey did not seem relevant when there was a 2005 sample from the neighborhood meetings. He perused the responses to the neighborhood questionnaire and thought they might reach a similar conclusion that a sample supported natural resources. He thought it could be reworded and reviewed the responses. Ms. Brown asked if the graph in the section reflects the 1989 data. She wondered if we did not want to reflect the earlier information, even though it has not changed much. It needs to be shown that it has not changed. Mr. Guerette said that one of the goals of the update is to remove obsolete information, in this case from two revisions ago. Even though the newer questionnaire was not as scientific as the 1989 survey he thought it was the Board’s duty to update. He noted the citizens attending and invited them to comment. Ms. Valerie Carter Bangor resident and professional sociologist spoke about random samples and surveying and observed that a response of 900 to the 1989 survey was quite robust for the population if it was a random sample. Mr. Ring questioned if the 1989 survey needed to be thrown out, as it was the last formal significant survey. He thought it was worthy of some mention perhaps as background support for the informal questionnaire from the neighborhood meetings that resulted in approximately 100 responses. Mr. Guerette saw a compromise and offered some wording to accommodate the survey and the questionnaire. Ms. Brown wanted the graph from the next page labeled to identify where the data came from. Ms. Hope Brugonier asked how answers to the recent questionnaire were obtained. Mr. Guerette explained that it was from the attendees of the neighborhood meetings. He then went down through topics of the section. He then reached the wetlands section that was added and wondered if all of the studies were going to be attached to the Comp Plan. Mr. Gould said that the Bangor Mall/Penjajawoc Marsh Task Force report was recently added and would be an appendix. Mr. Rosenblatt asked about wildlife habitats and specifically eagles if there were nests in Bangor. They discussed several areas around Bangor. 2 Mr. Ring said if one was discovered then the City would receive notice and restrictions area usually within a half mile. Ms. Linda Hunter citizen asked how that wildlife site is determined. Mr. Gould said that most of the wildlife data comes from Inland Fisheries and Wildlife or Department of Environmental Protection and forms the basis for regulations. The question of how often it is updated is unclear to Staff, but updates are received on an infrequent basis. He said that there is an initial draft to Shoreland Zoning that he has questions about because some of it is based on information that had come from DEP based on older mapping that is not very accurate. So it is an issue to Planning when regulations are based on inconsistent data. Ms. Brown asked how a substantial development would be reviewed and evaluated based on inconsistent data and mapping. Mr. Guerette said that a large enough project would fall under the D.E.P.’s jurisdiction. Mr. Gould said in part that we do the best that we can. He cited the Church Woods subdivision off of Church Road. The project needed a Site Location of Development Permit. It required the applicant to inquire if there were any wildlife habitats on site from Inland Fisheries and Wildlife who said that there were none. Looking at the map there appeared to be some so he inquired and asked if they were sure. IF&W said that they missed that. Ms. Brown asked whose responsibility is it then. Mr. Gould said that part of it is by correspondence with the State offices to see if anything is missing. Ms. Valerie Carter wanted to follow up on what information the City follows up on for processing applications. She wanted to know if the current database would include the Beginning of Habitat information and the Audubon Society study. Is there a consistent way those are incorporated into reviews? Mr. Rosenblatt also noted that the Comp Plan update notes that DEP recommends the use of Beginning with Habitat maps. He asked about that process and if we had that. Mr. Gould said that the confusing part is that the City is a regulatory body and can’t pick and choose which data to use for different projects. When the State of Maine sends a map with a directive to use officially he has to use that until they send another one. There are different wetland maps created with different data, methods, and biases and they can’t just say they don’t like one, use a different one. Beginning with Habitat is an interesting set of maps that have used the State maps and put them 3 together in an overlay with a GIS. It is not new data, but existing data that was thrown together and some of it is wrong. What he believed he had to follow officially was what the State offices sent. Mr. Rosenblatt said that if there was something valuable in the data then he would like to see it incorporated. Ms. Brown wanted to know if she understood that as a body making land use decisions the Board had to use the maps provided by the state agencies. Mr. Gould said that was correct. They couldn’t say just use whatever maps you want. It is Mandatory Shoreland Zoning and there are minimum standards. If they give us 3 different maps with 3 different standards we would not know what to use. He just wants the State to tell us what to use. Ms. Brown asked if the Audubon report was a State report. Mr. Gould said that it was not. As a minimum the City has to use what the State provides, but can go beyond them. Mr. Rosenblatt said that it was important not to mix up the wetland and wildlife standards. He asked if there were significant non-wetland wildlife habitats. He was not aware of them. Deeryards are difficult to identify because they are not Shoreland areas. Mr. Guerette recapped that for Planning purposes a uniform set of data and standards needs to be used for applications. We have to be careful what data to include in the Comp Plan because it could be misconstrued as official. Ms. Hope Brugonier cited commended