Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Cole? Very good. Roll call, is that what that signal is? I believe. All right, we'll do a roll call first, starting to my left.

Chelsea Eaton.

Bob Hayes.

Bilal Hussain.

Ed Barra.

Maureen Hopkins.

Tim DeRoche.

Andrea Westby.

Thank you all. I'll take a motion on the minutes of July 30th. So moved. Moved, except the minutes of July 30th. Second. And moved and seconded. Any questions or comments regarding the minutes? If not, a motion's in order. It's been made and seconded. All in favor of the minutes? It's written. Thank you very much. That's unanimous. New business, public hearing, chapter 60, zoning amendment, proposed amendment to 60-145, parenthesis small b, parenthesis one, parenthesis b, to remove the limit of four persons employed at a sawmill within the Agriculture and Resource Protection District. The board has discussed this matter. This is a public hearing that would advance it to the city council upon our recommendation. I'll turn it over to staff for a summary. We'll take it from there.

Good evening. My name is Decarlo Brown. I'm the Director of Planning for the City of Auburn. With this portion, this is a public hearing to remove the limit of four persons employed at a sawmill in the Ag District. That's the only change that's being proposed. This is a chance for the public to speak on the proposed amendment. Then following the closing of the public hearing, you all can discuss if you would like to offer a recommendation to the Council.

Thank you very much. Have the staff received any comments from the public?

We've received no comments from the public.

We've discussed this before amongst us. It was brought to us by staff, the suggestion of the staff that we consider this amendment. Does anybody on the board care to discuss this further or to care to make a motion and then discuss it? Maybe we could have a motion. Motion to approve a recommendation to the council and then we'll discuss it.

Do we need to have the public hearing first?

Open the public hearing. Mr. Cleveland?

thank you very much we'll close the public hearing and thank you very much uh given that uh could i have a motion then we can have discussion amongst the board on this whether we make a recommendation to council or not i'll make a motion to approve the amendment to chapter 60 section 145 agriculture and resource protection use regulations to the city council second second

It's been moved and seconded to recommend this to the city council. Is there any discussion about this proposed amendment to remove the limitation of four people running a sawmill in the agricultural zone, agricultural and resource protection? Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the motion. All in favor in recommending this to the city council?

Yes, you're voting.

Unanimous, and I should have done this sooner. Chelsea Eaton will be voting this evening in the absence of Riley as a regular member. Thank you very much. Next item on our agenda is under new business. is item b draft comprehensive plan a discussion on proposed comprehensive plan uh specifically the future land use map we received the uh draft plan including this uh the map uh and the uh the section on the future land use and it's also been included in your packet here tonight so we will let the city planner guide us through that

Good evening. Okay, so currently you have a comprehensive plan committee who is drafting a draft comprehensive plan for the city. It will officially come to your hands after they're done their work and they recommend the handoff to the planning board. However, it's always in good practice to get it to you early and have enough time that you all can review the document and review certain pieces of the document that are more critical than not in the planning process. So the way that I would like to work at this evening is to split it up into two portions. One, if there's any initial general reactions to the draft comprehensive plan, try to get some information from you all who've had a chance to read it and go through certain sections or whatever have you. in a broad sense. And then in the second one, we have some questions about the future land use map that would kind of guide discussion about the future land use map so we can get a little bit more detail back from you all, the board. And we wanted to start the first portion first about if you all had any initial reactions to the document in general before we go to the land use portion.

Any general observations? I think we're prepared to jump into the future land use section of the plan.

All right. So for this portion, Sam has actually prepared a few questions that would start some conversation. And so I'm going to hand it off to our planning coordinator, Sam, to start our discussion.

Yes, so these questions are going in order of document. So starting with page 31, which is the map showing the growth area, high growth, moderate growth, and low growth. So high growth or growth areas, these are places in the city that will receive the most amounts of change and new development. Do you believe that the growth area shown here

Reflects the city's vision and where future growth and development will take place Can you enlarge the the plan at all so that I might ask a question about the lower I Guess would probably be the south west corner of the plan Absolutely, and then I also have

actual, this map that might work a little bit better for your purposes if you want to go into individual sections. One second.

Hmm.

All right, we are headed south.

So if you could run your cursor straight up, right there. What is that, where are we right there?

Sure, this is Haskell Corner, this is 11, and this is Fletcher Road.

What is it about that area and the area below it that sort of carves that out of the high growth area?

Okay, so this is actually the areas that are buffered from the road are more high growth because the idea is to make sure growth is closer to the roads as you get further away from the city center. And those areas that are a little bit outside of that are getting a little bit more bigger lot sizes and stature. And that's the main difference between the two. And that's why you don't see that coming up into the Haskell Corner area there. The idea is that development flows along near major roadways predominantly. So that's the general distance between the two. Down here is actually ag land, and over here we do have some residential development, but not at the scale that we would see along the roadways. What's the ag land? What's going on there? There is an active farm that's over in this area and a lot of this area is protected. It's flood plain and there is some shore land protections around here. And so you'll see a lot of this that follows this waterway. That's the LaVander Scoggin?

Yes. Sam, your question for us again.

The question was, do you think that the growth area aligns with the city's vision and is where future growth and development will take place? So do you believe it's aligned with where the city wants to grow, essentially?

It's a big question.

I guess I would say yes, but I guess then we have to look at the high growth, then moderate, and then low. I guess I'm a little concerned as to the amount of high growth, particularly under state regulations now that are being handed down.

So high growth in this, as a reminder, in your document is equal to the state's growth area. They're equal. The moderate growth is equal to transitional areas by the state standards, and the low growth is equal to the rural area for state standards. And in the document, in the appendix, we'll have a map that's literally says those things. But if you're looking for how that equals out, high growth is the growth area as far as state standards. Moderate growth is the transitional area. And then the low growth area is considered our rural area by state regulations.

So to the north, Route 4 goes through the city, and I think it's a very heavily traveled road it's four lanes it's probably the widest section of route four from the new hampshire border to lord knows where it goes in the other direction you know for 100 miles why would we not have an area like that designated as high

And so exiting from this way. So as a leading principle, it's the current areas that are either have access to public water and public sewer or are within 200 feet of those access points of water and sewer or are proposed for extensions. There's an active proposal for extension of those systems. And so when you're seeing the edge of this line, that's the edge of that 200, feet line from an existing water and existing water and sewer. And so this area does not have access to water and sewer. And a lot of it is encumbered directly by the watershed. Yes. Watershed protection. correct but they because they already have access to water and sewer those protections from our watershed by state regulations they won't apply to those situations

What will staff do? You asked us the question.

You're not getting much of a response from the board members.

Does the staff have an opinion on the high growth area and whether it's too big or too small?

Well, the growth area as it looks right now has come in from your current growth area, the one that is active today. So it is a thoughtful approach of how you are approaching growth in the future. Basically, best practices is to lead people and encourage people to develop where those services exist and on those major roadways and not to have major development away from those major roadways. You are a high service area, and so in looking at this area here, and the mall area is posed for a lot of redevelopment, infill development, and so that is appropriate. You have your downtown area that already has very small and block sizes and so it is appropriate for those those are already existing growth areas and then as you're extending down um you are going towards your major uh roadways and so that does make sense and then um coming out of uh out of the city proper um of downtown proper and going to the exit 75 where most of your traffic is it you know it is um It is best practice to have there. You have a lot of larger parcels in the area. And so you would imagine to see that type of development there. And some of this land is a little bit of cheaper to develop. And so there is plans to have access to water and sewer there. So those are the areas that you would imagine to have a lot of that infill rather than going out into your rural areas or your transitional areas. A lot of these areas do have access to water and sewer, and a lot of these areas, you will see here in your industrial area, that's gonna have a different type of growth. Every time we talk about growth, we're not just talking about residential, but we're also talking about commercial, and so we would imagine that you will have more growth around your airport and your industrial areas, too. And so that's why it extends this far west As you can see in your other maps, as we've gone through the exercises, it does start to make sense of making these areas some type of designated growth areas just because of the active development that is here and people are proposing to do. If the area is too big or too small, that's gonna be a policy decision and that is for you all to decide on where you want the growth or do you believe it is too big or too small. We're here to guide the discussion and to just provide some nuggets of wisdom and some things to think about as you're making your decisions.

So you said this is actually smaller than our current growth area?

Correct, yes.

What was the genesis to shrink it?

It was a mix between some areas where you didn't envision the state standards for the growth area. And to be honest, a lot of people don't, and no one did. These new state standards now have come in, and now we understand the requirements of these areas. And so it was a throw-it-forward approach of, OK, if an area is in the growth area we know that they are going to get those extra bonuses and so to be very thoughtful about where placing the growth area now and so that's why you'll see instead of more general lines around your growth area which is what we all are used to. It's more parcel by parcel now. And so it's really been an analysis of, okay, this is a good way to pull this back. And in other areas, it's been expanded just a little bit as well. These are areas that are appropriate to think about to growing.

I was going to say it does look large, but to me it makes sense.

Yeah.

And I like it.

