Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Oh, good, thank you. Okay, yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, do they want, like just one?

Good evening. It's just slightly after 6 o'clock, and we'll start the meeting of the Auburn Comprehensive Planning Committee, June, July 28th. The first item on our agenda is, as always, taking the role for the committee assignment. I'll note that I did receive notification from three members that can't be here this evening and apologized that they can't be. Belial Hussein, Riley Bergeron, and Dennis Bergeron all contacted me and let me know they couldn't make it this evening. Becky, why don't we start at your end?

Becky Conrad. Jane Coslow.

Kelly Butler.

Paul Jacques.

Dana Staples.

John Cleveland.

Matthew Duvall. Jeff Harmon.

Rick Whiting. Bruce Ryu. Rex Rhodes.

Allie Tobey with Barry Dunn.

Lauren Cafe, planning.

Decarle Brown, planning.

Dennis Dote, assistant city manager.

Okay. Thank you for all of you being here. We have minutes from June 23rd and July 6th that were sent out for review and approval. We can start with the June 23rd minutes. Anyone note that there needs any additions or corrections to those minutes? If not, I'd entertain a motion to accept the minutes as presented.

So moved. Second.

Moved and seconded. All those in favor, raise your hand. Appears to be unanimous. The second minutes are from July 8th. Again, are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to accept the minutes as presented.

So moved. Second.

Moved and seconded. All those in favor, please raise your hand. I believe it's unanimous. Two abstentions, one from Bruce and one from Matt. Okay, next section of our agenda is for public comment. We always allow at each of our meetings an opportunity to hear from the public. We usually set aside about 15 minutes for public comment. If you'd like to make a comment, please come to the podium. State your name and your address.

Thank you all for being here on this lovely summer evening. I know it's not the greatest place to be, but I appreciate all of you for being here. feel strongly about this issue aren't able to make it there under the weather so even though I wanted to be home relaxing I'm here so and I'm here to reiterate the record that Hammond Lumber has talking about the lot in the neighborhood which you're reconsidering the land use making it industrial I wanted to reiterate that Hammond Lumber has a well-documented history of not acting in the best interest of those around them and doing damage to our neighborhood. I ask you to think carefully before you change the land use of that residential lot that they own. It's a good-sized lot. Our neighborhood could absolutely benefit from some more housing for families, but definitely will not benefit from turning that lot into industrial use. Imagine a lot that size being used for residential. Quite a few apartments could be built there. And if you ask the question, why not change the land use on that property, the answers are abundant. the neighborhood's safety with kids walking to school increased truck traffic reduced housing values because of the interest industrial view making the neighborhood louder more polluted and more congested with traffic loss of valuable residential lot in the Fairview neighborhood, which is, you all know, a very desirable neighborhood. Just to name a few, those are the reasons why not. If you ask yourself the question, why change the lot to industrial usage, the answer is singular. It only benefits one neighbor, and that is Hammond Lumber. They willingly bought the lot, knowing it was residential. If they want the zoning or usage changed, let them ask for it themselves and not have the city hand it to them on a platter. The City of Auburn has turned them down before on this request, based on Hammond Lumber's own lack of accountability. and poor behavior let's not reward the company's bad behavior while also downsizing and damaging a desirable residential neighborhood close to multiple schools including fairview and that's my comments for the night thank you very much for being here um the only other thing i guess i just i don't understand why the mayor is so in favor of this particularly but maybe someone can explain that to me thank you very much uh thank you carol uh that lot will be discussed this evening if you want to stay for the meeting as well any anyone else

Good evening, members of the committee. My name is Henry Hess of Sebago Technics, and with me tonight, Steve Prey of Hammond Lumber. We understand that the board voted at the last meeting 13 to 0 on that parcel. Hammond Lumber is certainly in support of the committee's vote there. They've, I believe they own that parcel since 2019, and that's a parcel that, while certainly in front of their lot along the frontage of Poland Road there, they don't have any plans currently to expand into it. They certainly have a site there that's got some aging buildings and infrastructure, and that site in front of them is always the idea that perhaps they'd be able to in the future, provide, you know, whether safer access or modernize existing aging infrastructure or provide alternative means of access to the site, getting trucks out of the road or otherwise. But I'm not here to try and do anything other than just let the board know. We certainly heard the voice and let you know that There's no plans in place now, but there's certainly an interest in the parcel being zoned industrial. I know in 2022 they expressed an interest in that parcel being industrial, so I certainly look forward to hearing some discussion on it and whatever the committee certainly finds in the future.

Okay, thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else in public that wants to speak?

Good evening. My name is Kimberly Willett. I have been a resident of Auburn for 37 years. I live at the property located at 1050 Garfield Road. I also own another parcel, which is a little over 11 acres, which is at 832 Hatch Road. It's a vacant parcel that is uniquely split between the low density country residential and agricultural and resource protection zoning districts. Having lived in this area for nearly four decades, I deeply appreciate that Auburn's rural character and understand the importance of protecting our agricultural land, natural resources, and open space. I fully support the goals of preserving farmland and responsible growth. My request is not to encourage widespread residential development within the AGRP district. Instead, I respectfully ask the committee to consider whether the comprehensive plan Should include policies that recognize the unique circumstances of some of the long existing split zone parcels As you update the comprehensive plan I encourage you to consider recommending planning tools That will allow the city to evaluate these properties through a transparent case-by-case process a few examples might include a carefully reviewed lot splits, boundary line adjustments, site-specific zoning amendments. These tools would not guarantee approval of any proposal. Rather, they would provide a fair and predictable framework for balancing private property rights with agricultural preservation, environmental stewardship, and responsible growth. My hope is that the comprehensive plan will recognize that some existing parcels present unique planning situations where a single thoughtfully cited home can coexist with the preservation of farmland, open space, and Auburn's rural character. I respectfully ask the committee to consider including this type of policy flexibility as part of the Auburn's updated comprehensive plan. I appreciate your time, your service to the community, and any thoughtful considerations.

Kim, thank you very much for coming and making your presentation. Again, you may wanna stick around, because we will be talking about that area.

Okay, thank you.

Okay. So that brings us to the work aspect of our meeting this evening, which is to continue to take a look at the land use map. Oh, I'm sorry, is there another public member?

Just a note for your administrative records.

Okay, thank you I wasn't here when that happened so appreciate it No other members of the public wishes to address the committee we'll start with our business section looking at additional maps We have the first map that is up there. Lauren or Allie, perhaps you might want to describe it for, at least for the public to know where that is.

Yep, so Graceland Road right here, and this parcel that we're talking about is general business today, but in the drawing of the high-density core area, this kind of got orphaned out here as a mixed-use corridor parcel, and talked to the committee tonight about that either being high-density core or red over here or making that compact residential, which is what it's surrounded by, just kind of a loose mixed-use corridor parcel.

Okay. Many of you may recognize that as what's generally known here as the Gendron gravel pit area. so the thought here is to think about whether we want to continue with the High core density in that particular location or something different So I'll open it up to see if their comments Jeff I Guess my first question here would be Is the staff opposed to leaving it as mixed-use corridor as it is now I

Staff is not opposed to leaving it as a mixed-use corridor, given the history of the parcel.

Yeah, so from a planning perspective, that would be my first question. And then the separation of this that ended up in what's now shown on the current map is the mixed-use corridor and the compact residential was... THROUGH A SIGNIFICANT ACTION BY THE CITY COUNCIL. I'M NOT OPPOSED TO TALKING ABOUT THIS BEING HIGH DENSITY CORE. I'M NOT SURE IT FITS ON THAT SIDE OF THE ROAD. I DON'T THINK THIS SHOULD BE COMPACT RESIDENTIAL AND THE MIXED USE CORRIDOR MORE ALIGNED WITH THE PRIOR DISCUSSIONS THAT THE COUNCIL HAD ABOUT THIS AREA.

I might remind those who might not be familiar with the conversation previously that this rectangular area which was designated for commercial area previously was identified as an area in the general development of that area where the malls are located. mountain harbor avenue comes down to the back there's a few amount of development in that general area so the thought was that this area which i think is substantially at grade level with the existing road some areas in the back might be STEEPLY SLOPED, BUT I THINK GENERALLY SPEAKING, IT'S GRADE LEVEL. WHAT'S BEHIND IT IN THE COMPACT RESIDENTIAL IS THE BALANCE OF THAT BLOCK, WHICH IS A GRAVEL PIT, IS WELL SUBSTANTIAL BELOW GRADE AT THIS POINT. SO GIVE YOU A SENSE OF THE ELEVATION. AND OF COURSE, GOING FURTHER OUT IS LAKE ARBIT ON THE OTHER SIDE. SO WITH THAT, DANA?

Yeah, I guess looking at this, it's just a lot of different colors on one parcel there. The agenda provides a screenshot, but it doesn't go into detail about what the different colors signify. Could you just go through what those are? I would imagine the blue is a watershed, but what else are we looking at?

Blue is the current drinking water protection land use category, and that aligns to the Lake Auburn watershed boundaries.

And then the yellow is compact residential, and then the green is agricultural and natural resource protection. The red is high density core.

And that green space to the right is a closed municipal landfill. Yeah. And across the street, you'll see some of the areas where public work garage is located, for example. There's some recreational space located across the street as well. But a little further down the road is development, educational building, former St. Dominic's building. That's sort of what's in that area. You're probably familiar with it.

