York Town News
Planning Department Monthly Report:
What's on the horizon for the York Planning Department this month
By Town Planner Steve Burns
Town Planner Steve Burns
Applications being reviewed by the Planning Board
There is still a pileup of applicants trying to get to the board. It's sill a two-month wait for new applicants.
Applications on the June agenda:
- Amendments to the York Village Business Center. Continuing review of the new Rite Aid and the relocation of the hotel and mixed use buildings.
- Zacharias Farm/BBQ Festival. State Championship BBQ festival.
- Highland Farm Phase 2. Continuing preliminary consideration.
- Webber Change of Use. Application to change the use in a portion of the former Cormier Textile building.
- Public Works Department. Application for minor expansion to the Public Works barn on Chases Pond Road.
- Cape Neddick House Amendments. Minor phasing amendment.
Actions taken at the May meeting:
- Zacharias Farm/BBQ Festival. Tabled pending submittal of additional information and clarification of policies.
- Atlantic House Amendments. Approved.
- Highland Farm Phase 2. Continuing preliminary consideration.
- Scudeire Non-Conforming Lot Split. Tabled for legal opinion.
- Jefferds' Tavern. Conditionally approved.
- Amendments to the York Village Business Center. Tabled.
Applications in the works: Applications the Planning Board has formally reviewed, but still in the works.
- Ocean View Village Parking Lot Expansion. Changes to correct past deficiencies. Awaiting further work by the applicant.
- Campagna Subdivision Amendment. Boundary line adjustment not yet resolved because of a sight distance problem at the driveway. May be addressed as re-dividing of combined non-conforming lots.
- Marketplace. Still waiting, but it's active. An engineering firm has been inquiring on behalf of a potential site tenant.
- Twin Lights Subdivision Amendment. Minor lot line change considered, but on hold pending evaluation of violation complaints.
- Cottage Place Lighting Amendment. Awaiting follow-up by the applicant.
Sketch-Review applications completed earlier: Applications the Planning Board has seen, but with plans that are still at a conceptual level.
- American Legion Function Hall. Conceptual direction provided in April for a new facility planned for their site adjacent to Hannaford.
- Borkowski Subdivision in Kittery, which would have sole access through York off the end of Woodside Meadow Road. I have received the application but have not yet reviewed it.
- Scott & Barbara Perkins. A three-lot subdivision of a 10-acre lot off Pine Hill Road. No word on this one recently.
Applications on the radar screen: New applications the Planning Board hasn't seen yet, incomplete submittals, rumored developments, and stuff like that...
- A CVS-like Pharmacy(?). Nothing new.
- Peter Weare. Office development of land in the Route 1-5 zone. We have received application materials for this site, but it wasn't yet complete. I have received an application, but have not yet had the opportunity to review the materials.
- Danis Cluster Subdivision. I met with the surveyors for this project and have now seen the plans. At this time it's a proposal for a 24-unit cluster subdivision on about 80 acres. Access will be via Josiah Norton Road exclusively. They will be seeking conceptual direction from the Planning Board on the design of the cluster, and with respect to the use of a boulevard-style access road.
- Cragin/Currier Logging Road Subdivision. Nothing new to report this month.
- York's Wild Kingdom. Nothing new this month.
- York Hospital. Expansion plans have been received, but not yet reviewed.
- Cape Neddick Village Building #1. This project is getting ready for construction. The design of Building #2 was approved initially, but the developer has decided to start with Building #1. This has not yet been reviewed.
- Brixham Grange. A new owner will be applying to the Planning Board for a change of use to a neighborhood store and small restaurant. The application hasn't yet been received.
- Tennis Anyone? I've discussed a proposal for a tennis instructor to establish a tennis school utilizing courts in a condominium complex on Route One. I expect the application to materialize soon.
- Talpey's Tavern. I've reviewed conceptual plans for changing the parking, circulation and landscaping on this site. I don't know if they will materialize into an application.
Results of the May Special General Referendum
There were three land use issues before the voters this month, and all three were approved by the voters. First, the Growth Ordinance was amended. Among other things, the annual limit on building permits for new homes increased from 84 to 96. Based on recent legislation (LD 1108), I expect we'll need to propose another increase in the cap for November, probably retroactive to July 1. Second, the Zoning Ordinance was amended to permit municipal buildings in York Village to exceed current height limits. Third, the Zoning Ordinance was amended to integrate with the Harbor Ordinance with respect to dock permitting. Because this last change affects the shoreland provisions, it has been sent to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection for review and certification.
Comp Plan Amendments
Five amendments to the Comp Plan have been posted for the first of two public hearings by the Planning Board. These amendments include a new Historic and Archeological Resources chapter, updates to the Natural Resources chapter, watershed management policies, storm water management policies and unfragmented blocks policies. The first public hearing will be on Thursday, June 28, and a second public hearing will be held on Thursday, August 23. Both of these hearings will be conducted by the Planning Board. The text and associated maps which comprise these amendments are posted on the Planning Department's web page. Look under "posted documents."
