YORK BEACH - What if the residential neighborhoods surrounding Long Sands Beach start looking more like New York than York?
That was the question Code Enforcement Officer Tim DeCoteau posed to the Planning Board at its final meeting in November as he raised concerns about the impact of voter-approved ordinance changes on the character of York Beach.
DeCoteau had requested the opportunity to speak to the board on expansions of nonconforming structures in York Beach, explaining that when he began working with the town more than 20 years ago, such expansions were not allowed. Around the year 2000, he said, the voters approved changes proposed by the Planning Board to institute separate provisions for nonconforming lots, structures and uses.
"That change was very significant," DeCoteau said. "What it meant is if you had anything that's on that list ... you could expand it."
In the past, small cottage units on tiny lots could not have been enlarged, he explained, illustrating what has happened since the town voted to change the ordinance with photographs of properties where modest dwellings once stood but where large four-family units with garages or tall, skinny three-family rental properties have replaced them. Many are just 15 feet from their property lines, he said, and as taller buildings replace one-story cottages they obscure the ocean views their neighbors once had.
"What do you want York Beach to look like in 25 years? Do you want it to be the charming place it has been, or do you want it to be something different?" DeCoteau asked the board. "You have to make the ordinances say that. ... You don't want to feel like you're driving in New York City when you're in York Beach."
With a number of cottage colonies in the beach area, DeCoteau said, the expansions could result in a significant change to the character of the area.
"They're small and they're cute, but everyone who buys them wants them bigger," DeCoteau said of those cottages. "We're getting some really small buildings that are very tall buildings. ... If it's 16-by-20-by-35 feet high, it's not going to look like York anymore."
What he has seen so far in terms of about a dozen tear-downs and rebuilds of cottages is "just the tip of the iceberg," DeCoteau said, adding, "I think we're going to see an explosion."
DeCoteau asked the Planning Board to consider whether the zoning is working the way the board had intended.
Planning Board Chairman Glen MacWilliams said having a townwide design standard, a direction the board is moving in, could help deal with such issues.
The board agreed to explore the issue in depth at its next workshop and requested additional input from DeCoteau.
Other issues the board will be working on include looking at the town's prohibition of open flags at businesses, meeting the state's shoreland zoning requirements and ongoing efforts to address affordable housing with input from Town Planner Christine Grimando and Community Development Director Steve Burns.
Also at the Nov. 29 meeting, the board received an update from the York Beach Renaissance Committee on the current status of its proposed zoning changes for the York Beach Village Center.
Dawn Fernald of the committee told the board that recent changes to the proposal include placing residential areas near the village center in the transition zone rather than the business zone and making design standards mandatory.
"We feel very good about this in moving forward," she said, adding the committee hopes to receive input from the public on its efforts to date before the public hearing process begins.
The draft zoning documents may now be accessed through the town's website, www.yorkmaine.org.
Time for public comment on the York Beach Renaissance efforts will be allotted at the board's Dec. 13 meeting, with the first formal public hearing scheduled for Jan. 24.