Thank you.

Bruce. That parcel, when it was discussed a few years ago for development, I believe it was 750 feet from the road, the back lot. Do you know if what we're talking about now is the same size? Do we know?

As far as I know, it's intended to be the same size that it was. So, I know in previous discussion that it was thought about that that area would be appropriate for business kind of activities commercial kind of activities particularly those that might provide some service to residential customers neighbors along that area in their general region whereas the high core density we've talked about it being much more intensely developed with potentially higher rise buildings um and so i'm I'm not sure in my own mind I see that fitting as well there, but I do think the mixed use corridor, which we have in other places for businesses, particularly along fairly well traveled routes that serve the public. They want to feel strongly that we should change it from that Mixed-use corridor I'm not sure I understood your question.

I think I

Well, I think I think we had can you do that it was closer to the like I I'm sure I didn't hear the question. Let me see when it was I thought I had pretty close, but we get it even closer. I think that we had talked about it being a mixed use corridor, I believe. And what we're now talking about is the weather because there's so much other high density core around. whether it would be more appropriate to designate it as high density core. Oh, I'm sorry, Rick.

I would stick with a mixed-use corridor. I think that's, as the mayor said, consistent with the position the city council took. It was okay with some level of commercial development, but it wasn't crazy about very dense, high-intensity use there. And I think the discussion was around general business, which would have allowed some uses that we didn't feel were appropriate.

Any other comment on this area.

I just find myself wondering I mean there's so much business designated space out there already and because we've we've talked in a number of different parts of the city about having a kind of transition from very high density and towards less developed areas and so I guess I think okay well you've got plenty of locations in that part of town for commercial development why not just have that be the compact residential and that that also provides there's a kind of consistency there on the on the lake side and that it also does that work of providing a kind of transition towards you know less developed areas okay reasonable thought other comments

Does anybody want to suggest or make a motion on what action to take on this particular lot?

We continue to leave this as mixed use corridor. The Auburn Public Works Department is right across the street. And so I don't see it being appropriate for compact residential.

OK. Second. Second.

Yeah.

Yeah, just as a point of order. So that's what it is today, and that's what the comp plan committee previously adopted. We don't need a motion if we're leaving it the same. We'd only need a motion and then a vote if we're changing it to something other than mixed use corridor.

Well, I agree that that's the process, but we need to articulate that in some format. because what's before us is to make a change. So we either have to say yes we want to do that or no we don't.

I agree with Bruce.

I don't think we saw the motion might be to remain to keep it. As previously designated.

Like, this was brought back to us. Yes. But if there's no motion that's made, is there a reason to have a vote or take any motion? Well, okay. Unless we consider that, like, I don't know how this got back to us, I guess.

Yeah, and I'll just say, I mean, I guess it would be up to me to make a counter motion, but I'm not going to do that if it, you know, it seems like everybody wants to leave it the way it is. So...

So how about if I withdraw my motion and we just have a vote to keep it the way it is or change it?

We do not need to have a vote to keep it the way it is. We can have a vote to change it to something.

All right, so we will do it by description here. You're withdrawing your motion and Paul, you'll withdraw it. So there is no motion to make any change. As a consequence, since there is no motion, there will be no change. One follows the other. Pretty simple. And clear for the minute, so when people are reading this, it will be clear that there was no motion and there was no change.

Go ahead. Wouldn't it make sense to just make the motion that's presented inside of the agenda and then vote it down if that's the desire of the committee?

I don't want to get it more complicated. Fair enough. All I want to do is make sure it's clear, the will of the committee. Okay. All right, so we'll go to the next one.

This next one includes, it's Graceland Cemetery. And the recommendation is to move it from ag to high density core. It's kind of a floating parcel. And we didn't include other cemeteries in or open space into the agricultural natural resource protection land use category. So that is on the floor right now.

I'm sorry you state for the public again what what this is.

Yes, this is the grace line Memorial is a cemetery or Park. Memorial Park.

Thank you in the general. Thinking on doing these things since you be another one coming up, I think. Instead of. having areas that obviously are not, that obviously are not gonna be developed is to make it consistent with other zoning, but there will be an overlay zone later on that will deal with cemeteries, recreational areas, trails and whatnot, indicating that the overlay suggests they're not available for development.

Yes, so it's practice to not pull out specific parcels like parks and open space and cemeteries into their own land use category. And there will be a map in the comprehensive plan that shows areas in the town that fall under that category. And so this is aligning with the practice that the committee had discussed when we were doing our future land use mapping to not signal out those individual areas.

Okay. DeColor? And from a practical matter, you're making an urban core and you want your urban core to have green spaces. So, you know, you're making new neighborhoods, new areas, and you want it to, you're making a statement that those areas are incorporating, you know, that walkability, those open spaces.

Yep. And of course we have some open spaces spread out across the community. So this would be a request for a change. A motion would be appropriate.

I'll make a motion to change the Grace Lawn Memorial Park lot. We'll go with that from AG to high density core.

Any further discussion. All those in favor, raise your hand. Appears to be unanimous.

The next one is similar case with the Mount Auburn Cemetery that's AG currently in the land use categories and proposal to connect that to this neighborhood transition moderate growth area.

Okay so this does have a different designation and hence if we wish to change it a motion would be in order. Again, following the same. And that we have in other districts.

Make a motion to rezone the shaded area from AG to neighborhood transition.

And we're not rezoning.

I'm sorry to change the future land use for the shaded area from AG to neighborhood transition.

Thank you for catching us on these inadvertent motions. Okay, any further discussion? All those in favor, raise your hand. It appears to be unanimous.

so our next item in the packet is talking about the auburn water and sewage district lots along south gulf street and i'd invite bruce um to discuss this recommended change given that that was brought to the packet by you

When we have just a little description here before we go for it particularly those for the public who might be listening in or watching So this area currently is Zoned for what? Yeah And at a previous meeting, the committee had taken the position to change the land use category from this comprehensive plan and make it part of the downtown land use category. And all of these parcels are owned by the Water District, I believe. Okay, Bruce, go ahead.

Just to let you know, I'm a trustee of the Auburn Water District. And so the Water District has been on the corner Court Street and South Gulf Street for about a hundred years and they've acquired some additional parcels on South Street, I believe it the name of it is and And they're growing so there's more equipment. There's bigger bigger Dump trucks and now we have I think two excavators and we've got equipment all over the place out there and And the district hired, Water and Sewer hired a consultant to see where we can expand. We looked at, or they looked, presented a location that is over in the industrial park off Kitty Hawk. And that would take the water department far away from the core of the city. And if there is a water break in the middle of the night or on a weekend, and history would say that they only occur at night and on weekends when nobody's around. and the crews had to go all the way up to the industrial park to get their equipment and then go to the water main or the sewer pump station breakage, we would have some devastation. The other thing is the consultant came up with a price tag that was about $18 million more to relocate the entire operation out to the industrial park. These are only recommendations. The water department and sewer department is a long ways from doing anything, probably three to five years. But their equipment right now is being left outside, and it's gotta be covered. So the logical thing would be for us to make this land that is already owned by them appropriate so that they could expand their garages and infrastructure that is necessary to operate efficiently because it's right in the center of the city and economically because it would save the rate payers in the city of auburn probably a million dollars a year was the estimate so again these are just estimates they're guesses but it'd be a lot easier to work with this property if necessary if we can't find another location And so my recommendation would be to move it from downtown to industrial. Thank you.

Thank you, Bruce. Dana.

So my question would be, are the uses that Bruce described not allowed in the downtown land use category through the municipal use that is allowed? The downtown use category allows for government municipal use. That to me sounds like what Bruce is describing. So I guess I'm just wondering, is this necessary to change this to industrial?

I can read the downtown land use category description for the committee if that would be helpful. So the description includes, the downtown includes areas in Auburn's historic city center. This area has a mix of uses that support the creation and expansion of local businesses, increases housing options, and promotes social activity in a compact historic city center. Transportation options, trails, and paths improve connectivity downtown and provide access to historic and cultural resources, including the Androscoggin River. Under the land use description, typical uses include retail, restaurants, personal services, offices, civic, and entertainment uses on the ground floor of buildings, along sidewalks, and on street fronts. Upper floors provide access to office spaces and residences, supporting activity throughout the day and creating additional foot traffic throughout the area. this area serves as a center for jobs commerce social activity arts and entertainment by leveraging its historic form riverfront setting and proximity to lewiston under density and form this area is characterized by high density development with an emphasis on preserving historic building heights scale and architectural style buildings are oriented toward the street with minimal to no setbacks some buildings share walls and others are standalone Shared parking is encouraged. This area includes parks and public spaces, access to the river and public art, creating a desirable urban fabric and public realm. This area is highly walkable and served by public transportation, bike paths, sidewalks, and trail access to support people of all ages and abilities in accessing the area to work, shop, recreate, and live. Streets are designed to prioritize pedestrian and bicycle safety and should reinforce the expectation that downtown is a place to walk bike gather and linger Rather than simply drive through streets are designed to prioritize pedestrian and bicycle safety.

