Committee changes proposal for East Boothbay zone

Mon, 09/22/2014 - 5:00pm

The people spoke and the committee listened.

The Comprehensive Planning Committee complied with a request by Murray Hill residents on Sept. 15 not to zone the entire East Boothbay village as mixed use.

Instead, the residents asked to zone the area from the Murray Hill Road to the intersection with Route 96 as coastal residential.

According to town officials, coastal residential is similar to a mixed use zone. The major difference is coastal residential allows for less density of development.

Thirty-nine Murray Hill residents signed a petition requesting the change. The committee originally proposed changing East Boothbay from its current status of residential to a mixed use zone.

The committee wanted to accommodate several longtime businesses operating as non-conforming structures in a residential zone, and had hoped a less restrictive designation would allow these businesses to prosper into the future.

But the proposed change concerned both year-round and summer Murray Hill residents.

On Sept. 6, Murray Hill residents gathered in the East Boothbay fire hall to discuss how the proposed zone change would impact the community. According to Nell Tharpe, who lives in East Boothbay and is the committee’s vice chairman, several residents advocated keeping the residential zone status. Residents described their neighborhood as a destination for pedestrians and feared a less restrictive zoning change would create more motor vehicle traffic.

“Not everyone agreed about changing it to coastal residential,” Tharpe said. “There was real concern about increased development and by increasing traffic flow it would make walking the dog, or walking to the East Boothbay Store or Five Gables Inn unsafe.”

The committee is now trying to accommodate concerns made from another group, the Boothbay Region Water District, about protecting the town’s water supply.

Sue Mello, the district’s watershed program manager, raised concerns similar to the ones made at the previous meeting. Mello said the district had major reservations about the abundance of proposed growth within the watershed.

“I’m still curious on why the committee would choose so much growth in the watershed? I just don’t understand that,” Mello said.

Consultant Mark Eyerman, the president of Planning Decisions, responded that the committee wanted to create more diversity of  housing options. The proposed changed would allow for multi-family dwellings if certain performance based standards were met for preserving water quality.

The committee hopes the multifamily dwellings will create more affordable housing options.

Committee chairman Charles Cunningham, who is also a Boothbay selectman, questioned why, after nearly two years of meetings, the water district now has concerns about implementing performance based standards. The committee began in May 2013 with Boothbay Region Water District manager Jon Ziegra as a member. Ziegra has missed recent meetings. Mello said Ziegra asked her to attend the last to meetings to state the district’s concern about increased development in the watershed.

“I’m a little confused,” Cunningham said. “We’ve been hearing from the water district for the past couple of years about going to performance based standards, and it sounds like they’ve reversed themselves. Now they want everything tightened right up with limited flexibility.”

Mello said the district is committed to working with the planning board in developing specific standards for water quality. But the district believes the comprehensive planning committee’s proposal is incompatible for protecting the water supply.

The committee will review the water district’s proposed changes in future meetings. The committee asked Mello to submit the district’s concerns in writing so the members could review them.

The committee will next meet at 6 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 6 in the municipal room.