I think to answer Sam's question, I think this growth area does reflect the direction that auburn needs to go in uh... but i also i don't think i can be the thousands of hours that the comp people put into trying to decide this, because it seems to me, and I've only lived in Auburn for about six years, but it seems to me like Auburn is probably a pretty weird size and shape, and then to also be blockaded by these huge swaths of undeveloped land because of the pond and the lake. So it's like this long, skinny... I mean, the reason that it is the way it is, it seems to me, is because this is almost the only way that this could go, just based on the shape and the geography. That's what it seems like to me. So I think to answer the question, yeah, it does fit the mold, because it kind of has to, because that's the only way you can go. That's my opinion. I have a question about what's happening down towards New Gloucester, but it's on the color-coded page, so I don't know if that's maybe a question for later, but I guess to give a long-winded answer, that's kind of how I interpret that.

Thank you.

Absolutely, and we will go into the individual land use characteristics after we talk about the more general.

Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about, the high growth zone by the exit. And of the three high growth zones, that's the one that seems not aspirational. fits like you said it fits there's water and sewer there's a lot of traffic and there's a lot of lots that are could be developed but that hasn't been developed yet whereas by the mall you can see infill and redevelopment with the mall closing and then downtown's is probably the most obvious place for the high growth so if that's what you're talking about that is something that'll allow for growth and fits the it hits all the checks all the boxes but it is i think especially if we in the in the block idea that we were speaking of earlier uh to develop a lot out there would take a lot of input i think so does throwing water actually run within 200 feet of the lost water and

So there are plans. It does a lot of this area, not 100%, but there are plans to extend water and sewer down this way.

So tell us about the genesis of that.

So council makes those determinations about, it goes into our CIP plan and It's in consultation with the water and sewer district and the will of the city of where to extend those utilities. Further than that, I'm not sure at this time, but I can get more information on how they develop where to extend water and sewer and how they're making those decisions.

Can we pull up the parcel viewer? Because you can pull the water and sewer on it. It gets... pretty far into that area. Give me one second. And when we were talking about extending wire in sewers, I forgot what the estimate was. It was like $800 or $1,000 a meter or something like that. It was a very steep cost. That decision, I don't think Auburn would make it alone. It sounded like there's a parcel on the corner of Park and Summer. is just outside, but it would be a combination of the developer and the city both putting money towards it, I think.

Yeah, at the scale of, if you are classifying this as high growth, of course you need a certain limit of density for it to pencil to bring those utilities down, but once you get past the threshold, it does make sense by the developer to bring down those utilities.

What are we looking at now?

so i'm sorry so the purple is actually uh areas that have water and sewer or within 200 feet of both water and sewer service and so there are areas outside of this purple that have one or the other water service or sewer service but the purple is the the areas that that either have access to both or within 200 feet of both services So you can see that it's already pretty extensive, and that starts to make a lot more sense of some more of these areas.

Do you know what the authority is of the water and storage district to extend lines? Are they on their own, extend lines over the border into another community?

I'm not sure. Good question. i'm informed that yes they do uh...

I want to echo what Chelsea brought up. By definition, Auburn has a lot of area. But from that, you need to take away two bodies of water. You need to take away a giant watershed boundary around the drinking supply. You have other areas that are not eligible due to Ag Zone protections. When we look at the reality of the developable land in Auburn, I think it falls right in line, honestly, because you need to take all those considerations into effect. A standard layperson would look at the map of Auburn and be like, oh my gosh, there's so much space. But there isn't when you have to take all those limitations into account. So the growth area makes sense, and it's also limited by the limitations that we have due to the bodies of water and the watershed and Ag Zone protections.

Thank you for better putting what I was trying to say. At least I know somebody understood what I was trying to say.

It sounds like the board thinks that that's the proper size. All right, thank you.

So the second question pertaining to The map is on the moderate growth and low growth areas. The moderate growth is what the state calls transition. So these are areas that are not going to receive as much development as the growth area, but they're still going to receive some development. These are the areas shown in the yellowish color. And then the low growth areas, which are areas that are not going to receive growth. There are really areas that are protected from new development. Those are shown in the brown. So the question is if anyone has any thoughts or comments on the locations of these areas shown on the map.

I do. I'm curious about the entire eastern shore of Taylor Pond being moderate growth. I know it's not a drinking water supply, but it still has water protections. Having intimate knowledge of many people out there, there are a lot of building limitations to around that body of water. And I'm curious how that's considered moderate growth when it's highly regulated.

So I can answer some of that. The idea, at least from the eastern, this area, why it's moderate growth, by state law, Taylor Pond is not going to be one of those waivers. And so by state law, we have to allow lot sizes of 10,000 square feet if they have access to water and sewer. And the density, it's pretty much like one per 10,000 thousand square feet and so that is not a low growth ability um it's not it's not a low growth it's hard for me as a planner to make a rational argument that a quarter acre lots it's going to be low And so I believe the committee in sensing that did not put it into high growth. And so they say, OK, we're going to allow these areas to get the bonuses from state law. And that is reducing those lot sizes down to about a quarter of an acre and have that density. But we know we can't make a rational argument that it's going to be ag protected or low growth. And so I think that was the compromise for the eastern and southern portions of Taylor Pond. And then you'll see on the western side that it is a little bit more protected.

That's the lack of water and sewer.

Correct. Okay. Correct.

So we had a conversation, you and I, after the last meeting about Taylor Pond, and if I understood you correctly, you can have an ADU on an existing parcel that is an improved lot right now.

Correct.

So you could. I just wanted Tim to hear that.

Yeah.

Any parcel, residential parcel, state of Maine, that has a single family dwelling on it is required, municipalities are required to also allow an AD to go on it.

But there's no parentheses around shoreline or anything like that.

So the parentheses around shoreline is that it also has to, shoreland protections, So in those areas that are unseptic, there's a minimum size of the lot for each dwelling. But that does not mean that a municipality can restrict an ADU from going on the lot. It means that there's other requirements for you before you can have that ADU.

So there are additional protections is what I'm hearing you say.

Correct. Yes, there are additional protections, but I just wanted to make a differentiation between. Okay.

Thank you.

That additional protection that while you can have an accessory dwelling, you have to have a 20,000.

If you do not have access to water and sewer. So the shoreland regulations then are in play.

So along the eastern shore of Taylor Pond, accessory dwelling units would be. Correct. I don't want to generalize.

Yes, but in a general sense, yes. Other caveats are always. Right. Caveat, caveat.

So when we talk about low growth areas, It also seems to carry with it zoning restrictions such as you've got to have a three acre lot and 325 feet of . As opposed to a lesser size. Yet everything else that we're discussing, like for the high density areas, seems to be driven by sewer and water. So why does our ordinance impose greater lot sizes and road frontage requirements on rural areas i'll use that general term rural when we don't expect development out there anyway but we're discouraging it by imposing these larger lot sizes and additional road frontages and making it less likely because of that that a farmer might be able to sell his land and have a subdivision.

And so I would say that it's a policy decision by you all, the city of Auburn, that you want to keep those areas And one of the ways that you can do so is imposing certain land use restrictions, such as lot frontage requirements or lot width requirements here in an area per dwelling requirement. In essence, what that does is that that maintains larger lot sizes and the The attempt is to ensure that the spacing of the improvements are farther away from each other to keep the rural character of those areas. And so that is the theory behind having more restrictive requirements in your rural areas, because if you have smaller lot sizes and smaller frontage requirements, then the structures themselves can be closer to each other, and then it stops being rural, and it may start being into a different classification. suburban or even going towards urban or a different scale of environment. And that's a policy decision. Rural areas are not all the same, and people define rural differently. And so that's why you'll see your specific lot size requirements and lot frontage requirements may be different from other communities in what they will consider rural. For instance, where I'm from, far away from here. Our rule requirements were 20 acres per dwelling, and it was a lot more land area, but it was 20 acres per dwelling, and that kept land in very, very large blocks. I do not believe that you have such large requirements here um but that's just an example of you have those in another community that i was a planner the largest lot sizes were three acres because their idea of rule is is three acres apart that was a much more built up place and they were closer to being together and so anything over an acre size was enormous um and so it is going to be um It's going to vary on your preferences as a city on what you exactly you consider to be rule and then you're going to apply Justifications and regulations to make that a reality We know if any owners rural areas that are subject larger lot sizes larger greater frontages are in favor of that

I'm trying to think of the last time the AG zone regulations came up. A lot of it's AG and there are people who have bought land with the restrictions that exist but feel that they're not able to realize the full value of their land because of these restrictions and In almost all cases, they bought it when those restrictions were in place. But there's quite a voice of people who would like to not have those restrictions on their land.

What does it really add up to? 200 feet of frontage versus 325 feet of frontage. So you're gonna have two houses and a 600 foot stretch of road rather than three. I don't see the big difference between a rural character being established if you have two houses, but a suburban character being established if you have three in the same.

It is you all's world, I just live in it. If you'd like to change it, I'm here to help. And so just let me know. How would you go about that? Changing the regulations? Well, you all are the planning board. And so how you change regulations is just like how we started to do tonight. You would talk about regulations. You would put forth some language that you would like to put forward to the council. You have a public hearing, and you forward it to the council for possible adoption.