Mr. Gould’s statement that we could go beyond the State minimum. She thought that every bit of information collected on wildlife should be included in the Comp. Plan. To not have it included would be a waste of good resources. She did not think there was a case of going too far with knowing about wildlife. Mr. Wheeler said that he could not agree more of not going too far. He said that it would be a wonderful thing to have a current and complete inventory of wildlife and wetlands. He wondered if she had ideas on how it could be conducted, who would do it, and how much it would cost. Ms. Brugonier thought we could start with Beginning With Habitat, though old data and build onto that. As a citizen she would like the City to ask them to do that. He thought it would wonderful if the planning Board would have a session with them. 4 Mr. Wheeler wanted to know if that would be the extent of it or how far to go beyond it. He presumed it would be expensive and he has been in the crossfire before. Mr. Rosenblatt asked who Beginning With Habitat was. Ms. Brugonier cited Maine Audubon, Maine Natural Areas, If&W. Mr. Wheeler asked if we were not going to fund a start from scratch study because it sounds like that has been done, then how much more needed to be done that could be accepted as credible. Ms. Brugonier said that Beginning With Habitat will work with towns and she would be happy to get someone to one of these meetings. Mr. Wheeler said that no one likes surprises especially at the last minute and he cited development projects. Ms. Brown asked Mr. Gould about the interaction that just occurred and observed that there was the desire to create more maps. On the one hand there are the State mandated maps, on the other the independent reports. She wondered who has the legislative authority to allow the City to accept other mapping for identification. Mr. Gould said that we are going through that process currently. If it was a regulatory map that specified a distance that described activities then it would be the Bangor City Council’s authority to adopt it. He said we could include as many maps in the Comp Plan update as we wanted, but it would get confusing. Ms. Brown thought it would. She wanted to know if a developer needed to know all of the issues that would be thrown at them. Mr. Guerette said that in earlier discussions the Board had come up with other issues that need to be inventoried, such as open space, sidewalks, wetlands, wildlife in order to come up with solid answers for anyone. He thought one approach for natural corridors is to recommend that the City conduct a study. We don’t have the information to put into the update, but we can empower someone else to go about it by recommending it in the Comp Plan update. We are creating awareness. We are not rewriting the plan, but updating. Ms. Leslie Dickinson, a Bangor resident, spoke and said that she thought that the update is not just about what developers think, but also what the citizens think. She thought to include just one map that everyone agrees on is to whitewash if there are other ones to refer to. 5 Mr. Guerette responded that the maps are a culmination of information. They are an important visual result. The Board has seen instances where information contrary to the maps had been brought forth. We are not here to support developers solely, but to provide a base on which the City’s Land Development Code is based, that governs development in the City. He thought the Board was cautious about placing non- scientifically based restrictions upon land or approved by a regulatory body, like the City Council. In order for the Council approve it there would have to be significant data to base it on. He thought the points getting more non-wetland habitat information together. If the existing information were endorsed by an official agency, then it might be possible to adopt it. He said that it needed to be done well. Mr. Wheeler thanked the Chairman for his summary. He thought it good to have the different views continue the dialog. Mr. Guerette said that the discussion was great, but he would like to get back to the pages before him. Ms. Lucy Quimby, Bangor citizen, spoke. She saw a regulatory hot potato being passed back and forth. She described her understanding of the attempt to protect environments. Up until 2000 D.E.P and I.F. &W. focused on riparian environments through Shoreland Zoning, made enemies and still were not protecting enough habitats. At that point they conducted a statewide study that the U of M had a part in it. The study suggested that every community in the state would need to conserve a third of its land in order to avoid species extinction. To accomplish this without the local communities getting really mad at them, they began the Beginning With Habitat program. Under the Comprehensive Planning Laws it says to begin with the Beginning With Habitat maps. She agreed with Mr. Gould in the frustrating inaccuracies of them and that they needed to be ground-proofed. G.I.S. may only have compounded it with pretty inaccurate maps. The Task force was an actual way to protect the marsh without removing value from the landowners. She talked about the discussions of distances from wetlands that some distances may not be enough for habitat protection, but enough for water protection. There were discussions about residential developments that would not cut up all of the land. She then discussed the talks about a Conservation commission and the Bangor Land Trust. Also beyond the riparian zones there are the larger habitat blocks needed for bear, deer, etc. With the Walden Parke development for example, earlier schemes extended the residences farther into the habitats, which for people may be desirable, but ended up cutting into the wildlife habitat blocks more. Working with the developer they were able to reduce that impact. She discussed the possibility of setting up a process for reviewing developments that would allow the involvement of the Bangor Land Trust, Beginning with Habitat people and their maps. Mr. Guerette said that Ms. Quimby had a great perspective on how the process takes place and to talk with developers about how the open spaces could be preserved. 