We'll amend that because that's a double Thank You reminding us of the description

I think the problem is just that the idea you're thinking of government and you're thinking of offices like this building in the county building and Water and sewer is more like Public Works, which is more like industrial.

So I'm I'm okay with this Yeah, yeah, so I approve you know, I appreciate Bruce raising this I think There's some more information that I we should correct in the record here for us and i think the primary thing that the committee should be thinking about is whether we want for future land use to be placing heavy industrial activity adjacent to the major downtown intersection in the city so the history of this lot the water district has not been here for a hundred years this was a residential structure where the current office building is the water district purchased it in 1964 and They never built anything on it till the current structure was built there in 1974 They've added on over that time when the water district sold that a lot of their property at the top of Court Street Hill they moved equipment and down to the Court Street area so I think the office building part fits fine within the downtown district, but I don't think excavators and dump trucks and those things at all hours of the day and night coming in and out of there is appropriate land use in that area. I would say that I don't think that it's really the purpose of the committee to decide whether some future rate increases from the water district to pay debt service on a new facility is an appropriate thing to take into consideration in land use characterization. I'm happy to provide the numbers. I do agree with Bruce that the potential differential is a million dollars but we can go into the economics of redevelopment in this area and it's a very very strong case to be made that for the benefit of the community the numbers actually favor redevelopment not an industrial use here. I would also point out as a trustee that the needs analysis that was conducted the consultants clear they cannot meet the needs and the needs analysis on this law there's not enough room to do that no matter how they were to expand here so I don't think this is an appropriate use to put heavy industrial in this area. I think that the city has spent a lot of time and effort and money trying to resolve the issues along Minot Avenue to spur redevelopment. Putting industrial land use next to that, co-located to that, is going to severely restrict potential development in that area for other purposes because developers are not going to want in the middle of downtown to be co-located next to heavy industrial. So I think this should remain as downtown and this should not be changed to industrial. This The water district activities there are a non-conforming use and they're a non-conforming use at least back to the 2010 comp plan. I didn't go back and look before that. And this just doesn't fit in the, that type of use doesn't fit in the middle of downtown if we're considering how we're going to develop the city going forward.

I have a question. At one time, there was a functional purpose, I think, for being there because of water lines coming through there and they were physically associated with that facility out of necessity. I'm not sure, but I don't think that's the case anymore. Am I correct with that?

Yeah, when that building was initially built, the initial treatment activity that took place, took place in that building where the water line comes up into a treatment room, that is no longer used since the treatment facility was built up at the lake some years ago.

Are there other thoughts, comments? OK.

I'll just say I find Jeff's argument really compelling. And I just pulled up Google Maps, and I'm looking. If you go down that South Goff Street, you come to one of the city's grandest eyesores. You know the the big old shoe mill factory there so that to try to imagine like what else could be there as a as a whole package for that corner of downtown. I think it's we'd be far better off to leave it downtown than switch to industrial.

So the only the only thing I'll add to this is Water and sewer has to be someplace in the central part of the city for it to function effectively. Again, water breaks and sewer backups are pretty significant in the lives of our citizens. So the only industrial piece of land, I believe, in our city is right there. And this is, in essence, forcing the Water Department to move to the outskirts of the city. And I think it's going to create some problems down the road. So I think it's something to consider. Also, I apologize. I thought they were there 100 years. Thanks, Jeff.

Any further thoughts or comments.

I just a question for staff. I guess what if we reject this change. What then how is so water district limited like what obviously they can stay we're not going to kick them out. But what then.

after the comp plan has been adopted, then you, you as a city, start adopting provisions to implement that comp plan. And we're talking about land use regulations as far as form is based. It's already in a form-based code district. And so in the downtown, we are looking about walkable streets. Practically as a use, those regulations are based off of new construction, proposed construction. Things that are there, you have things all over the city in all of your form-based code districts. And you don't mandate that they have to change today. It's if someone wants to come and redevelop the land, That's when those regulations will come into play of, okay, if you're redeveloping the land, then your structure needs to be this far away from the street. The street that you are now constructing here needs to be a walkable place. And so it is looking, it's always forward looking. There wouldn't be any changes to what the Water District is currently doing here. It would have an impact on what they are planning to do in the future. And so this is exactly what we're talking about is the 10 and then 20 years away.

Okay.

Thank you, DeCarlo. I might note here that the question before this group is, on the one side what the potential impact might be to the water district if it was a land use category changed or maintained as a downtown area that would represent challenges to the water district in accomplishing those developments there and may result in some additional costs but that is the case that's not unique to this particular discussion other businesses who might be in similarly placed when their land use changes may face similar challenges as well On the other hand, the question before the committee is, and has been since we began, what is the best interest of the community as a whole? Going 10, 15 or more years down the road, what do we see as in the best interest of the community? On downtown area, there's only so much real estate in the downtown area, not going to invent new space. So what is appropriate and what areas should be included within that area? And what are the benefits both for economic development, economic development here, And just for general social community civic benefits, potentially whatever might be there. And so that's a decision you have before you. One is, what do you think is the general overall best interest? And that's compared to what impact might that have on an existing use that's there that may have to do something different in the future. So we're at the same place we were before in the sense of how we move forward. If it's a pleasure of the committee not to make a change, you don't have to do anything. If it's a pleasure of the committee to make a change, then you have to do that, which would require a motion.

So I'd move that we change this area on the corner of Court and South Goff Street from downtown to industrial.

Okay. Is there a second to that motion?

I'll second that.

Okay.

Is there further discussion on the motion? Rick.

It looks like this could be an opportunity for the city and the water and sewer districts to cooperate on like leasing land from public works or something like that for the heavier functions. And keep the office and light industrial or lighter, small trucks, not the giant graders and

You know diggers and whatnot excavators Downtown, but you know relocate those At some point when that's needed which may be fairly soon Okay further discussion All right So the motion before you is to change to this particular area into industrial so if you're in favor of that you will vote yay by raising your hand and If you oppose, you'll vote nay by raising your hand in that point. So I will ask, if you're ready, I'll ask for the question. All those in favor of changing it to industrial, please raise your hand. Okay, one. Oh, two, okay. All those who opposed. The motion fails, I think, on a nine to two vote. Thank you for bringing in for discussion. Appreciate it.

The next item in your packet is along Riverside Drive, east of Walton School, along Joseph, between Joseph Lane and Riverside Drive. And the recommendation here is to adjust these parcels from compact residential to mixed use neighborhood. Ally, if you zoom out a little bit, you'll see it would be connecting Riverside Drive as one land use category here.

So for the general public, this is an area along Riverside Drive, one that I am very familiar with since I've lived here since 1960. It's probably driven past it a million times. So this is right adjacent to, next to that is the Oak Hill Cemetery area. So it sort of starts with that Oak Hill Cemetery and then moves down along, yeah, that's the Oak Hill Cemetery. Those of you familiar in the back area of that, very steep grades going uphill. And it goes to an imaginary road or right away that comes down from Mary Carol down over the hill. Was that about right? So that's the area. And the area has mixed use. It has businesses there. It has apartment buildings. It has single family homes. And of course, Androscoggin River is behind it on the EAST OF THE SIDE. AND THIS MAKES IT CONSISTENT WITH THE OTHER MIXED USE NEIGHBORHOOD THAT'S ADJACENT TO IT. DISCUSSION? COMMENTS?

MY ONLY COMMENT ON THIS ONE IS I THINK WHAT HAPPENED we had a long discussion about what to do from the school property going down the hill and i think what happened is when we did that we changed it to compact residential and we said all the way to riverside drive and what we did is accidentally interrupt the land use characteristic going down riverside drive so it would seem to me changing this makes it consistent with that whole pattern before and after this location on riverside drive i make a motion to accept the change is there a second second any further discussion

If you're in favor you'll raise your hand, say aye. It appears to be unanimous.

So this next one is a discussion of the Walton School parcel and the recommendation here is to If you'll see in the hash, from the edge of Boone to the edge of Mary Carol, to go from mixed-use neighborhood to compact residential. So in previous conversations, the committee had voted to turn this entire parcel into mixed-use neighborhood, and so another recommendation came forth to keep that part between Boone and Mary Carol to compact.

Again, remembering our previous discussion on this, this is where Walton School is, where you may be familiar. And there's more than one parcel associated with it. And so the parcel that you're seeing there is the one that's about Seventh Street, going through there. And the concept here, or the suggestion is that it be made

same as the compact residential the school itself is still one parcel we would just be splitting the parcel between two categories

I guess I just want to understand the rationale here. The parcel that's under discussion is where the track is. I mean, or it's a big open field and there's a walking track. And when we talked about this parcel before, I know that various people pointed out that this is a really valuable and somewhat rare example of a shared community space. So I'm just curious why we would entertain the idea of a change and what we think the impact of that might be down the road.

Okay. Good question. Matt?

So I just want to be clear because I don't quite understand the colors. Are you suggesting to make everything along 7th Street yellow?

Yes. Everything that's hatched in your packet in this image would be compact residential.

And the stuff that is brown, where the arrow is now, that is?

Would remain mixed-use neighborhood.

Mixed-use neighborhood. Okay.