But we're discussing the comprehensive plan, and anything that we might propose six months from now has to be consistent with that comprehensive plan. Correct. And if you can point to paragraphs in the comprehensive plan that discourage growth, not just because they call it low density, but because there's verbiage in there that says the city does not want growth of any greater density than three acres and 325 feet of frontage on the road, then it's dead on arrival.

correct um which is why we don't go so specific in the comprehensive plan to call out numbers of three acres or five acres of ten acres in this document today um but uh you're hitting on something that we've we asked about now as about are these rule and moderate growth areas appropriate would you like to see more or would you like to see less this is exactly what we're talking about tonight about these areas and how you would like them to change or how you would like them to stay consistent.

My view is that it's appropriate for the present time, but the current zoning scheme unduly inhibits an individual's desire to develop his or her land, even if they did buy it. We can still label it low density. No problem with that. But for us to sit here and tell Farmer Jones that he shouldn't be able to develop his land to the extent that others can, I don't think that that is necessarily

Okay, but I think we have to Recognize at the same time and I think the council runs into this they have to prepare a budget to provide the services They were rendering to the residents of the city the further we extend residential or commercial or industrial, there's an expense to do that. So I think that especially with the size of the community that we have, 64 square miles, and where we do have two water bodies that we have to work around that, you know, I think particularly from the council perspective in preparing a budget, it comes to busing and maintenance of roads and servicing snow plowing and so forth so that's why i think again we are trying to concentrate you know development within the growth area because that's where we now have services provided and yes there'll be increased but we're not adding a lot to mileage and so forth that would be required with greater residential development, particularly to the outskirts.

I'm mindful of your earlier comment that we have enough roads to stretch from here to Baltimore. But the fact is that if there's one house at the edge of town, we're sending the school bus out there to get that and drive it by. a lot of developable land that we're really inhibiting the development of. We're sending that school bus to that snowplow

I'd point to the road maintenance part. Asphalt has gone up, I forgot what it was, like 30 or 40% and the price of it and our budget to take care of all that roads hasn't gone up and no one wants to pay taxes. And the roads that service those farther out areas are the ones when you add traffic to will suffer. And so there's a balance there too.

I suspect that every road in the city is getting paid about every five to 10 years anyway. And in my experience, we've done a great job paving the roads to mine it.

I think we need to keep in mind that our primary role is planning and permitting not budgeting and if we give opportunity to Potential homebuyers or developers and there's a need they'll find a way right I'm thinking So so our role here as planners tonight is to to

get your responses to this document as a body. And it sounds like we're going around this point of, if I can be so bold, Ed, that you would like to see residential uses a little bit easier to do That's fair to say. Right? And I kind of want to hear from more people if that is your thinking as a body, and so I can give that feedback to the Comprehensive Planning Committee.

I absolutely agree with the Chair on that point, on what you just spoke about people being able to use their properties equally among the municipality, akin to what the point Ed's been making.

And I would respectfully disagree with both. I am unmoved by someone not being able to use their property for something that they've not been able to use it for since they purchased it. This is like someone buying next to an airport and then complaining about the noise.

It's a lot easier to change the zoning ordinance requirements than it is to dampen the noise from a jet engine.

I think I agree more with Maureen. I don't think it's the board's responsibility to ensure that any, it's not our responsibility to make sure that any given landowner can do XYZ. It's their land. It's been restricted or not for umpteen years and maybe they've even purchased it, as I think Riley mentioned, knowing that there's restrictions on it. It's not our responsibility to change that for them. But maybe there's something I'm not understanding about what you're saying, Ed, because what I'm hearing is you're just saying, why can't anybody with two or three acres just build? And it's like, well, if we're going to go down that road, why do we even have zoning? Like, why are we even all here? And I'm not arguing, I'm trying to understand, because I think I'm not understanding. I'm not arguing at all. What would be the point then of having any of this if we're just going to say, well, if you have a parcel of land and you live in Auburn, you can build your thing.

I think zoning is more intended to regulate the use of the plan. And we already allow residential use. We're simply restricting the density, if you will. And I'm simply saying that if somebody wants to take a chance that people are going to buy lots in rural Auburn, and we're all about creating housing opportunities, then I'm not sure why we have to limit that artificially

I want to be clear too. I was I was speaking specifically about the case I was speaking about was someone talking about the zone their land is in the AG zone and Auburn has a very long history with the AG zone and there's a lot of Public support for the AG zone and so the City Council would has to pass anything we do and I actually would be in favor of increasing the density in some of the places, but not the Ag Zone, just because of the amount of time and effort that's been put into creating that zone and stuff. So that's what I was saying, because the Ag Zone's been in place, I don't have the date, but for a very long time. And so I don't, I'm not against anybody wanting to maximize the value of their land, but the THAT WASN'T THE CORRECT UNDERSTANDING.

I guess you know we're concentrating for our reading you know for future land use but I guess it would be important I haven't done it and it's going to take more reading of the comprehensive plan as a whole to go back to what was the public input to the committee so I hope the committee come up based upon some of the public input So I think it would be important for us to understand the input that's already been received by the comprehensive committee that's now reflected in these maps.

One comment I do want to say is that this rural growth area that you see on your screen, the darker color, is your Ag Zone. In your current zoning, it is your Ag Zone. So those two are pretty much matching up right now.

Thank you. Yeah, just following the discussion, I'd say I'd agree with our chair that it's not up to the city or any government body to dictate what Farmer Joe can build on his lot and what have you. I'd like to see more kind of residential development, when allowable, definitely not in the Ag Zone, but in those low density areas that we have, to have that in place. And then I just want to comment about what we talked about earlier about the high growth. It's my understanding from being on the comp plan and understanding, you know, seeing all type of numbers and data points, and staff can correct me if I'm wrong, And this also goes to a point earlier, I don't know who said it, but somebody mentioned about we're not a finance board. We're definitely in charge of the, once we move from the comp plan process, it'll be in our possession and then we go to the city council with it. Every two years, every five years, CIP, the city manager presents to us to be presented to us and we provide input on that, which needs to be consistent with the comp plan. That ties back into your point about where these investments are gonna happen. So my understanding with the state statute is that 50%, at least 50% of the CIP budget must be in the designated growth area, which is our high growth area. So I think it would make sense just my opinion, I'm not speaking for any board or anything, but I think it would make sense for the high growth area to be larger than it is now. I don't know what that's gonna look like, but if we were going to have public investment in these areas that we wanna see, it makes sense to grow that area so we have that,

Just for my benefit, could you say that again about there's a certain percentage of our- At least, yeah.

So at least 50% of the capital improvement projects need to be tailored within that high growth area.

So the expenditure of the capital has to be within the high growth area. Yeah. I can't let it go without observing, Riley, I've driven around this community for years and years and years, and I'm somewhat familiar with this Ag Zone. I don't see much agricultural activity in the Ag Zone. It seems to be a zone that's dressed up as a conservation district, more than an agricultural zone. Other than haying fields, gentlemen farmers, I don't see a lot of agricultural activity within the city of Auburn. I may be missing. I may not be driving down the road.

I don't disagree with you, but there's a lot of public support for it. I'm just telling you the situation. I'm not sticking up. I don't want to be the spokesman for the- You should be here to tell me that.

long time that maybe that zone has been misnamed or shortened to ag zone but it's really agriculture natural resource protection so when you take in not just ag but the natural resources topography forestry whatever wetlands so it's not just ag land that we're protecting it's the full basket of natural resources And actually, even those natural resources include the city's ability to reach out into those areas. Again, it comes down to the cost factor of providing services too.

Do we have a map, not tonight necessarily, but do we have something that would show the natural weapons inventory or something more specific that would show the areas of the city of Auburn?

So in the comp plan itself, there is a natural resources map, and there's a section on natural resources itself. So if we go into that section of the comp plan, it starts describing the wetlands, the vernal pools, the endangered species, the watersheds that are sensitive for water quality, water source for the entire city. So that's the water, that watershed, the Lake Auburn watershed. The Taylor Pond has its own restrictions for the water quality of Taylor Pond and that extends out more than where Taylor Pond is. And then we have a series of wetlands and rivers that go throughout the city, both in the growth area and outside of the growth area. And so that map is, a lot of that data is in the current comprehensive plan draft that's been provided so i would say that's why i love having this conversation so early and so these comments and these questions come up and i can point to those so when we talk about it again you're ready to go oh okay well this is the information we had um and this will prepare you to make your official recommendations um in october one the the plan is given over to this body

Just generally, any thoughts or comments on the locations of moderate growth and low growth?

Is that moderate growth to the south? That's Riverside Drive, right?

Yes.

Oh, Riverside Drive, sorry. Yeah. Yes.

Okay. I have seen more development on there, like more houses being built.

Sorry, my mind is on Pownall. On what? Pownall. Oh. So yes, and people are attracted to the water. would expect to see a little bit more development or closer to water sources then does flooding play any yes yes and so this is the you can see the flood plains the natural the special hazard flood hazard areas are jutting out and interrupting those areas that are close to the water because those have federal protections that are involved in that and and shoreland protections. And so those are areas that are, again, for water quality requirements, EPA, Water Act, et cetera, et cetera. You'll see it interrupting the road in certain places because water really doesn't abide by our idea of where the road or development should be.

Well, I think you've gotten the board's feedback on that particular question. Thank you.