6 Mr. Ring commented on the comments made. The question is how to come up with a minimum set of standards and how to identify the habitats. The regulatory maps that Mr. Gould mentioned were made from a view of 10,000 feet. Then the Beginning with Habitat program has made recommendations based on these views. When there is an area of particular interest, then the ground view has to be engaged to map them out, but bearing in mind what criteria are important. It will not be uniformly standard across the City, because different groups will have different criteria and the areas of interest will be different. Mr. Guerette made comments on what recommendations might be put into the Comp Plan update. He steered the group back to the actual language of the Natural Resources section. He said that there didn’t seem to be much discussion of it yet. Mr. Rosenblatt had a few comments. There was language regarding well contamination proposed for deletion and he wanted to know that was a problem in the City. Mr. Gould said that he proposed to delete it because it included a policy of the City extending water lines to anyone who had well contamination. He didn’t think that policy existed. Mr. Ring did think of two instances. Mr. Rosenblatt asked about water quality. Mr. Gould said that there will be two or three pages discussing the new State D.E.P. program and rules on water quality. There are 5 different watersheds that will be under stringent guidelines. There will have to be better coordination with the approvals to include awareness of those guidelines. Mr. Rosenblatt said that he didn’t see that the Board really reviewed the details of Stormwater Quantity, and wondered if the Quality review would be similar. Mr. Ring added that the emphasis will be within those watersheds of compromised quality and that the long-term goal will be to try to develop a better management plan for them. Mr. Wheeler added that the skewing goes from being in favor development to being in favor of the critters. Once in a while a moose of bear will wander into a developed area and create some excitement. When it can’t be driven out it is shot, which indicates incompatibility between wildlife and development. When he hears of buffers of 1000 to 2000 feet, it takes him back to the Parkade buffer of 150 feet when he said then that they will next be asking for 2000 feet. Now that the number has been cited tonight, he observed that that debate was now on the table again, but he thought the Board was 7 going to try assembling a reliable and reasonable basis of data on which pragmatic decisions could be made. But suddenly the old debate is back and if it continues then the Board will really be off track. Mr. Guerette said that there need to be two beginning points in order for there to be a compromise and you could consider the beginning with habitat examples. But we have to move on from there. Ms. Leslie Dickinson from Norfolk Street had comments and request about having the process of revising the zoning map more open to public before it is finalized so the Board does not have to return to the beginning. Mr. Guerette said that the Board has been somewhat disheartened for the past year of meeting every two weeks for discussion on these issues without input from a single Bangor resident. The meetings have been open to the public and announced on the City’s schedule of meetings and on the web site for almost a full year for every other Tuesday. Anyone who was interested may have caught on by now. But it has been because of this apparent lack of interest that the Board intends to have an open forum as a preview before the actual Public Hearing. He said that he thought the Board was about 6 weeks away from having the preview meeting and would advertise and announce it. He said he was determined to complete the process because it has been discussed for 2 years and worked on for 1 year. He anticipated that it would be well done because of the length of time. Ms. Brown asked if was possible to obtain an overlay of the existing tax map zoning because it is difficult to see how the proposed changes will affect the existing properties. Ultimately we are suggesting changes that will affect people’s properties. She knew that it was something the Board would be prepared for. Mr. Guerette said that he thought most of the changes proposed were subtle. Ms. Brown said that then that the maps need to demonstrate and assure the property owners. Mr. Guerette said that on the other side of people taking the responsibility to find out what changes are proposed is allowing people the time to explore the specific little subtleties that would apply to them. The Public Hearing requires 30 days before hand to do the research that. There are all kinds of opportunities for people to find out. Ms. Brown said that she was having a difficult time understanding the changes not only because she is new to the area. Mr. Rosenblatt asked Mr. Gould how progress on the maps was occurring and when he anticipated they would be ready for public review. 