Yeah. Yes, so I would be supportive of this. I would ask the committee to extend this Compact residential to the back side of the school So my recollection of this conversation as we went back and forth about whether this law should be mixed-use neighborhood of not and the premise for changing it was if the school department leaves this and we would be cutting off redevelopment opportunities of that building as multi-family as they're not allowed in compact residential. I think my recollection of the conversation was that in general the committee was supportive of that uh... i don't think they were supportive of high-density development throughout that law so i would suggest not only this side piece if we're going to split the law i continue the compact residential in a line behind the school because what we're really trying to accomplish is a redevelopment opportunity with the school without opening up multifamily in the only green space in this area of New Auburn.

I would support that motion if it was made.

So to answer your question, Jane, by changing it, the redevelopment, the buildings are smaller. If we left it brown, then they could put larger buildings. So by changing it back to compact residential, whatever is yellow, will mean that the redevelopment includes smaller buildings and the neighborhood continues to look the same.

I mean, I understand that. And I guess just in terms of our work, there's really not much we can do at this point to ensure that it remains green space. That will be for a later moment.

I just want to throw this back to Lauren and that sort of overlay idea that you were talking about earlier. Does that come into play now, or that would only come into play once the school department released? Got it.

Yeah, so that map would be public open space and parks to start with, and then cemeteries and so on. But Jeff, I'll let you comment.

Yeah, and I think that's right. And I think it's important. I'm 100% in agreement with Jane's thoughts about that open space, especially in that area. And there's been discussions about this amongst staff in the past. Because there is a defined process that takes place under the state statute. If this can't be used as a school, it reverts to the city. The city would then have to undertake a process. And what's been discussed in terms of a process that would be used if an elementary school is closed, which we all understand based on the recent city council actions of the bonding for the middle school renovations in order to facilitate sixth graders moving there the trade-off for that to pay for that bond was a school closing an elementary school we don't know what school that will be and we had the same look when we looked at east auburn remember it was ag to say we need to make sure if the school's given up we can redevelop it i agree completely with bruce's point what what would happen is there'd be a public process to define what the people that live in that area envision happening if this reverts to the city and what they should do with it. Bruce lives right there. I've talked to a lot of people down there. I think what we're going to hear is that they want to maintain green space there. But to Bruce's point, if that didn't happen by changing this, aligns with the current development that you have in the area of the school, which aligns with compact residential. So to Lauren's point, that decision about whether it be green space or built out will come later if and when the school were to turn this over to the city.

Dan?

So I'll just point out that making the change that's proposed here would still allow all these spaces to be developed. It would just be developed at a lesser density. Would it be cleaner to just put someplace inside of the comp plan that the desire to redevelop any closed school would use the existing footprint of the building? I don't know what the best way to do this is, but to me, I don't know that the change proposed is gonna accomplish what the desire seems to be.

I would ask that we let staff work on what would be an appropriate place. I'm in agreement with the mayor and Matt about extending the lighter usage behind the school, but I'm not sure exactly where it should go, and I think staff could figure that out better than we can.

Yeah, I would reserve those type of decisions. until what time that you have to make them. And the reason being is that this space works really, really well as it's operating today because it's a school with has open fields. But if it's ever not a school and then the area that actually is a school turns into multifamily, you will have two very large spaces or open space with no, No dwellings facing the open space, and so you have a lot less eyes on the open space, and so you want to keep your your options open of how that will best work for the Community itself to make sure that the Community can access that space and it's not behind. multi-family building that's inaccessible um to the the broader community and so if the if it is uh you know the will of the city to remain this is open space you will have that decision once it's appropriate to have um but i would i would start thinking about what are the actual uses that you want to do with that now but not include that into the comp plan because this is more about broader decisions about land use and about scale. And one of the decisions that you're gonna tackle with this is that what's the appropriate type of open space for this area if and when that time occurs? So it changes.

Yeah, I think I would note that currently, as you've indicated, it's a school facility and land currently. And because it is, you have the structure you have there in the open space. Should in some future point the school decide that that's not a facility that they need in the school system and It then by state law must revert back to the community and to the City Council the City Council then I would expect by a public process, as the mayor has indicated, could make a decision that some portions of that would be public recreation and so designated. And if it is designated for that, then it would come under the overlays where public spaces are not for development. And it would come under that rubric. to do that. Now, you know, maybe there's some argument that some modest housing should be there, but that's a discussion for the future. But at least if that discussion is there, the discussion is under compact residential, not apartment buildings. So I think where we stand now, if I'm correct, we have a motion on the floor to change that what's green on the map but hatched on our map to compact residential. There's been a suggestion to make an amendment to include that back portion as part of the motion. Would there be a request for an amendment to include that back portion? Moved by Jeff, there's a second.

Second.

Seconded by Paul. Okay, so.

Can I just offer a friendly amendment that we extend that to include the portion of the football field that's not currently shaded? It might as well, right? That is true, and we always used to kick field goals right onto that building.

However, that wouldn't preclude the city from including it in a recreational area if they wanted to. The potential zoning would be somewhat different. That's a good suggestion, but I think it complicates things a little bit. All right, so we have an amendment to the motion, which is to include that outlined additional piece of the property as part of the compact residential. So we're going to vote on that amendment first So if you're in favor if you're ready for the question if you're in favor of that amendment You would raise your hand for I and if you oppose you'd raise your hand for nay all those in favor. I is to be unanimous. So now we have both of people have the original request and the men as amended. So again if you're in favor of this motion as amended you would raise your hand to say aye and if you oppose you raise your hand to say no. All those in favor, please raise your hand.

We're moving through these. The next one is here, and it includes this large collection of parcels. The recommendation is to take this large collection of parcels from mixed-use neighborhood to compact residential, and the committee can discuss the transition from mixed use neighborhood to compact residential as it moves from New Auburn to South Auburn. And so that's the recommendation or the consideration here now.

Yes, so this is going out South Main Street. That corner at the beginning is, well, no, it's not exactly right there, but this includes the area that comes off to Roy Street, Lafayette area, and the upper part. Sherwood Heights School is located along the side and becomes surrounded by this. um it also includes marion drive which is a butser school on the other side and it goes over to 16th street which is a partial street but it is a paper street all the way across so it comes across there and then connects back up on south main street so the concept is that since this is No air is absolutely perfect, but much of this area is very similar to what's on the other side of South Main Street. Lots of single family housing, some multifamily, but not predominantly multifamily. So this would be to say, is this a appropriate boundary line to be included for contract residential giving What South Main Street and also around the school but can continue with make use neighborhood going down from there towards downtown.

Just a point of clarification, remembering particularly the last conversation and this one, the committee has had a lot of discussion on these areas and I'm just, I'm not clear what's bringing them back to the table tonight. That's not an opinion on whether we should do it or not, I'm just not clear on why they're back.

Yeah.

So I think that after these maps get drawn and we had a chance to go back and look at this, This is a problematic area, so I think it's really important to note two fundamental things. The original discussion about the mixed use coming up broad and going over across South Main to Vickery tied in with the city's planned expansion of water and sewer in those areas. But in the middle of all this, Can you go over to a map that shows the lot lines in that area? Because in the middle of this, you have two very large parcels, one of which the school is on, and the adjoining parcel is the land trust. So when you get up to what's at the bottom of the screen, especially when you're on Roy, Lafayette, and that area, you're not going to be able to get to that as mixed use through the mixed use area. You would have to travel through the compact residential. It seemed like it was something worth discussion by the committee about this area along South Main Street that's sandwiched between the school and the land trust land and The compact residential on the other side of South Main Street For the comment discussion

Since we're asking this to be changed, we would need a motion if you want to accept it as a change to land use category area.

So moved. Second.

Moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Do you ready for the question if you're in favor of the change you raise your hand when we ask for the eyes. If you oppose you raise your hand when we ask for the names. All those in favor please raise your hand. It all those folks. 10 to one one of those.

This is a similar conversation here, if you zoom in a little bit, Ali. This is currently a mixed use neighborhood and the consideration is to move it to compact residential.

Discussion on the thoughts for that, yeah?

Yeah, so this is another one I think it was worth a discussion by the committee. So to the west of these parcels, You have these large parcels that are associated with the potential water and sewer expansion coming up Broad Street, coming up South Main and Vickery. These are across the road from that, and these are all built-out single-family resident parcels today. And so where we left this IT'S KIND OF AN ODD PIECE IN THAT INTERSECTION THAT POTENTIALLY WOULD FIT BETTER WITH COMPACT RESIDENTIAL THAN THE VACANT LOTS ACROSS THAT MIXED USE NEIGHBORHOOD.

I'm not sure if anybody's gonna catch this or not, but there used to be a pink house in here somewhere, and it's not, there used to be a pink house on this, on one of these parcels, and I'm trying to decide, is that parcel included here or not included? It looks like it is included. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around this one.

Pink house, yeah, it's in the color pink.

Yeah, it was pretty unique, actually, yeah. I don't remember it. It's kinda off the road. I don't think anybody lived there for a while.

Yeah, it's just it's

I mean, I don't have strong feelings about this. It's interesting to me and a little odd how you go from the section that we just dealt with, which feels very much... like in-town Auburn with small lots and modest, very well-kept homes. And then you get out. By the time you get out to this part of South Main, it feels really quasi-rural. So I'm just sort of, as an observation, they're very, very different feels. And then that whole sort of mixed-use orange section in between doesn't feel really any different, so.

