A sparsely attended public hearing regarding three warrant articles for May’s town meeting was held prior to the Boothbay Planning Board’s Feb. 17 meeting. Three residents discussed changes to the land use ordinance and a proposal to replace the municipal cell tower ordinance.

Maine municipalities have two years to adopt the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) guidelines regarding changes to the management and definitions of hazard, storm damaged, and dead trees. New DEP 1000 guidelines require all Maine municipalities to adopt the state standards or enact more stringent ones.

One warrant article regards the definition of hazard, storm damaged, and dead trees. The second regards managing these trees within 250 feet of great ponds, rivers, freshwater and coastal wetlands, including all tidal waters and within 75 feet of streams.

Planning Board Chairman Fran McBrearty didn’t believe the state’s guidelines would impose a burden on local property owners.

“I don’t know why it would be voted down, because the state is less strict than ours,” he said.

The planning board spent most of the 30-minute hearing discussing the proposed cell tower ordinance. 

The board drafted the new ordinance in response to the current ordinance’s failure to keep a cell tower out of East Boothbay. The town’s current zoning ordinance prohibits such towers in residential and special residential zones.

But that didn’t stop Mariner Tower II, a Kennebunkport telecommunications consulting firm, from successfully reaching an agreement with town officials to construct a cell tower in East Boothbay last year. Mariner Tower II threatened to file a lawsuit, and claimed the town’s ordinance violated the 1996 U.S. Telecommunications Act. Faced with certain defeat in federal court, the selectmen reached a consent agreement with Mariner Tower II.

The proposed telecommunications ordinance is less restrictive than the current one, according to McBrearty. The proposed ordinance is 18 pages long and modeled “99 percent” after the state’s cell tower ordinance.

Resident Jean Reece-Gibson served as a consultant in drafting the new ordinance. She was the only resident to comment about the proposed warrant article. Reece-Gibson asked the board to clarify a half dozen terms in the ordinance, but overall she supported the new ordinance.

“It’s really good,” Reece-Gibson said.

After the hearing, the planning board discussed a request made by local carpenter Dick Spofford and heard two pre-application presentations.

Spofford owns a camp with two cabins on Hardwick Road previously owned by his grandparents. The property is located in the C-1 zone. He questioned why the C-1 zone setback was 10 feet when others were 20-40 feet.

“I’ve been a builder my whole life and was surprised to find the setback different for C-1. Why is that?” Spofford asked.

The planning board believed the C-1 setback was initiated in 2007, but they couldn’t recall the reasoning. McBrearty advised Spofford that he could seek a variance from the appeals board if the setback prevented him from upgrading the cabins.

In other action, The Knickerbocker Group  provided a preview of PGC2’s Phase 2 of the Boothbay Harbor Country Club project. Phase 2 is the construction of a fitness center. Danielle Betts, a Knickerbocker Group design manager, described PGC2’s proposal to build a 64-foot by 64-foot fitness center on the Country Club property.The proposal also includes a swimming pool, two tennis courts and parking area.

The Knickerbocker Group plans on presenting plans during the planning board’s March meeting. Betts expects construction to begin in this spring and end in spring 2017.

Scott Simons Architect Austin Smith also showed Bigelow Laboratory’s plan for upgrading its residence facility for students and visiting scientists. The plan includes six two-bedroom cottages and two three-bedroom duplexes. Smith plans on presenting an application at the planning board’s March meeting.

The board will meet next at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 16 in the municipal building.