If you go to the document, so the next questions I have deal with the land use categories. So this comp plan divides high growth, moderate growth, and low growth into several different categories. So starting with the high growth, categories. If you had a chance to read through these descriptions, the question really is about what your opinions are of what's written. And are there any types of development that are not mentioned here that you would want to see here? And this is pertaining to the high growth land use categories.

And descriptions of each of these are provided in the packet for tonight. so you understand what we mean when we're saying high-density core and downtown, et cetera, et cetera. Industrial is kind of self-explanatory, but the other ones do need some explanation.

This might be where I ask my question about what's going on down by the New Gloucester Town line. On the color-coded map, there's a, yes, on the New Gloucester Town line, there's a red and a yellow section right on the line. And my question is, and I'm sure there's a reason for this, but I don't know it. Why wouldn't those two sections, the red and the yellow, which is high density and some kind of residential, why wouldn't those two right there be inverted so that the high density is all on one tract with industrial to its back and then the residential is in its own And the residential would not be surrounded by industry and business and it would have then it's It would have basically I think AG behind it Does that make sense?

It's a good question the committee did you know discuss this and this is one of the ways that they decided to more go this route. We're really interested in your opinion of it. I mean, because you're pointing out, like, is this something that you would like to see switched over, or?

Well, I guess for me, and again, with no other information, and I think Riley has the information, but just looking at it, it seems logical to me that the high density would all be on one tract with the industrial and that the residential can avoid being in an island of industry and be over here with a more chill place to live with some ag behind it. But I'd like to know why it's like that.

The airport. So the high density allows for taller buildings to be put in, is that, is the small mic over there? Like on the stand, can I get up?

Yeah.

But just be careful because when you start pointing, everyone turns their face away from the mic.

All right, that's good. So the airport's right here, and actually, prior versions of this map had this residential zone following Foster Road out to here, but we had a presentation from the airport manager, and there's a runway. Actually, you can kind of see it right here that... Has a potential for higher capacity of these larger flights that I bring get As so long as but that that needs a lower Landing angle and so we move this back to industrial to prevent to have the height restrictions that that includes and I believe that the reason that this is not high density is for the same building restriction rules Sounds right.

I have not been here through the entire process, but we do have someone here that has been here throughout the entire process, both Bilal Riley and our Comprehensive Planning Committee Chair. So if you permit it, maybe he can speak a little bit about this reasoning between the two?

We'll allow it.

OK.

thank you because that does help clarify because yeah yeah I think anyway thank you let me just make an observation before you start John couldn't you resolve that by just putting a height limitation on the on the high density uh use correct moving it to as Chelsea says the other side of flip-flopping them and you just limit the height whatever otherwise allowed in this room

There is a height limitation, but it's just higher. It's a higher one because they want to be able to have, in the high density, they want to have the first floor be able to do the retail and then have residential above it in the high density areas. So those are, I believe it's four stories in those zones. And the Foster Road section that we took out, the airport manager was worried about even two-story or three-story buildings being put up because it would So it was a very small amount of room between the height restrictions.

I think Chelsea was referring to a little bit on this side, correct?

Yes, and I get everything Riley has said, and it makes sense. I still don't think I fully understand why those two, the red and yellow, aren't just inverted. But I think we're gonna find out.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. And I hope that I will try very hard not to abuse the privilege you've extended. So if you look at the yellow area, you can see there are a lot of roads in that area. And the reason that there are a lot of roads in that area is quite a bit of housing in that area, more in a rural kind of atmosphere. Because of the smaller size lots and the fact that residential already exists there, it would be more difficult to say now we're going to make this extremely high density, the red. I'll explain what that red high density is. On the other side of the road, of course, this is Route 202, the main route that goes to New Gloucester. Across the street, what you'll notice is large lots. Those lots are undeveloped lots. Route 202 is one of the highest traffic areas within the city coming from there. And, of course, just up the road is the Exit 75 Turnpike entrance. So the red area, there's three of them. in the city and why this was designated that way is because of the infrastructure already out there, power, water, sewer, transportation, connection to the interstate, it makes it a very prime location for development. The idea of making it red is to allow it to be really the highest density so that the buildings can go up higher and there can be more units within that area. And mostly for commercial kind of activities that might occur around interstate intersections. If you go up towards Augusta and towards where their civic center is and their malls, these are often places where it's convenient for people to get in and off the highway to go to particular commercial kind of areas or hospitality centers or that kind of thing. So the idea is to maximize the value of those lots and to encourage high density development both for growth within the city This could be residential, too, by the way. When I say those are red, there's no reason the upper stories could not be residential areas in any of these areas. So that's the reason why it's yellow on one side because there's housing there and red on the other side because it's larger vacant lots.

Thank you. Question?

Can I comment on yes, so thank you for that explanation because that makes a lot of sense to me and I think I agree with it I would Like to discuss why we couldn't then Turn the red area where the cursor is now that whole red swath is Why couldn't or wouldn't we turn that into a yellow residential area with a block style? I think DeCarlo's been teaching us a lot about this new concept of blocks. Because we have big lots there, you could have a lot of residential there. Keep the red up top and just turn the red where the cursor is into more residential because I do think we need Housing I don't think I have any argument against Housing and there's been a lot of discussion tonight about housing and providing more opportunity for that and I I'm just struggling with the idea of The example that's given in the packet about what might be what it might look like in a red zone area, I'm just having a hard time envisioning that down there in basically New Gloucester. And I'm also, I'm sorry, I'm going on really long, I'm really sorry. I'm also just shooting ideas out. The plaza that's directly off the Turnpike right now that has a relatively new Dunkin' Donuts and there's a three building strip mall in there. There's at least one or two of those that are still empty that have never been leased. I'd like to just concentrate the red in that one red area instead of trying to keep going towards New Gloucester with these kind of huge, like... I'm going on too long. I think you guys understand what I'm getting at, but...

I'm sorry. Please, go ahead.

Those good points, Chelsea. The other thing that we're trying to work with here, excuse me, is that the comprehensive plan is for at least a 10-year period. Oftentimes, they go beyond that 15. Our current one was way beyond 10 years. So part of what we're trying to do is to look into the future. Nobody has a perfect crystal ball about what it's going to be like or how fast it will happen or in what areas. So trying to look for not only the next two, three, or four years, but for the longest period of time, we're trying to take a look at what would be the areas in that kind of time period where there might be an opportunity if it was properly, if the land use was properly categorized for the most intense use. And again, because it's on such a high value area of access to the interstate, And that this is one of the major routes through town. Utilities nearby could be extended to those lots. Comprehensive plan committee felt we ought to say what parts of the community provide the biggest opportunity, both for providing services and housing and needs of the community, but also add ample opportunity growth that provides funding and more revenue for the city as well as providing services and facilities of public needs. so looking at it in a 10-year time frame that that's why we thought that that made it appropriate thinking in the future that would continue to grow and you've seen some growth there already in that area just to just to add on to what we're seeing here is um some context of how development is done

And modern development is done with major developers. And so when you have larger parcels, usually the way development is no longer happens in these big incremental spurts. And so the way cities traditionally were expanded was I make a townhouse building and then my neighbor connects to my party wall. and then that continues on and it eventually creates a city. The way development is done now, any larger types of development, it's done at a much larger scale. And so what you're seeing here, and as John kind of alluded to, is that because this is a residential area, you will see a lot more infill development, but you won't see a bigger developer come in and go, Well, I'm going to do a large subdivision right here because it's just not enough undeveloped parcels space and it's not directly on like a collector road that had that can take all that traffic coming in. What you have here with the committee has decided because it has direct access to 95, which is a key point, and it has undeveloped land, and it has access to water and sewer to pull down, you do have those opportunities where a bigger developer will come in with a bigger project. In the compact residential area, you don't allow some of those commercial uses that you will allow in some of the other areas in your growth area. In your urban core, you allow the most different types of commerce that you would regularly associate with larger places like major retail development and things like that. What the committee has really gone towards is that these do present an opportunity where you're next to 95 exit 75, and you have some area that some larger types of development can happen at more at one time rather than incremental. In other parts of the city that are not red, you'll see development happening, but you'll see it at one small parcel at a time. We're seeing that more. We're seeing that more towards your current retail center. Like one parcel will be divided by one developer. And the money makes sense because they're getting enough eyes. People are already coming for commerce, right? But you won't get a huge developer coming in, except if someone decides to buy the mall. But again, that's because the parcel is already bigger and you can do more things with it. And so the thought behind that is having these larger parcels be available for those type of major development may lead you into, in the next 10 years, a major development coming in closer to exit 75. i just want to provide some type of maybe some justification for maybe why the committee went that way um i was actually not here when they decided this but i can definitely see the logic behind hey we have undeveloped land that's next next to 75 and has access to water and sewer and doesn't cause a traffic problem coming into the city and so that's probably another concern of going well if we develop heavy somewhere else that's closer on washington street right closer on the exit 75 then we have to worry about more of this traffic coming in and out of the city but because it's on that other side going down you have the opportunity um to add more more traffic load into that collector road and you don't want you don't have to upgrade it so much as

No. Sorry, I saw him go for the mic. Just to add, I'll tag onto that, DeCarlo. I think one of the other discussion points of the committee was that no real welcome to Auburn when you're coming off the highway. It's just coming from one highway to another highway, and so part of the logic of having a high-density core would be to have those restaurants, those amenities, large apartment buildings for people to live and also have access to those amenities and just kind of slow things down. Coming into this.