Well, yeah, you may recall the purposes for that in between on the other side of Victory Road, I think you're talking about.

I mean, there's a, I think what's now a grow house that used to be a, you know, a convenience store, and then there's Poisson's.

Yeah. Part of the east side of the Vickrey Road, either city-owned lots or other potential lots that when water and sewer are extended to that area, which there are some funds been allocated for that, provides the opportunity for that to be more densely developed. Dana?

Yeah, so there's one more parcel right next to this. Yeah, the cursor's right on it. I'm just curious as to how we decided on those three parcels but not this one. It seems to match the same development pattern that the other ones do, and then you have the golf course.

That's already compact residential, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, thank you.

That's, yeah. Is there any further comments or discussion? Seeing none, are you ready for the question? If you're in favor of making a change to these three parcels, the compact residential, when we ask for the ayes, you'll put your hands up.

Do you have a motion?

Oh, I thought I did.

Make that motion.

I'll second. Oh, okay. I'm hearing ghosts. I thought I heard those motions already. Okay, so now we have a motion. So with that, directions are the same. If you're in favor, when we ask for the ayes, you raise your hand. If you oppose, when we ask for the nays, you raise your hand. All those in favor of changing those three lots to compact residential? All those opposed? It passes 10 to 1. All right, this is the next slide.

So this parcel, or this area, came up in committee consideration in the fall when we were talking about future land use, I'm sorry, growth areas. And this parcel, I'm gonna have Allie scroll. is currently an industrial land use category in a moderate growth area. And so the proposal is, just to point that out, that this moor and brick parcel in purple you see here, if you can zoom in a little, Allie. Thanks. It's currently in a moderate growth area, an industrial land use category. The proposal you see, if you actually skip forward a page from industrial to agricultural, at the southern end of this kind of peninsula would be to take it out of the moderate growth industrial and put it into low growth and agricultural resource protection. So we can start with that one. If you can zoom in here. That is page 10 of your packet. I skipped ahead to explain this part, and then we'll move north from there.

So this is the area you pointed out is sand pits, I think, that were once used by Warren Brick.

They're sand pits. They don't belong to Warren Brick.

Oh, they don't belong to him. Okay. He's perhaps used them at some point. So the suggestion is to make make that area agricultural resource protection, which is adjacent to that, and that kind of aggregate mining is one of the allowed uses in agricultural resource protection. Discussion? Questions?

I move we make the change.

Okay, a second.

I'll second.

Okay, moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Once again, the instructions are the same. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Looks unanimous.

So then we'll go back to page nine of your packet to the southern hatched parcel along So same situation. This is in the moderate growth industrial. And we're recommending that it stays moderate growth but moves to neighborhood transition. OK. It'll match the brown. And so we're, yes.

Yeah, Joe?

So first I have a question. So where the purple ends, no, on the southern end there, the southern end, is that two separate lots or is the purple splitting the lot?

One second.

I think that's a lot line, but I just want to make sure.

Yes, that is a lot line.

Yes, so most of the, in part, I think this is a mapping error when we did this before and connected those two zones because other than that one, right above Moore and Brick that you're pointing to now, all the rest of those lots are currently rural residential. And I think someplace along the line when we were doing this, we inadvertently connected the two industrial zones, and this should be the neighborhood transition.

that's the intent behind this change, is that these are residential lots today that I think through the soup of right-of-ways here, added in some residential lots to connect to those industrial areas.

Dana.

I'll make the motion and accept this change.

Okay. Second.

Second.

I'm gonna move and second it. Any further discussion? Instructions are the same if you're in favor you raise your hand once they ask for the eyes and If you're not you'll raise it when we ask for the maze all those in favor of the motion raise your hand It appears to be unanimous

So we'll be switching back and forth between the maps here. This is just a clarification that we need from the committee. So you'll see in our future land use map, if you zoom out a little bit, Ali, this section here, it extends kind of into a triangle. I'm going to stand up, actually. So it's currently rural, if you go back to our parcel viewer. Parts of it are rural residential today. And it's in our high growth area. And we turned it into industrial. We just want to clarify that was the intent of the committee, if you go a little north. You'll see the rural residential extends over to general business. You go to our future land use map. We have that in industrial and high growth, if you turn on our growth area map. We just want to clarify that was the intent of the committee through these mapping changes.

So what's located in that strip is your residential so there so the current zoning has these two lots here that are residential and then this lot right here that is Residential on this end but is split between rural residential and industrial and then the rest of this area appears to be some roadway easements And railroad on the other side

So that recommendation you see in your packet on page nine, the northern part, is just to spark conversation of should this stay industrial and high growth? Should we move it to neighborhood transition and moderate growth and align it with the other side of railroad tracks?

So just so I'm clear, is that where Station Road connects to down by Washington Street? Yes.

So Station Road is right here, and this is Washington Street.

Right, and my recollection is There's a residential structure. When you turn on station on the right, isn't there a house there now?

On the right.

And this, what you see in the purple is parcels within 200 feet of water and sewer, which was the committee's foundation for the high growth area designation.

I DON'T BELIEVE THERE'S AN EXISTING STRUCTURE ON THE PIECE OF THE PIECE THAT WE'RE PROPOSING HERE BUT THERE IS ONE ON THAT LITTLE SLIVER RIGHT THAT'S KIND OF DARK PURPLE OR YEAH THAT ONE THAT YOU'RE POINTING AT.

So the thought is that it's more or less some residential structure there and not necessarily lending itself to industrial use in the future and therefore keeping it consistent with the transition area.

So this is just to clarify. From the committee, there's been a couple of frameworks applied of keeping road frontages consistent, but then also with some of those industrial considerations that these areas are rural residential today, and should they remain. They're not necessarily reflected there today. They're industrial on the current land use map, future land use map. and want to make sure that this is captured correctly for the committee's intent.

Well, what do you think? Do you know this area? Not a large area, but it may be important to residents that are there. Yeah.

So to Carlo or Lauren, I guess this is a question for you. Just to be clear, there's a couple existing structures there bordered on both sides today by industrial land. If we were to leave that as industrial, it's a current use, they could continue to have the houses there. And if we changed it to neighborhood transition, they could not continue any industrial use that might border each side of that, right?

Yeah, correct. There is a residential structure on the right side there that you all have already mentioned. If it so happens that you want to expand some type of industrial use, if you have it rural residential, you wouldn't be able to expand that industrial use closer to where the railroad tracks are on the other side where it appears just looking on the other side where I'm sorry where it's and on the left side of Station Road and between Black Cat Road and Station Road at squiggly It looks like there was a structure there, because you can see the outline of a building through this, but in looking on aerials, it doesn't appear to have a structure there today. and so if you wanted to do an industrial use and if you have that into residential you wouldn't be able to do an industrial use there and so really what what this is what this conversation is is it's going we need to make a choice um are we going to encourage industrial uses in this area or are we going to encourage residential uses in this area and all your decisions will stem from

I think of other areas like... Let's get Jane in, I'll come back.

Go ahead. I mean, I'm just, you know, kind of looking on Google Maps, and it looks like a dead end. It's a, I mean, black cat dead ends, and then you can see 202 just beyond it. It seems to make a lot of sense to have it industrial.

Okay. Just to clarify to that point, that's actually not a public road. So that, it's like a driveway that goes to these two houses. You cannot, well, one doesn't have a house on it anymore. You can't get across from station because of the brook. And so that end of Black Cat isn't actually the public road that goes into it that you see on the map that goes into that house.

I was just gonna say when I think of places like you know Poland Road not necessarily you know the Hammond area but further out you've got you know like a mix of industrial and residential and it's sort of a you know, people get along, they know that's what it is, but it's not, one doesn't dominate over the other. In this case, it's clearly dominant manufacturing, and this is in the, you know, small percentage use, which I think it makes sense to just leave it industrial. Dana.

Yeah, I drove up this way over the weekend, and the house that we're talking about on Station Road and that I don't know, sliver lot, the small, narrow lot. To me, if we change this to industrial and that house needs to be worked on in one way or another and it ends up being zoned industrial, I would just hate to see that person become unhoused just because of a decision that we made tonight. I would propose that we make that narrow lot uh to be um a residential uh land use going forward so that it would match i guess it would be neighborhood transition i think that's the one that we're talking about so i'll make that motion i'll make i'll make the motion that we include those strips as presented and also add that narrow lot that is on the other side of the road there

Okay. Is there a second?

I'll second that.

Okay. Moved and seconded. Additional discussion, comments? Okay, you ready for the question? All those who are in favor of the motion, raise your hand for aye. 1, 2, 3, OK. Could you repeat the question. Oh sure. So the motion is to include the that those livers and then other thin block on the other side into the transitional. Currently industrial I believe. Okay, we'll do it again all those in favor of the motion raise your hand. Okay, all those opposed. He's in favor OK. With 3 in favor and. So the motion fails. With that and this is something different since it's already industrial it would remain in does. We'll go to the next one.

This next item is on page 11, and this is the Hammond Lumber Lot that we discussed at the previous meeting. The consideration is to, so it's currently industrial based on committee vote. The consideration is to change it from industrial back to compact residential.