8 Mr. Gould said that everything is always available for public review. He said that they were being worked on that people wanted copies a month before, but he cautioned them, since they would be obsolete upon printing. He said that it has been difficult when we have called this an update or revision and say that we would just deal with the transition areas, but just down the road there are glaring inconsistencies that seem to need fixing now. He had done several of them, because he could see that right after approval the locations would come up as causing problems. Along with Chairman Guerette he could see that the process will need to be finalized. He hoped that as soon as a Land Use Concept is developed that the whole Board is comfortable with the Zoning Policy map could begin to be worked on. But the latter really depends on the former map. Mr. Guerette asked about Element 8. There was discussion about the proposal to delete much of the history section and that there might be other places where that discussion could be. Mr. Gould said that he thought it was interesting that the State Planning Office had accepted it as meeting the historic and archeological resources requirement. Mr. Guerette asked if all were in agreement with deleting that and noted that including discussion of the Cultural Commission was good. Ms. Hope Brogunier said that the Penobscot River needed to be mentioned as one of the natural resources. She asked if anything was mentioned about Bangor being part of the Penobscot River Restoration Plan. Mr. Gould said that the closest is under State and Regional consideration about sharing the water resource. Mr. Rosenblatt said that in the Natural Resources section there is mention of the Penobscot River, but it does not go to the extent asked about. Mr. Guerette said that on page 15 there was language added about the parking situation in Historic areas. He thought that the Board could go farther than that and recommend that text amendments be made. He noted that once recommendations have been added the Board would be free to return to discussion about them at anytime. Ms. Brogunier clarified here question to ask if Bangor is officially a part of the Penobscot River Restoration Project. If it is, then is it being included in the Comp Plan? Thirdly is does the flexibility being discussed include the possibility of the City becoming active if it isn’t. Mr. Ring said that he did not think many municipalities were actively involved in that group. He said that most of those involved were highly skilled groups interested in 9 removing dams. The City had met with them and there was a representative in contact with them, but he didn’t know if that makes the City part of the group or not. Ms. Brogunier went to an informational meeting on the project the year before and at the time they had a signup sheet and she did not see Bangor on the list. Mr. Ring said that he would check, but a year before or so, he remembered a Council Resolve. The City had not been asked to do anything beyond that. Mr. Guerette said talking about Historic and Cultural Resources, we have not had a lot of activity affecting them. The Board has looked at all of the transition areas to see how they are respectively affected. One he has thought of is the redevelopment of the Bangor Waterworks and he wondered if it would be appropriate to mention it in this section. One of the goals listed in this section is to preserve the economic development and vitality of Bangor’s Downtown District. Perhaps we should mention preserving those historic structures that line the Penobscot River. Mr. Gould said that we could if do that, but there is more than just the Waterworks, because there is there are several projects including the bank on Main Street expanding into an historic structure. The Board may not be as familiar with them because it does not oversee the Historic issues. But Staff could go through the list of recent projects and come up with 4 or 5 significant projects since 2000. The recent parking lot approval for John Bapst and Seven Islands Land Company. Mr. Clark mentioned the Historic Building on High Street where the Board recently recommended the City Council approve a zone change in support of the goal. Mr. Guerette said that particularly because Bangor applied the wrecking ball in the past, the City has been working to encourage the preservation and restoration of historic structures. Mr. Gould said that he could Mr. Wheeler said to compare the situation of today with what happened with the Urban renewal program. He agreed that the loss of certain buildings is regrettable, but you have to consider the conditions of many of the buildings including rundown warehouses lining the Kenduskeag Stream, seedy flophouses, bars, and pawn shops on lower Exchange Street that convinced the voters to approve Urban Renewal. That was a different time. He said that he would be the most surprised if something successful comes of the Waterworks, which is in such disrepair. Mr. Guerette explained that he would like to see included some of the historic projects that the Board has reviewed. 10 Mr. Rosenblatt talked about an item in #8 the State and Regional section. He thought Bangor could do more coordination with Brewer on the Waterfront topic. Mr. Ring said that the City of Brewer does have a Waterfront plan and he believed that we have a copy of the plan. He said that Bangor is a little farther along in construction activities. He had invited the City of Brewer planner to a Bangor Harbor meeting during the summer. There are meetings scheduled irregularly between the two cities and last year there were two joint Council meetings. He suspected there would be others in the near future. Mr. Guerette clarified that had to do with the State and Regional section. Mr. Rosenblatt said that he was less concerned with the language in the book that will sit on a shelf. He was more interested in the reality and ongoing activity of meetings between Bangor and Brewer because there are common interests there. Mr. Guerette thought emphasizing and expanding the description in that section on that issue. Mr. Ring added that there is an exhibit showing both Bangor’s and Brewer’s Waterfront plans. (There was some discussion away from the microphones) Mr. Guerette asked if everyone was satisfied with the discussions about the three sections. Hearing no dissent he asked if there was any other business. Mr. Rosenblatt asked if the Board was not meeting next week because there were 5 Tuesdays in November. Mr. Gould said that because of the Thanksgiving Holiday it would be difficult to pull together anything for the next Tuesday. Mr. Guerette asked how the Transportation section was coming along. Mr. Ring said that he was working on it. In the pre-holiday atmosphere there were several simultaneous non-business discussions that resulted in the meeting not being formally adjourned, but dissipating as each conversation ended and members drifted away… 11 12