I guess I was having trouble differentiating two yellows that are in play. Yes. So we have a compact residential in a residential corridor.

Correct.

Did you point out the two different?

Yeah, so the compact residential is within the growth area. And you'll see that inside of our growth area here. And those are places that are closer to your core of your city center. And then you'll have these strips that are extending outwards. And this is one that is the most confusing because it splits right here. And this is actually that residential corridor And those are residential places that are on existing roads, but those are much lower growth. And it's not the same scale at all. We have remarked maybe changing the color, so there's a little bit more differentiation there, so the confusion isn't so high. So in other areas you'll see here, this is not a compact residential. This is that residential corridor in the lower growth area.

Okay, thank you. I guess going back to the two positives that we've been focusing on, I understand the arguments for the two colors. I guess there is a concern if that does develop into providing restaurants or service centers. Again, it's across from residential. To me, I think there is some logic to consider high density residential along that area. Two reasons. One, it's opposite the highway with residential. Also, our bordering community is residential both sides. The issue, I would think, that if you introduce high intensity residential and commercial, That's a busy highway now, the traffic coming down across the Royal River, it's definitely 55 if not, 50, 55 if not more. So I think there'd be more conflict introducing commercial through that strip as opposed to helping or encouraging residential, high density residential. and keep, once you cross the railroad, then you get into the commercial area, you've got a light further down that begins to slow the traffic down. So I guess I would be supportive of seeing yellow on both sides of coming in from New Gloucester.

One other thing I will remark about that is that whenever you introduce commercial uses, the traffic will slow down, and also it becomes a destination to provide services. And so if you do start providing services up this way near the exit, you will have less people trying to go down your Washington Street to your course, which can result in less traffic during, those roadways because they don't have to go so far to receive the services right now everyone to get to retail services has to not only go down washington but go through your city and then go up to your your retail center here so this does provide a different option in another part of your city that that uh that the location can go towards rather than having to go through another one of the reasons why speed is so high it's because you have to get so far to get to services and you want higher speeds to get there, you wanna be able to get into city centers very, very quickly to get to the services. But they provide a destination for people, they don't have to travel so far to get there. And you have a public bus stop there, the lap bus stops there, and so there's the opportunity to get public transportation going this way as a location and then you don't have to go so far to get onto the highway GO BACK TO THE MAJOR CITY CENTER.

I HAVE A COUPLE OF OBSERVATIONS. NOTHING TO BASE THIS ON, BUT I DON'T THINK THAT THERE'S AS MUCH TRAFFIC PASSING THROUGH OUR DOWNTOWN TO GET TO OUR CURRENT RETAIL AREA, WHICH I'LL SAY IS NORTH OF DOWNTOWN. IN OTHER WORDS, IT'S NOT AS MUCH SOUTH TO NORTH TRAFFIC AS IT IS EASTWEST TO NORTH TO SOUTH TRAFFIC. I'm not convinced that you're going to reduce traffic in the Washington Street area with this. What's it currently zoned? The red parcel. What is it? What is the current zoning?

So the red parcel, I believe, is currently zoned. I'll bring it up here.

Rural residential.

So these red right here are the parcels that we were talking about, and they're currently ag, but there's no farms there.

Currently ag. Correct. So we don't know if anything, we're talking about high rise developments or compact residential, none of which is allowed right now. Correct. So not like we can look to the past and say that hasn't worked because we haven't allowed anything.

Ag zone.

Correct. Why can't we have a zone that allows the compact residential that's currently yellow as well as the high density red? In other words, hey, have at it. Let's see what's going to actually happen out there. Maybe a developer would want to build a 50 lot subdivision with individual homes. as much as a developer would want to build a mixed-use building. Frankly, what I see, we're not getting many mixed-use proposals in this city. What we're getting are 96-unit residential buildings far flung out and, you know, they should be downtown and they're miles from downtown. And I'm just, I don't see that as a positive use of that property.

One thing I'll say, and this is not about the property, but why can't we have a zone that you can do basically whatever you want?

No, I don't mean whatever you want.

Well, residential and commercial, you can decide, right? Your general business district does that, actually, all throughout town. And in general business district, you do have a current density allowance of 17 units an acre, but you allow all types of commercial in each of those zones. What usually happens is that people generally haven't taken advantage. Usually when developers are coming in, they see what are the design requirements, and I will build my buildings towards the design requirement. If not, then what developers do is that they go back on what has been profitable for them to develop in the past, and they'll repeat that in your jurisdiction. And I'll tell you right now what has been profitable to build in this part of New England the United States right now are single-family subdivisions because the builders know how to build them they have been doing it so long and they know their profit margins and They know how to build them very quickly and and very to them cheaper and their assurance that they're going to get their return on that if you want something different than that and in a form that's not going to have uh... cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets and you have to direct them to do something different and they'll build to that uh... what's more important to developers is that you have very clear regulations and very very clear steps to to build and to develop and exactly uh... uh... which form the the difference between i want to do a mix use area or whatever have you as long as they that you have a clear understanding in a in a way for them to to go and that they can prove themselves to be profitable by building this one building type or this two building types, then they will continue to build those. And I'll bring up one developer I know who has been developing all throughout this state and New Hampshire is, and you all know the name, he's redeveloping all of the old mill buildings, Chenberg. Because he started with one and he did that and it's profitable. Okay, I can do it again. I can do it again. I can do it again. And now he's the guy who redevelops this type of development. And that's usually how these type of businesses work is that you find your niche and then you start doing that. If... you guys you all the city and regulations works as a market monitor which is you're setting the rules of the market um and you're setting incentives and disincentives the type of developments that you want to see and then operating within that market are are the The people basically building products and selling products. And if they can make a profit, they will do so based on the rules of the market that you've set up. And that's what really land use development regulations are. They're rules for the market.

If I understood you correctly, I'm surprised to hear that a profitable avenue for developers is single family subdivision. In other words, lots on the ground and homes built. And I think that personally that's much more attractive to me from a social standpoint than a 96 unit apartment complex where people are renting as opposed to owning, having an opportunity to build an equity and move on if it's a starter home or stay there and reap the benefits of home ownership if there is such a thing. I would like to see as much opportunity as possible for single-family development in this city, and I think that's a prime area where that ought to be possible. So if it means broadening the uses allowed in whatever zone you call it, as you're coming into Auburn from New Gloucester, I don't care what you call it so long as it includes single-family housing.

Yeah, and so in that instance, what you can do is what a limiting factor is sometimes are height requirements, right? Stick-built homes is from one level to, you can say four if you're doing podium, and then it goes, you have a jump. It's no longer profitable to do five. You'll have to jump to a seven or eight story. and the more you open up those regulations in the market, the more that operators can come in and say, okay, I want to build this. And so in your instance, you would like lesser of those restrictions. As a reminder, this area is going to be in the growth area. And so everywhere in the growth area that has access to water and sewer, our minimums have to go down to at least 50 feet wide, 100 feet deep unit lots, which is equal to 32 units an acre. And so there's going to be plenty of opportunity within the city because of your larger lot sizes in the growth area for single-family home development. There is not a lot of places in your city for higher height development. So you do restrict those to your downtown area right now and to your zones that are basically T5 and above. That's when you are starting to get bigger heights. And so if you are for lesser restrictions and letting people build buildings basically what is profitable for the for them and allows different people to have to build some equity and as we know it used to be you can buy a condo for cheap and that's how you got into the door and then you sell your condo you can get into a single family home a smaller starter home get a bigger one providing that big range of housing choices may be the way to go but This is your city. I'm here to help. So when you all are directing me of going like, hey, you know, we wanna make this type of recommendation, I will provide that to the committee and to the council.

John, can the comp plan take up the hearing tonight?

I'm sorry?

Will the comp plan committee be able to consider some of the comments that you're hearing tonight before we get

Yes, the process will be for you to make recommendations, specific recommendations, and those will both be considered by the comp plan and as well as by the city council. And of course, I think as you know, we're going to have joint session with the city council and the planning board to discuss the comp plan. As well as a joint public hearing that's required. So we're going to get input from the public. All of those things that come to the Comprehensive Plan Committee will consider them.

As I understand the process, and I may not understand it correctly. At some point we get we get your proposed comprehensive plan and if we choose to make. Changes to that that's what goes to the city council that right.

You'll make recommendation yet you may choose to make recommendations for changes that. um that will go also for the comprehensive plan to look at them and comment on them um and because ultimately the comprehensive plan committee has to say this is the plan that we adopting this then to the city council as well so yes i think that we're

We're not seeing it the same way. And I'm going to defer to you for the time being. Yeah, but I think it's the planning board that makes the recommendation of the comprehensive plan to the city council, not the comprehensive plan committee.

So so what happens in what the order says is that the comprehensive planning committee is charged with the drafting of the plan. The plan then is given to to the planning board for official comment and recommendations, so not an approval recommendation, just your recommendations on the plan, and the plan and the recommendations then go to the council for their decision. And so that's the route.