Okay. So this is, This is a land use area that we have looked at before. And a previous at a previous meeting. Prevail that that lot would be become part of the industrial zone. For us again to see what our thoughts are in regards to any reconsideration of that action. Any comments or questions? Rick?

Yeah, I have a feeling the discussion around this felt more like a planning board than a comp plan meeting. And this is like big picture. We're 10,000 feet in the air. And anything we do with this doesn't mean it's going to happen. So the neighborhood assumes that they're at a planning board meeting and they're gonna stop this thing. And I remember when I was on the city council, I had sort of mixed feelings because Hammond Lumber, was there a long time, not as Hammond Lumber, but as a prior lumber company. I can't even remember the name of it. Peter Allen Lumber, thank you. And it's been a longstanding use in the neighborhood, and I was uncomfortable with that whole discussion we had a few years ago. Because I sort of agreed with the neighbors that Hammond wasn't necessarily that responsive. But on the other hand, they're a good business. They employ a lot of people. They supply a lot of products to build houses and rehab houses and have generally been a good neighbor through the years. So I'm inclined to stick with the neighbors. decision we made and knowing that you know in the future city council and planning board will most certainly hear from the neighborhood

If I remember correctly from our previous discussions and earlier meetings, not only for this industrial, but for all industrials in the city, it was the pleasure of this committee to put language into the comp plan that made very clear that buffering between residential and industrial was a requirement, not an option. And that any future zoning that might develop with this would have to be consistent with that direction. And it would have to be reviewed by the planning board. The planning board would have to make decisions in regards to a number of issues, but certainly including in this case, since it's residential, what appropriate Buffering would be required in not optional not you do you building or whatever you're going to do and then maybe later you do the buffering it's the buffering of the quiet for us. So I think we've made that point before and all industrial zones that there needs to be some protection to a budding residential property. Further discussion Jane.

So I'm... Sometimes I feel like, how do we make these decisions one way or another? And in my own mind, I try to think somewhat of being consistent. And issues that we've talked about before, and the values that matter to us as a community. But I understand that each neighborhood can be different, and there are different set of concerns and so forth. We spent a long time talking about the difference between compact residential and mixed-use and it hinged on commercial space and And whether or not neighborhoods that were compact residential, but we were thinking about whether they should be mixed use. And the question was really about inconveniences and disruptions and aesthetic concerns about having commercial and what scale of commerce would be in a neighborhood. So I'm thinking about that as we go through this discussion, that the neighbors have had concerns before that they felt weren't really addressed. And they've made it clear to us. We're trying to be balanced about all of this, and I get Rick's point, but we've also thought a lot in many of our conversations here about how to go about not having primarily residential neighborhoods feel endangered or, I don't know, threatened, inconvenienced by commercial i mean commercial concerns that in some cases we were imagining might happen and that aren't even in place and here's one where it is in place and the neighbors have told us that they have you know have real concerns about it so i think that this ought to be um that we ought to revert to compact residential on this yeah this is a i think a difficult parcel i i think that

The committee, I think it would be helpful if we could zoom out a little on this, because this is a very, very large, high intensity industrial area. This is where Savage is right behind there. I understand the concerns the neighbors have, but I think you need to think of the history of this area. This was an industrial area with a very large lumber yard before any of the houses on Albania and Rochelle were even built by decades. And those houses were built along with a number of the other side streets in this area by Peter Allen as an offshoot of Peter Allen Lumber. So these houses were built in this area with a full understanding that they embedded an industrial zone. And this parcel that we're talking about is in front of Hammond Lumber between their main building and the warehouse and the road. And I fully agree with the neighbor's sentiments about the trees. Look, a number of us that are sitting up here were in the room when the planning board and the city council discussed this before. I don't think there's anybody that thinks that Hammond operated as a good neighbor. right the reason this didn't happen before is they cut down some trees they were perfectly entitled to cut down which exposed these houses on our baby here uh... more flight line to the railroad tracks and savage and that whole area so i think we need to separate that out from this law in the front and i think the john's point If you make this compact residential and somebody builds a bunch of houses there, they don't have to plant a single tree. They don't have to have a buffer. If this is industrial and they add a parking lot, as was previously discussed, and it's industrial, they're required to have a 30-foot buffer between there and the neighborhood. So I understand the arguments from the neighborhood that they're upset about. I used to live right up the street from here for 18 years. So I get the point. this did not go well between the neighbors and the commercial use i think the best way to ensure if there's any changes in this area that the buffer occurs is by making this industrial not compact residential any other questions or discussion

ANY OTHER DISCUSSION? ANY OTHER DISCUSSION? ANY OTHER DISCUSSION? IF THERE'S NO MOTION ON THE IF THERE'S NO MOTION ON THE IF THERE'S NO MOTION ON THE FLOOR, IT WILL REMAIN AS IT IS.

FLOOR, IT WILL REMAIN AS IT IS. FLOOR, IT WILL REMAIN AS IT IS. DANA. DANA. DANA. I'LL MAKE THE MOTION THAT I'LL MAKE THE MOTION THAT I'LL MAKE THE MOTION THAT WE MOVE THIS BACK INTO WE MOVE THIS BACK INTO WE MOVE THIS BACK INTO COMPACT RESIDENTIAL.

COMPACT RESIDENTIAL. COMPACT RESIDENTIAL. THAT'S THE ONE. THAT'S THE ONE. THAT'S THE ONE. THANKS. THANKS. THANKS. OKAY. OKAY. OKAY.

THERE'S A MOT I fully agree with Jeff. It still is a little painful that we wanted to actually make this change on the planning board, but it just didn't seem like there was a good faith effort on Hammond's part to... and make it right. That shouldn't impact the decision tonight. It just it's still I still haven't heard anything from them. Saying they would do things differently.

I would just like Hammond to make this right. There's no city action that's required for Hammond to plant trees there to satisfy the neighbor's desires. And I guess I think that would be the best thing to do, but I mean, obviously it's been Hammond's decision. Okay.

I think comments that have been made here and at previous meetings when there have been some effort to change it have been abundantly clear and I noticed and I'm pleased that the representatives from Hammond here to hear the comments that are being made and to take them seriously. There's an effort here to try to use it for appropriate use, but we also are very aware of the concerns of the neighbors. And I think a little work together would go a long ways to resolving past tensions in regards to neighbors here. So with that, there's a motion on the floor to change it to compact residential. If you're ready for the vote, if you're in favor of that, raise your hand. Okay, three voting in the aye, all those opposed. Voting nay. No further motion is necessary. If there isn't a desire to have one, it will remain as a decision previously.

So our next few pages are a result of looking around the map and saying, oh man, we have parcels that are split three times. We have parcels that are split between land use categories awkwardly or oddly. And so I'll actually ask John how you would like to proceed in these next few pages and how you'd like to address these parcel splits moving forward.

Well, I think that we'll proceed to take a look at them since they're in here. But this is a segue into a second question. The segue would be is, and we can talk about that after we look at these, because it'll give you a sense of the feeling of what these changes are. Essentially, they're trying to chew up some boundary lines because strip zones would put on a map simply by a distance from the center line of the road so as a result of that some of these lots got sort of cut up in a very odd kind of way and the thought was that since we're doing some of this work to do that now to the second point these are not all of the possible uh... kind of on ins i would say insignificance and they don't change the real useful what plan would be put Cleans them up to True them up with some boundaries. So if it is pleasure to make some of these changes tonight Rather than us do all of this again. I will be raising a question If it would be the pleasure further to do more of these To have the staff take a look at it and then come back and give us some suggestions So but that's question two will stay with number one, which is going through the maps. I So did you give a description of where this little change is located here?

Yes, this is along Pownall Road and Danville Corner Road where the neighborhood transition and rural corridor meet. Zooming out a little bit, there's these two tails that go down towards the city's southern edge. And at the corner of this neighborhood transition and residential corridor, this area today is in your packet. This residential corridor and the proposed change would be to neighborhood transition just based on where the lot lines and the land use category line up.

So right now it's split between yellow, brown, and green. And we're proposing, I think the yellow butts in here. So proposing that that triangle be the neighborhood transition.

So I know, I mean, in that area, you have a whole bunch of triangles. You've highlighted one of them, but you have a whole bunch of triangles. A whole lot of triangles. On, I mean, that specific triangle actually hits two lots. Yeah. So are you proposing to just skip the straight line and to move to following lot lines in...

So that's John's second question. So we can move through the triangles that we've captured to stimulate some discussion on how you would like to staff to move forward with other triangles and such.

Or the question can be maybe you don't want to true these things up. We can leave them as is, too. You could leave them as they are. I mean, that's an option.

And I think this relates to the public comment that we received from Kim as well about a policy direction from the committee on how to approach parcels such as this. So that relates to that question as well.

Yeah.

Well, certainly on this one, the triangle, it makes sense to make the change because you'd have to go through one land use characteristic area to get to the other one on the same lot. So that seems to make sense. So I think things like that, you may find more of these as you finalize the map. I think it would be fine to make those types of adjustments. And I don't know that, We want to keep coming back to the committee every time you find some small thing like that. Having said that, when I look at this, this looks a little strange to me. Why are the two small lots, we're cutting them there? Why wouldn't we just make them all yellow because the houses are on the yellow side. And I get the big lot in the back is split because it's on the strip zone. It's so many feet back. But those two are well within the strip zone. And one of them, the boundary goes right through the building. So it would seem like they ought to all be brown or those two lots ought to be brown or yellow one way or the other.