GPS mapping - helping the town of Kittery
Working through the town managers' offices, York has entered into an agreement to help Kittery with its GIS mapping. Staff from both towns met to discuss needs and ideas for shared efforts. At this time we are working solely on development of a new digital zoning map. Kittery has been working from a mix of old maps and stand-alone revisions to those maps. Brett Horr has created digital versions of zones for Kittery's staff to analyze and mark up. We are also discussing the idea of hosting Kittery's data, and serving a web-based mapping system like York's on-line mapping.
Implementing the Storm Water Management Plan
We received the Storm Water Management Plan from Edwards & Kelcey Engineers almost a year ago. The Plan recommends both structural and non-structural actions by the town. Structural actions are construction projects, such as replacing culverts, re-directing water flows and creating water storage areas. The drainage projects approved by the voters on the May ballot were structural projects. Non-structural actions are more policy-oriented, like zoning revisions and easement acquisitions. The ordinance amendment titled "Storm Water Management Standards," which will be on the ballot this coming November, is a non-structural action. The engineers who prepared the plan recognized the need for both angles of approach. Neither alone is likely to solve the drainage problems faced by the town. Public Works has started addressing the structural projects and the Planning Board has started addressing the non-structural aspects within its reach. Together we're making good progress and we're making sure the plan is put to use. It appears to me that the next challenge will be to evaluate the recommendations for the town to acquire drainage easements and flood storage easements in major wetlands to permit greater control of the drainage systems. This promises to be a complex undertaking, both in initial set-up and in on-going operations and maintenance, and it likely means we'll need to broach the subject of creating a storm water utility. This would be an organization or department whose sole responsibility would be to manage storm water. I remember the idea being proposed back when Marvin Swain was our Public Works Director, so it's not a new idea.
Ordinance Hearing
On May 24 the Planning Board conducted the first of four public hearings regarding ordinance amendments. There were 14 amendments posted for this hearing, but only three drew comment from the public. The shoreland amendments turned out the biggest portion of the crowd. Several initial speakers stated concerns they have, but most people are waiting to hear the results of a meeting which Cayce Dalton, Brett Horr and I will have with Mike Morse, the state's shoreland zoning coordinator. We've scheduled that meeting for early June. At that meeting we'll find out how much latitude the state will permit us in varying from their administrative rules. (Keep your fingers crossed!) The proposed changes to the York Beach Village area drew criticism from several people, with nobody present to speak in favor. The surprise for the evening, however, was a large turnout for the last of the amendments - a three-word change to a dimensional footnote dealing with setbacks for home additions and new houses. The Zoning Ordinance currently permits construction of new homes in established neighborhoods to be set back from the street to match the existing neighborhood pattern, but it does not permit existing homes to be expanded in a similar fashion. One of my challenges for the coming week is to analyze this amendment and make a recommendation to the Planning Board as I get ready to post for the next public hearing, which will be held on June 28.
Shoreland Workshop
Our largest ordinance amendment is a state-mandated update of our Shoreland Overlay District. The state adopted new administrative rules, and has required all municipalities to come into compliance with these rules by July 1, 2008. Among the changes mandated by the state is designation of certain new areas as "resource protection." Resource protection is a type of shoreland designation which carries with it a high degree of protection for the natural environment and a low degree of flexibility for active use of the property. Following the letter of the law in the new State rules, we identified 593 property owners affected by changes into resource protection. State law requires that we provide these people with advance notice of the public hearings, which we have done, but Cayce Dalton and I also conducted an informational meeting to begin to explain what is proposed and where additional information is available. Of the 600 people notified, 50 attended a workshop at the York Middle School to learn more about these issues in advance of the public hearing. Thanks to everyone who attended and asked questions.
Building Code Amendments
The Code Office is bringing forward a proposal to switch York's national building code for single- and two-family housing from CABO to IRC 2003. They scheduled an initial public hearing for Thursday, May 31, to discuss the idea. (So much for only 108 pages of ordinance amendments!)
Impervious Surfaces
Jon Discher is still plugging away on this project, which will provide us with a detailed snapshot of impervious surfaces throughout York. Jon began this work by refining our watershed mapping using the new contours. What I hadn't expected was that the new contour data would show so many problems with our old stream data. The old streams data came from USGS quad sheets, which are nowhere near as detailed as our new GIS data. Jon has spent an incredible amount of time revising the streams layer in our GIS. Once he has finished that work, hopefully by the end of June, he'll revise the watershed mapping one last time using the new stream data, and then we can then move on to the actual analysis of impervious surfaces. We expect some data issues with the impervious surfaces data, but we're hopeful those will be resolved more quickly and we'll have the impervious surfaces report by the end of the year.