So John's right. Yeah. I'll give him credit. I mean... I just want to know what our role here really is and when these recommendations need to be made and to whom.

October 14th is the official handoff from the Comprehensive Planning Committee to you all, and then that's your official time to make your official recommendations. Please make them by vote as a body, which makes it a lot easier for staff to write them down and provide to you.

is anything that we're doing now. Going to impact with the conference of playing committee is going to give up or we just it means Robin.

No, so it is for everyone. One of the reasons that you were giving given this plan early and this future land use map early is to give some initial feedback. So for to staff and the Comprehensive Planning Committee can hear that feedback. They might not agree, but they get the feedback from you. They can hear some of the comments, what you guys are thinking about, and they can choose to make changes if they wish before handing the plan off and continuing the process. I've looked to my left a lot.

Mr. Chair, could I make a comment about the housing? Because I think it's a good point and extremely important. I don't think it's any secret to anybody. That the number one concern of citizens not only in Auburn, but across the state of Maine is affordability for housing So even though in certain particular areas you might have a higher density Don't forget that there are many areas that all allow residential development It is not just in the red area. So there's lots of areas for different types of housing and THERE WAS A HOUSING STUDY DONE AT THE DIRECTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL. IT'S REFERRED TO. IF YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY, I'D STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU TO TAKE A LOOK AT IT. IT'S NOT TAKING VERY LONG TO REVIEW. BUT ONE OF THE VERY INTERESTING THINGS THAT I DID NOT REALIZE UNTIL I SAW THE PLAN WAS Is that in the city of Auburn of every single housing unit of any type right now 70% of them have one or 2 people living in that unit. 70% of every unit. But we have not enough opportunities for people who are looking for just one or two people, usually one bedroom, maybe two bedroom, maybe even efficiency. So there's a real mismatch between what's available and what the population is looking for. That population, and if you sort of just look in your neighborhood as I did, I figured it out pretty quick. I mean, my neighborhood's practically all retired people, one or two of us in it. So the two categories of those households tend to be an older population who, if they had a family, has grown and moved on, or younger people starting out. And many of these younger folks either not ready yet or unfortunately can't afford to get into a house of their own. And so they're having to rent to do that. And so there's lots of different things we're trying to do about housing. The plan says that we, the city of Auburn, is 1,300 units short of what's needed in the community by 2030. So one of the things we took very seriously in our work was to say, how do we address this need? How do we address affordability? How do we address a diversity of kinds of housing available? Not everybody wants a single family home. So we've tried to provide lots of choices in different parts of the community for individuals who are looking for smaller units. Older folks who may not want to or may not be able to maintain their single family home or younger people starting out who need an affordable smaller place to live. So that's why we've chosen lots of different choices in lots of different locations. including older buildings that could be converted to housing that were used for some other purposes.

So that's part of the whole plan.

I just wanted to share that with you.

Again, I lost track of what the question was. Is there another question?

Yes, these all pertain to more the description of the actual land use categories and the type of development listed in the document. So, for instance, high growth highlights that we want to see more like mixed use type developments. lots of commercial, lots of new housing, civic spaces as well. So the question is, are there things that are not mentioned in the written descriptions that you wanna see added?

So are we looking at page 44 where it's a mixed use corridor or are there other sections?

So this is a general, all of the high-density areas. So we're talking about high-density cores, downtown, mixed-use corridor, mixed-use neighborhood, compact, residential, industrial. And so, as John alluded to, it's a mix of different housing types of different development types. And is one... has this captured all the different types of high growth areas that we imagine? Can you name any more or that we missed that we need to think about of different housing types? And for additional information, and I just have to get this out before I forget it that way, in the housing study John brought up, the number one need in Auburn for the upcoming years actually surprising to me um it was one and two bedroom units um the highest need for development right now and it doesn't say what fashion that's in apartments or single family homes or whatever have you but it was really interesting to see that um our highest demographic need that for housing type is one and two bedroom homes i thought it was going to be three bedroom honestly

It's not really our, again, more towards the council having to look at the financial implications, but the return on it for the city on investment, what's a higher return for the city, single family home or a significant large apartment building?

It's going to be a higher density on smaller pieces of land and so a parcel a parcel that's bigger, but only has one home on it is will return less tax revenues than smaller parcels with multiple units on it. And so from a purely financial point of view, a higher density parcel will return more to your tax base than lower density. That's not a quality judgment, it's just a return. It could be but the idea is that when you're having areas that are higher density they're closer together and so those expenses are so just length of the road you're gonna get a lot more density in a shorter amount of road and a lot of more tax value you're not gonna have to your road type is gonna be in such a fashion that, yeah, you might have to resurface the road every two or three years, but because of the amount of people and the amount of units are there, you're getting the value that supports that. It's a threshold, and it changes as finances change. I can tell you with inflation, things are changing rapidly as far as the cost of materials and cost of capital expenditures. And so it is getting more expensive to take care of things. And so there is an avenue of going The whole reason we have a comp plan is because of smart growth. It is more economically feasible to take care of a smaller geographic area than a larger geographic area. And because the city is so large, you want to start to consolidate some of your services to make sure that you are concentrating on those areas and taking care of those areas rather than spreading it apart of a larger, larger geographic area. It's just cheaper to do.

I'm not in a position to expand on or say that some of these uses shouldn't be there. I just, I can't do that in this rapid fire environment. If that's something that we can sort of back to others and have ready responses to the notion of what uses are allowed in these micro areas, it ought not be allowed. I think we're happy to listen.

Well, I do want to bring up one thing that you started discussing earlier about the low growth areas. You started talking about housing types in the low growth area. Is that something that you want to expand on now? Or is it something that you want to think about and get a response to? Housing types? Yeah, I mean, so we're... It's okay to jump around, right? This is your... meeting this is your show we're talking about basically these are the categories that we have high growth moderate growth and low growth and high growth areas this is the type of development that we're seeing the different types of development identity core which is much higher you know stories buildings downtown is you know five stories and below mixed-use corridors are going to be between three stories or so but you have a lot more commercial mix than you have cars. Mixed use neighborhood is more walkable spaces, so you wanna get there, get out, be able to walk around. Compact residential is gonna have a lot less commercial. You might have commercial on an intersection of a corner, but you're not gonna have it in the streets. Industrial is industrial. It's supposed to be creating things, manufacturing. Moderate growth areas is your transitional areas, right? And so then you have, again, you have those areas that are more, neighborhood transition is a little bit lower growth than the high growth, it's transitional areas. Then you have the corridors, is where corridors, corridor when you have your driving routes and you have housing next to the corridor. And so those are the different categories there. And then you have low growth area categories, which is even lower. It takes it a step down again, which is the agricultural open space and recreation. So you have some type of, you do have some type of economic uses there, recreation and open space and agricultural, but those is those type of economic uses. And then you also have drinking water protection, which is the protection of your water source. And so I guess the question is, what are we missing? Have we missed something that's at the tip of your tongue? You all have lived here. We are here to help, but we can't describe your experience in total. We can't try to drag it out of you, though. And that's kind of what we're doing, is going, hey, your families have been here, you've lived here. Give us some insight on something that we may be missing.

have I think it's a broad conclusion and I'm going back to earlier in tonight's meeting when Chelsea and I had a similar point about we need to consider how much of our area is truly capable and meant to support any kind of growth you take the body water water bodies out of the equation you take the drinking water area out of the equation. You take the recreational zones, open space out of the equation. We have really probably less than 50% of our actual land area available for growth. And what John brought up, which I can appreciate, is the biggest demand right now for young people, old people, retired people, whatever, is one and two bedrooms. And for the most part, we've also heard tonight that from staff, that it's beneficial on a Financial plane to have a more compact Growth pattern like the lots per mile as you brought up and those all to me point to we should probably help foster as as much as Aesthetically, it's might not be what a lot of people think is is best but it's what? fiscally is better for the municipality. What is in the highest demand now, as we heard from John, and where Chelsea and I observed how much we really have available to develop on, is these multi-unit, high quality rental situations because of the cost of home ownership and things like that. I think it's important that a lot of the conversations we've been having about the low growth, moderate growth, They're valid, but I think we need to keep our eyes on the bigger picture. And what I'm hearing and what I see and feel myself is Auburn has a need for good, affordable housing, and we only have so many spaces we can do that. So I think our biggest challenge is formulating the new comp plan to complement that. I think just guidance from staff on how to help narrow that is what I really need.

I think that's one reason why I like that high density core by New Gloucester. Because if we're creating another service area there, we need homes for the service workers. And it makes sense to concentrate it right there.

I wonder if we need one more. Legend description, you know Compact residential really speaks more to again Cube one to four family homes and But I think even what Tim suggests, maybe we need a category for essentially really encouraging the higher end apartment type units. Again, going back to the area that we have been focusing on, to me that would be a prime area. that red changing to yellow if it was primarily focused just for residential the one or two family units you know four stories three story four story whatever we have a commercial area just over the railroad tracks already that has room to expand so to me to keep Keep it residential. As soon as you start mixing commercial, residential, I have some issue with that, because then you're mixing the different types of flow. And also, I think that we draw away from our already established commercial centers for restaurant or convenience store, whatever. I think there's always been a long argument, not just here in Auburn, but all communities, We built the mall. What did that do? Draw people away from the downtown. I think that we've seen, it's again, it's sprawl. So, especially where it's so close to the Turnpike interchange, a lot of our traffic now, I'm saying this, I don't have anything to back it up, but again, we see growth coming out of Portland. We're seeing more and more development that spread out Thelma Cumberland and coming up to Gray. I think we now see New Gloucester. So, you know, that's a prime area for some of this higher and residential for one or two people.