I agree with that.

Yeah, and I look at these lots and I just feel bad for lot owners that could have three different zones on one lot. That's just not good.

The idea here isn't to move them in a sense that you're trying to do anything significant about land use categories. It's just trying to throughout. Tidy them up so it seems consistent based on where these lots of kind of, where these small areas are kind of split. Yeah.

So, as I understand your second question, it was, shall we let staff do this and then... give us a single map with all the little changes that we can look at, and then we can actually move to accept that or to pull one out of it, sort of like a consent agenda. Is that what you're proposing?

Yeah, that would be another approach, Matt, and my thought of doing that was the staff would make some suggested you would see all the way they are you would see those maps and I would not necessarily as long as we give them direction to go ahead and do that wouldn't necessarily have to come back and vote on every one of those the only ones that we would ever bring back is if a committee member said geez i've got some questions or concerns well we'll look at that one but not necessarily every single one for a vote you look at them if you concur with it but you didn't necessarily uh from a staff point of view

totally acceptable. I think there was two clarifications that I wanted. Going back on that, the mayor actually said going through one to get to the other that's not available by the existing road. We've already pointed out that is an issue. But the other one that I think we wanted a little bit more feedback on is in some of the strip zones, it gets to a percentage of the lot of what is this board's pleasure of when we're getting to 50%, 80%, 90%, right? And that is the situation where I think we're looking for a little bit more guidance on, and so we can make these quick decisions from staff on how we should true up these splits as we're talking about.

Thank you. That was kind of leading into my comment that it feels like we should give some guiding principles to the staff before they just then have to randomly make decisions and come back. And that's not what we were thinking. So I liked DeCarlo's idea of it. Is it a percentage? construction is it what the strip the yellow on our map here it's yellow behind me but the yellow the strip zone as I understand is kind of a this is what a strip zone does we didn't make any decisions about it when we put that one there we just said strip zone and it did what it did so some of those have interfered with some of the other uses we were probably intending so is that what you're asking that we give some guiding principles to the staff

And I'll just say that those strip zones are a result of zoning changes in the past that we use the land use categories from.

Right, I was just clarifying. Strip zones have some distance ratios to them, correct?

Yes, that's right. And then split zones are the splits between two different zones.

I would just suggest that one of the guiding principles for staff when you do this exercise is to maintain the width of the strip zones from the center line of the road. That was something that we went through years ago in council, probably six years ago is my guess. And I think that one's been properly vetted by the public. So let's keep that the way it is. But when you're looking at the width, the length of the strip zone and how it cuts a parcel

I'm open Yeah Yeah, so to Dana's point about the width I think that's the biggest problem right these widths are arbitrary and actually There's a place on the map that's on one of these slides that two strip zones come together and They're not the same depth from the road right in Someone's thinking someplace along the line. They took up one strip zone. They said I don't know what the actual feet are But you know we'll make it 450 feet when they did the other one They said it was 400 and they have bite each other and it doesn't make sense So this this is a really good example right here if you look in the middle of this slide this where that strip zone comes I think if the staff doing that It makes sense just to move the strip when you have, you know, say more than 75% of this lot in one zone and you have this tiny piece to just align it with the parcel boundaries.

But to get to that direction that DeCarlo would talk about, I mean, the intention here isn't if you go, some of these lots are fairly large and extend back. So yes, they're split, but there's a fair significant amount of property on the other side. There are others like you see here where it's kind of a sliver. So the concept here is not to provide a means by which you have your you're undoing some decisions that were made about where the difference should be between some residential development and the Ag Zone so that if it's a small portion not a majority but a small portion that when you want to move it to the back line you're not substantially changing the concept of where there is low growth and medium cut growth. And so that's the judgment is that you don't just move it simply because the lot line is way back there. You move it because there seems to be some inconsistency that leaves some small portion of that lot in two different zones when it would make more sense just to have it together, particularly when the strips don't even align. going down the road.

Yeah, maybe we have like a de minimis standard of 20% and looking at that strip where you were there were 2 lots that had less than 20% of the back that would become part of that but then just north of those 2 lots there was another lot where the line extended like 10% beyond into another lot. And it's like, it'd be easier to just follow that line. And then going across a lot that went further back, the next one up, you just sort of line it up with the nearest lot lines or something like that.

So all these strip zone lines have tax implications, right? I mean, I guess I'm just wondering how much micromanaging, I mean, I understand the need for consistency, but then aren't there also tax implications for landowners?

Do you want to tackle that one to come? Yeah, I can tackle it. Not necessarily, because the tax implications go on how much will people pay for that piece of land. It's not just for zoning. It's more of, you know, is this going to make an actual economic difference in what somebody will pay for that land? So we're talking about really we're talking when we're talking about the strips two strips combining our current zoning is that's where the rural residential meets the low density Country residential and so if that rural residential with those two parcels right on the edge go all to the compact residential tax implications and are going to be Little to zero. And so if you're going to a de minimis standard, that kind of covers you that way. The market is going to decide what people are willing to pay for those properties, be it in real residential or whatever have you. It's not going to be based on solely a change in the land use categories. It's going to be based off of, okay, what now can I do on that piece of land? and if I can do something on that land that I can sell. So it's basically a two-part process.

And to go along with that, the land area that abuts a road, is far more readily developable than the back lots, because you'd have to build some sorts of roads out there. You'd have to get power to go out there. So when they're considering that, that's part of the market consideration. The back lots are not as valuable, because it would take more infrastructure investment to get those lots to be ready to be built. And so it doesn't simply by adding a little more that's still a backlog doesn't necessarily change the that's the in any significant way the taxes on it because of the where it is and whether it's developable without major investment and that's why when you drive down roads you see the houses right near the road some ways unless somebody wants a long drive sometimes some people do but Generally speaking, they stay within some reasonable distance of the road because the cost to develop it is substantially less than having to build way in the back and make a road to go through it. So it's a good question, Jane, but it doesn't necessarily have a significant impact. So the question is, if we want to do that, is sort of a diminishes standard, some ways around 20%, so we're not just going back and taking 50 or 60% and adding it to it, but rather it's a smaller portion of that lot.

If I can, I'm going to add one more thing. I think staff can do the obvious ones. There are thousands of lots that are maybe in this type of situation, and you have a time limit on that you're going on. And so we can do our best on getting the most obvious ones that we have found, but we cannot guarantee 100% accuracy. And so I think that would be reasonable. We won't hold you to 100%.

Because you are right, there's a lot of these lots. Okay, it would it be the pleasure then to give the dress staff some direction that they can make some adjustments on at least the obvious ones and long as they're not large sections of the lot, but they're a minor section of the lot and it correct some. some obvious difficulties by having certain lots split in odd ways that they could make some adjustments and show us the handiwork. Sounds good? Okay, you have direction. You have adequate direction? Yes, thank you. Yeah, okay. So are the balance of the ones, sort of these boundary line ones that you can take a look at?

Yeah, I think that we can come back with the final few pages included in a whole list of edits for these parcel boundaries, so we don't have to go through these right now. We did miss one in your packet, and I apologize. OK. So if we're comfortable moving on from cleaning up parcel splits, we'll move to the middle school year.

Oh, yes. Yes, we did.

And so this is currently, I believe, mixed-use residential today, and we'd like the committee to consider moving that from mixed-use residential to compact residential because it's a little bit of an island of mixed-use residential. We want some continuity here.

So, you know, this is on Court Street. Near Taylorbrook, Dawes and Allen Avenue are in that middle compact area that we changed. And then on the other side is the middle school area that's mixed-use residential. So that area that's currently white on the map that you're looking on the screen are those large lots, primarily large lots, that has very little access from Court Street. And the concept here is, would it make more sense, since it's more or less surrounded by compact residential, to make those compact residential as well, or make that area compact residential? Jeff?

So I'd make a couple comments about this. So those two large lots that border Taylor Brook are only accessible from a very, very narrow strip of land directly up against the bridge where Taylor Brooke goes under Court Street. That's your only access to those lots back there. So it doesn't seem that if, it doesn't seem that you would want the higher density for mixed-use neighborhood in that area that has very restricted access to it. When you get up on the other side, the back part of that lot already compact residential and the ones that border the street have houses on them now. So I don't know how we would support the higher density mixed use neighborhood in that area and how traffic could get in and out of that to service that.

Questions? Other thoughts? Rick?

Doesn't that also have pretty steep topography, too? I mean, I'm not familiar exactly with the land, but it seems like it would be pretty steep in there.

Yeah. Yes, I think that is correct, Rick. Any other questions? Any other thoughts? IS THERE A MOTION TO MAKE A CHANGE IN LAND USE CATEGORY? YEAH.

SO I MOVE THAT THE AREA SHADED GRAY BE CHANGED TO COMPACT RESIDENTIAL.

IS THERE A SECOND?

I'LL SECOND.

AND MOVED AND SECONDED. IS THERE ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? CONTRACTION TO THE SAME. IF YOU'RE IN FAVOR, YOU'LL RAISE YOUR HAND WHEN WE ASK FOR THE AYES. You'll raise your hand when we ask for the names all those in favor. It passes with one abstention that have been 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 to 1. Do we miss anything else that we should address Jeff.