I think the question was Are we satisfied with the categories and is there anything that we think is missing? And I think my short answer to that is I am satisfied and I don't think there's anything missing. It seems like everything's been encapsulated. I can't think of anything else to add to these categories. I think that answers the question. And I do agree, and I'm hearing everything that everybody's saying, and I kind of agree with everybody about a lot of this. I agree with Bob, I agree with Tim. And I guess since we're going to go back to this little red rectangle here, I am really struggling. And thank you, John, for your explanations earlier, because it does make sense. It does make sense. It's logical. I understand what you're saying about having that. having that high-density core there. I'm just struggling with the idea that something that is now ag, and it is a hay field there, I believe, something that's now ag to suddenly, in one swell foop, one fell swoop, accommodate the high density core, what's allowed there. And we've gone back to a lot of discussion about housing and the need for housing, and I just keep going back to the idea that I just think that that should be some sort of residential. I'm wondering Is it possible that some of, because there's a lot of purple, there's a lot of industrial. Is it possible that any of that industrial area can accommodate industrial and or the high density core type development. Because in that scenario, which I totally just made up, and I don't know if it's possible at all, but in an area like around the airport, you could have industrial and or high density core type uses like what is shown in this example here. I just lost my train of thought, but I think I've made my point.

I could probably help with that high density core around the airport, because we had a very good presentation from Jonathan Labonte, who's the director there. Because it's an airport, and because the airport receives fairly substantial federal funds, through the fund that provides money for airport expansion, there are actually agreements and requirements that if they're going to continue to receive that money, they have to protect the airspace going in and out in regards to the height of the building. And so, that's why Two things putting residential too close to the causes conflict with that kind of use and secondly if you get those buildings above the 2 story of so I. The federal. agency that provides the funds will discontinue providing funds because they want the air space to take off into land to be not a hazard to people as they do that. So there's some real restrictions. We did discuss and debate that. So that's one of the considerations that we made in looking at it. It is both a north-south runway and an east-west Cross one way.

Well, I'm Before returning to Auburn, I lived in Bangor. I lived at the end of the airport. I actually built a house there. The airport in Bangor is obviously much larger, subject to height limitations around it. There are a number of hotels. There are three-story hotels all over the place around that airport. There are restaurants. There are nightclubs. There are residences. So what is the height limit that we're supposed to abide by? Do we know?

I don't recall off the top of my head, but Jonathan was very clear about that.

It's probably near 35 feet or higher. We don't have that many. You want to say something?

Yeah. So there's a plane. It's a cone. When you're getting near the airport. So it's not the same height at all places around the airport. because the approach so as you get a little bit farther away or on the side away from the approaches you can go higher i had a very good visualization years ago because i had a hand in building one of these layers and it shows you exactly the 3d layer that the height can't go into from those areas and so you'll see hotels i mean even portland you know it has the hotel right in some areas, but it's not where the approach is, right? And so some areas you can have more height. What I'll say in the industrial area is that you have a height limitation of 75 feet right now in the industrial area. So the height is not, height restrictions are in the zoning side, right? The height doesn't say that you can't have really high buildings in the industrial area today. They're just not building them. It's not economically feasible to build them.

you're suggesting that there's no restriction on buildings under 75 feet. And we probably don't have more than half a dozen of those in the city of Auburn.

Yeah, I mean, so, yeah, so, well, in the industrial area, you have the higher limit, but you don't have the actual, no one's building those right now.

But you're saying you could. You could, yes. And so you could build a residential structure, 75 feet, if you wanted to have a mixed-use environment around the airport.

Well, residential uses are not a primary permitted use in an industrial zone.

No, they're not, but we're talking about perhaps making something in the purple area something other than purple, in other words, something other than industrial, such as mixed-use. And I don't think that height is a real limiting factor to the development in the area around the airport, whether it be industrial.

use if it's 75. may i interject i think there's we need to make a differentiation between a town airport a municipal airport and an international airport i have ev i was in aviation for about 15 years ILS approaches glide slope approaches the technology varies from airport to airport Especially if it's a passenger airport International Airport the technology exists where building around that airport at higher levels is possible Because the pilots have more advanced technology to make ILS approaches airports that don't have that technology things need to stay a little lower and because they're not as technologically advanced. If that makes any sense.

It makes sense to me, but I'm hearing that right now the current zoning limitation, which I have to assume, took into consideration any federal FAA height limitation, 75 feet.

Yeah, but over top of that you have the airport approach overlay which then anything over a certain height if you're in this area has to get clearance from the federal government understood yeah understood yeah um one question i had before we get too far away from that other area um one question just it's a planner question so please just abide me um Do you not think people will build in these red areas? Or do you not want them to?

As a board.

Can I give my answer to that question?

Yes, you absolutely can.

I think people will build in that red area. And whether I'm right, wrong, or indifferent, I personally am struggling with the idea that With that area being read right now, which classifies it as a high density core, and looking at the example of what a high density core could look like in reading these descriptions, I personally, whether I'm right or wrong or not, I'm struggling with the idea that this type of development will go on those lots. That's my opinion. And I'm saying that because I think that type of development will be built there if a developer is allowed to do it, and I'm struggling with that. I just don't think it fits. I just don't. I think if that's going to be changed, because currently it's ag, and I do believe at least some of that is active hay fields. I could be wrong. If it's going to change, I believe it should be some sort of residential, single-family homes. And what I, furthermore, am asking, and thank you, John, for the clarification about the airport funding, I mean, I'm not going to dispute that. That's a fact. You have told us that the airport has this funding, and if they build over X height, they don't get the funding. Fact. Got it. No problem. Why can't... the in and maybe i'm wrong the industrial area now currently there's no the height limitation is the height limitation is 75 feet in industrial now is that did i hear that right so why is Why is all that area around the airport industrial now if they have this height problem with this FAA funding? I'm struggling with, now I'm confused.

A lot of it is railroad.

Okay, but my question is why can't it be industrial and or high density core developer's choice and accept you can't interfere with this height issue with the FAA funding? That's my question.

So I can answer that. Go ahead. So because your industrial land, if you open up to residential, it will turn to all residential. And you will not have these bigger areas for employers to go and to have factories. Once residential areas go next to factories, the factories, they will go away. Because it's easier to develop the single family homes for a developer and move out than it is to continue to work and have an industrial area. And so right now, this is one of your employer bases. And so one of the reasons why you do not allow residential industrial areas right now is that you are protecting your manufacturing base of the city. And so I'm not, not a quality, not a, you know, it's just, it is, that is the reasoning today why you don't allow residential.

I have two follow-up questions to that.

I just want to make one comment. In response to your question about do I want to see it or do I think it's possible, I don't think that it's likely that you're going to get this high, whatever it was called, development, that purple area, that pink area along Route 202, that isn't going to happen in my view. much more likely you're going to be able to develop that into yellow whatever that is allowed like single-family subdivision and I think that that's more fitting for that area And regarding letting residences encroach on industrial area, I hear what you're saying, but there are a number of apartments near the airport right now. I mean, there must be 200 units out there, some massive number out there right now. I don't think it's had much of an impact on the industrial development.

Yes. Thank you. My question, two questions. Am I remembering incorrectly that in the new housing requirements, we are required to allow residential and industrial? Am I remembering that wrong?

Slightly wrong. So it is LD 997 requires anywhere that you allow commercial, you must also allow residential, except where you allow industrial. You do not have that requirement.

So, thank you. That makes sense. What I think I was saying was not to incorporate I was not saying have it be industrial or residential developer's choice. What I was saying was to increase, to give us more residential, eliminate that long red triangle, long red rectangle, let that be residential and why can't we allow industrial or high density core, red or purple, developer's choice in anywhere or everywhere that is currently now purple? That's my question. And I get the thing about the airport. I get the FAA height thing. But if industrial currently allows 75 feet, do you see what I'm saying?

Maybe I'm missing something somebody tell me please I Can ask our our Transportation director if he currently has that for the city When I develop it takes me a while to do it So I don't know I can do that, but I can ask if we have one available

May I interject real quick? Correct me if I'm wrong. What we already have here is purple. It's industrial. Correct. the vast majority of that already has industry on it, correct? Yes. Okay, I think that's an important thing to differentiate. We're not looking at a new zone. We're not looking at blank canvas of land. These are areas depicted where there's already industry in place, already owned by businesses, already operated, not necessarily available to build on. I mean, we have, We have safe handling. We have an airport. We have railroads. We have railroad trans loading facilities. We have tam brands. We have all these kinds of things in that park. And there's even a right off Lewis and Junction Road. So what's it called? Industrial Parkway. It's Full of vacant lots for industry where nothing's happening, but It's all industry the vast majority of what we see here purple on these maps is already Operating industry and I think that's an important thing to keep in mind, right?