Well, I think that the lady that's sitting in the back here re-indicated at the very beginning of the meeting that on our agenda was the area that she was concerned about. And I don't see it in the packet. Perhaps Lauren or Ally, if you could go to that. I think the area she's talking about is near the intersection of Hatch Road and Garfield Road. Can you zoom in on that a little bit?

I don't think it's in our packet, but we can discuss this if you would like.

Well, I think the chair indicated we would take this up later, and this lady's been patiently sitting here for two and a half hours waiting for us to get to that.

Yeah, if you zoom in.

Yeah, let's take a look at it.

You got it.

So I think if I understood her point, I think what she's pointing out is that these lots on each side of Hatch Road, they both border Garfield and they both border Hatch Road, and the strip zone splits it. And if you zoom out a little bit, you'll see from our prior discussions the neighborhood transition extends further to the south there. So I think that the question would be, should on that south side of the road, should the compact residential follow the contiguous line along those two parcels instead of being split longitudinally by the strip zone?

I'll note the colors are similar. This is residential corridor, so a moderate growth area, just so that committees, this is currently moderate growth, and then this is agriculture.

Right.

And the brown, yeah, sorry, I appreciate that correction, and the brown is also moderate growth, right? Yeah. So that's neighborhood transition going to the residential strip? Yeah, so I appreciate that clarification. I think that's still the question. This is kind of a little strange because of the way that the strip zone in effect follows the parcel boundaries but doesn't quite reach them.

This is a little bit different than some of the other Diminished changes in that it does add I don't know Can't tell by the size, but it adds a chunk of it changes a chunk of the agricultural to rural residential strip area Although it lines itself a little bit more with the Transitional zone that's abuts the rural residential zone. So this is a little bit more of a change in just the de minimis one, although it can be argued that it seems to be more consistent with aligning it up with the lines with the transition area a little bit more. So this is a judgment one. This is not immediately obvious to me, although I certainly understand why the owner would want to make a change. It's not just as immediately obvious, though there's an argument to be made for it. Dana?

Yeah, I think I'll just point out the, I mean, I just finished saying that, you know, within the last six years, we public process went right through the strip zones and whether we should extend them. Now, I think the thing that's different here, and I'm not really sure exactly how I feel about it, is that there's a direct street through this parcel that would go through the strip zone. And so I don't think there's another area in the city that has this exact circumstance. So yeah, it's a tricky one.

Yeah, Dana's point's a good one. Typically what we see with the strip zones is you would flip those lots 90 degrees, right? And they go in long ways from the street instead of along like you see here with Garfield Road, so it ends up with a very different type of split than what we've typically been seeing in strip cells. Yeah, so in the interest of time to get this on the table so we can see what the committee thinks about it I would move that we Remove the split in these Lots and make both of the Lots on each side of Hatch Road border and Garfield Compact strip no compact corridor. Is that correct? Residential corridor. Sorry. I got it now. Thank you. I

I second that.

Okay, so further discussion, questions and comments? Yeah, that's helpful. I'll just outline them so we see what we're looking at. The only caution I would have is that be careful if this sets a precedent because there will be others in this community who will say we have similar circumstances. We'd like you to be consistent. Now, I haven't looked at the whole map, so I couldn't tell you where they are, but... There's certainly an interest in folks who are in the some folks who are in a cultural zone to be able to build a structure.

I mean I guess looking at this for me that there still is the opportunity to build home on both of these so I think that You know, there's plenty of frontage that's not in the Ag zone, so it works for me.

I'm sorry, what was your point then? I didn't quite understand.

I think this is a change that is okay for me, so.

The change is okay, all right. Any other questions? All right, you ready for the question? If you're in favor of making this particular change, of extending that residential, rural residential area, you'll vote aye. If you're opposed, you'll vote nay. All those in favor of making the change? All of the polls want to pop. Okay, so I believe it's lost a member so it's 9 to 1. Anything else any of the business any of the land use changes here. One you want to talk about the potential future calendar would you like to do that.

Yes, so our next meetings will be August 18, the 25th, and the 9th. And on August 18, and in your committee packet beforehand, I'll have a schedule of what the adoption process can look like in a perfect world. So you kind of have a vision from August to December is what we're thinking. And so at the August 18 and the August 25 meeting, we'll be looking for your feedback on the draft plan so that'll be your committee packet is the plan in its entirety and then we'll integrate your edits into the september 9th meeting and depending on how september 9th goes we would then start a public hearing process and then fold in planning board and then after that city council um dana yeah is the is the condensed schedule here uh reflective of our contract with barry dunn is that why we're doing this

Why are we having so many meetings at once?

No, it's a little bit about schedule. We'd want to get this done before 2027, so in the fall months. But it's also to, the three meetings are to allow you to have enough time to discuss the plan and to integrate that feedback before then going to planning board and then city council. So it's a little bit of our scheduled and our contract with the consultant team, but also understanding that we've taken time to look through the plan, the future land use map, and so on.

Yeah, we're trying to also fit in a reasonable amount of time for the planning board. And DeCarlo has been very good about sending information in advance, so as it's available, so it's in more digestible chunks, so they can look at it. So we have the planning board that needs to review it. We have to spend some time, give them some time for that. There's also the question that the state requires a 30-day notice for the public hearings. So we've got to schedule our meeting in such a way so that we can allow for this 30-day period in the meantime the planning board needs to look at it planning board may have some comments those comments I believe should come back to this committee to consider those comments also can go to the to the city council as well and we have to make a decision on how we want to address those comments going forward so we need some time to do that and if there's some changes we would need to be making some tweaking to do that, this committee has to make a motion to accept the comprehensive plan in its draft, ultimate draft form, so that it can then go to the city council as well for a vote.

DeCarlo? So the draft will be available August 11th. Yeah. And once the draft becomes available, You all, obviously, are receiving the draft, and at the same time, I'm sending that draft to the planning board. And so during, you do have a joint?

Yeah, I can just, I'll walk through the schedule right now.

Yeah, it would work a lot better if we just worked.

I was gonna save it for August, but we'll do it now. So, city comprehensive plan, we'll see the plan. September 9th, if the committee, excuse me, can make a motion to open the public hearing, the public notice for the public hearing. So then we have 30 days of a notice, and then in mid-October, we'll have a public hearing, a joint public hearing between the comprehensive planning committee and the planning board. Within that 30-day period, so in September, The city council and the planning board will be presented the plan and kind of walk through the different steps and how to read it and work through it. The planning board will also have a workshop at this time in mid to end September. And then we'll have the joint public hearing between the complaint committee and the planning board. This is where things get interesting. So there can be substantive discussions Comments from the community where we say oh we need to have discussion with the committee This is this changes our direction of the comp plan potentially so that might lead to more meetings public hearings of the committee where we have to notice and so on of those meetings if In a perfect world the committee is happy. The community is happy. There's nothing substantial the minor besides minor word changes and so on and It's then, based on the order that was created, that created this committee, planning board is tasked with taking the plan and reviewing it, making recommendations to city council. And so after the public hearing on October 14th, if there's no substantial comments, you shift it to the planning board and that committee's work is done at that point. After planning board, if it doesn't need to go back to the committee, it moves to city council. If city council says, hmm, we want the committee to talk more about X, Y, and Z, we'll meet again. But if that doesn't happen, effectively your last meeting would be potentially October 14th, the public hearing day.

Yeah, yeah, just just sort of summarize that in order to meet the statutory requirements that the requirements in the council order and the procedures that are attended to the planning board in the city council proper. It's going to take a minimum of three and a half months from the time that this committee adopts a comprehensive draft plan, draft. It's gonna take a minimum of three and a half months if there's no substantive changes from the planning board or the city council that send it back to this body for further action. So it takes quite a while to go through all the hurdles on this.

So the purpose of this is to lay out a pathway one would be if it moves forward with general consensus the public and the boards required it will move along that quicker path although even that quicker path is to the end of this year but that doesn't mean simply because that's on the calendar if there was a need to do more extensive review that we wouldn't do it. We would. But we need to set up a path so we know which way we're going. And we don't know that until we get feedback from the public and the planning board, et cetera. So that's why we wanted to work with sort of setting out a calendar to meet all of the as Jeff said, requirements locally and at the state.

And I'll reiterate comments that we've made previously. The draft plan that you receive will hopefully not be surprising and nothing of new substance. It's all the conversations that we've gathered together. The chunk of it is the policies. The chunk of it is the future land use map. I think we'll be looking for comments on how the narrative

Speaks to the different conversations that we've been having how community engagement has been pulled and we've throughout the plan and so on As you Recognize there are several members from the City Council on this committee so there you are very aware and I'm sure we'll be able to share um your thoughts in regards to the comprehensive plan with your group as well as representate represents from the plan representation from the planning board here that was all done intentionally so that there would be an effort in a way by which other boards and authoritative bodies Legislative body will have some had some representation and input from their own members. So hopefully all of that works together to And an effort that this will not be a big surprise the folks when they see it they will have Heard a lot about it by that time So with that Are you ready to adjourn? Our next meeting is August 18th, right? Motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Second?

Second.

All those in favor? We're ready to adjourn.