You don't have a lot of just green what's called Greenfield, which is just undeveloped land ready to be developed except and so these certain areas that are currently zone agricultural and you're thinking about changing the zoning as part of this. So that that's why the areas were in play because just I'm just gonna be honest it's a lot cheaper to develop on Greenfield area that an industry has not been in before than it is to redevelop. Yes.

Also, back to the question of if you want it or what you think will happen, the high density core allows for the commercial uses but doesn't exclude residents. So the current ag land, the bottom strip we're talking about, would have to go through a zone change to allow for anything to happen there, and the high density core General business would be the zone that fits that the best and like the car just mentioned the state regulation says anywhere we have commercial you have to have residential so Whatever zone we ends up being put there would still it doesn't mean it's just going to be commercial They could develop and do a bunch of neighborhoods and residential. It's not It's not excluding that

Yeah, and this is to Bob's point where you say, well, why can't we just have those same structures but just residential? And you can't. And this is more about the form. Are you going to have a high building or whatever have you? When you're doing the zoning is when you're making your decisions either to make the restriction that the first floor must be commercial or to say, no, you can have the first floor commercial in these areas. So that's going to be. when we start doing the zoning portion of implementation of how you wanna do that. This is just setting the very, very early stage about form and distances between, and it is to Ed's point, he's making the point, and some of you are making the point, Chelsea, you're making the point, I don't want the higher structures in this area. And so that's actually the feedback that we were asking for today. Now, it doesn't seem like you all have a central voice And that's important to say as well tonight. And so it doesn't seem that you guys have a consensus on what you want to go. But that's another reason why I started this conversation extremely early. So we have until October to really hone in on what is going to be the majority of the pleasure of the board.

Like I said last meeting, eight or nine different people with eight or nine different visions.

Yeah. This is a fascinating discussion, but we do have other items on our agenda. Would you prefer to defer those other items or cover those tonight?

I would like to defer those items, please, just because after eight o'clock and when we start talking now about zoning provisions directly i think um i think we're going to lose everyone sam sam included okay

No, I was just going to make a very brief comment and say, you know, I appreciate all the discussion from everybody. I'm learning a lot. I've picked up a lot. And I think I slightly disagree that we don't have a common voice. Well, I think I agree with that. But I have heard from pretty much everybody that has spoken tonight, I think everybody has made a comment about housing. in residences. I don't think it's really refined, and as you say, as a common voice, but I have heard everybody say something about housing. So I think if nothing else, that does seem to be consistent.

I think just thinking about the types of development that are likely to be successful we've we've had a conversation about how single family homes and subdivisions are the most profitable and most likely and in some cases the most desirable. And I'm just wondering as we're talking about some of the the larger apartment buildings the high-rise buildings And I don't expect anyone to have an answer for this necessarily, but I'm just wondering I have those been commercially successful in Auburn. I know we've had Stable Ridge we've had the large apartment buildings over by BJ's is that something that we think has been commercially successful and something that is likely to be developed in Auburn in the future as we're looking at the the red the much contested red rectangle here is that something that we think is likely to entice developers Does anyone have any thoughts on that or do we do we know if those have been commercially successful or are they they vacant and having a hard time being filled?

To my knowledge is waiting lists for all of them There there's high interest I'll say that about Some development in Auburn and in all areas, just gonna be very honest with you, in all types of development types. And so people are looking to develop here in Auburn. You have a great school, and whenever great schools are, people will follow very, very quickly. And just for my knowledge, just for you all's knowledge, we have interests in our core. We have interests in these other areas as far as bigger apartment buildings, people wanting to build there. We have a lot of interests near the mall area now and up throughout your Center Street as well. And so a lot of people are looking to develop here in Auburn. A lot of people are waiting to see where we are going to go with our regulations. So it's going to be interesting.

Has anyone expressed any interest about the areas by the turnpike exit that we're designating as high density core? Is that an area of interest or has that not really been discussed because it hasn't been available?

Correct. It hasn't been available, so it hasn't been really discussed. I know that different parts of the city, I can't speak for all of the administration and all of policy makers but I haven't been a part of those discussions near near the urban core that were what we were talking about but I can from a planners point of view if you allow that if you allow any type of development there at a higher scale People will be interested. I'm not saying what type of interest they might have, but single family dwellings or four units or whatever have you. But people are interested in developing and very close to any type of exit, exit 75, because it's easy for people to get to other places very quickly.

If there was interest, somebody could have come in and asked for his own change, right?

Yes, they could have asked for a zone change. I will say developers are risk averse because they already have a huge risk profile in developing. And so asking for the rezoning is another step above that. In my experience, developers like to avoid unless they have an extreme interest and something is pushing them to go that route.

If I could add to that, it's not just zoning changes. Under state law, and that's why we're going to a comprehensive plan, the land use categories that we have in a comprehensive plan, zoning has to be CONSISTENT WITH THAT ZONING. YOU COULDN'T COME IN AND SAY IT'S A NICE PIECE OF LAND HERE IN THE AG ZONE THAT SHOULD BE INDUSTRIAL. You would have no authority to do that. It could be a challenge and most likely would be overruled by the court because it would not be consistent with what the current land use is. That's why we're looking at all of this now in a 10-year outlook to try to not only meet current needs, immediate needs, but also to say, to the best of our judgment, what might happen in the next 10 years. Now it may well be that some of our crystal balling here because of economics or change in populations doesn't come about Community then can make amendments to their comprehensive plan and say It didn't develop that way. So looks more like it's going in this direction. Let's make a change

My experience with zone changes is that if you are proposing something that is similar to an adjacent property zone, that it's not a very difficult task to get it rezoned, and it would be considered consistent. You've got industrial next to ag out there, I guess, right now. And I don't think that it would have been much of a stretch to rezone that if somebody had wanted to. And I'm not familiar with developers being risk averse to asking for a zone change. It's a relatively simple request. It doesn't cost a lot of money. But we're here now and we're discussing the possible changes to that zone. And I guess you've heard our comments on what we

Well, having been the subject of a court injunction issued to me when I was the mayor because the council chose to change the zoning in an area that was not consistent with the comprehensive plan, we lost spectacularly in the courts.

also say you you have to have standing to ask for that zoning change and if the parcel is is not for sale and the current owner isn't interested in developing it you're probably not going to have a developer approaching somebody in the agricultural zone looking for a zone change to put in some sort of high density residential uses so if it's available I I can see Some motivation to sell the property to a developer and I don't know I guess just from my perspective Being close to the turnpike exit Looking at all of the people who are working in Portland and having to move further and further out to find a formidable housing It doesn't seem like a bad area to put in some high density residential uses Now I through this discussion

mentored to Boisville as we're coming up is it's been interesting, you know, we've been talking about a lot of different terms. The growth areas is one then we're getting to land use categories that of course now we're talking, you know zones as an overlay then we Form base codes apply to some areas and then we've been introduced now and we'll be using the block the block Process our strategy so I think the more we talk about it centrist in me because i'm getting a better understanding of each of these discussion points but it's important for the public to understand as we go along we're gonna bring this to a public hearing so Right up front, the public's going to have to have a better understanding of what we're talking about in these different levels of kind of the overall umbrella, but then we break it down, and then the tools that we'll use to get to where we want to go in the future.

What's next? Sam, do you have any more questions? No. I think this has been a robust conversation, initial conversation. This is actually the first time we've had to discuss the future land use map. I just want to thank you guys for being So we're involved in this discussion and offering your opinions because it really does give us a range of views of where can we take this, where should we take this, and where the concentration of comments are going towards. Because I'm not hearing a lot of other conversations about we started off around Taylor Pond, but other than that initial conversation, we've really been toward the south, right, to the exit of 75. But I haven't heard a lot of conversation about up near the mall area. And that area itself, it's in the growth area. It has public water and public sewer. It has a lot of areas that are general business district. And those are another urban core. And no one has remarked at all on that area. And so I'm guessing you guys are more OK with that growth with that urban core up near the mall area. And so you know from from planners point of view it's good to hear all of these these views. And I hope that we can you as we go along because the next time we'll we'll go back to talking about provisions and you'll see the connections in the two. We're starting to draft provisions. And so you'll see how that will impact inside the growth area and outside of the growth area. So I am really excited to see us go and where this goes next. I know the comp plan committee is pretty much ending their version of the work for now. and to give an initial product for people to react to. This is that reaction to the initial product. And so it'll be interesting to see how this develops as it goes through the public boards, what changes are made, and then we'll directly, after those changes are made and the comp plan is adopted, we're going through the zoning process and zoning amendment process at the same time so you're going to see it in real time these decisions come to fruition because right after the passing of the comp plan and provisions you're going to start seeing these actual projects come through very very quickly um a lot of people want to come to auburn a lot of people want to develop here um and so um You'll see the impact of your actions very quickly. Just keep an open mind. Remember the different roles. And if you're seeing something that you don't like as developments are coming through, we can alter the regulations to get a better product. And I'm just glad you guys are here during this process. And so you guys are going to be key as we go through and even making the regulations and correcting the regulations. from what we put into place. So I just want to thank you guys for your time.

I'd just like to add that you've all asked very good questions, and I really appreciate hearing them. The comp plan committee had very robust discussions about many of these exact questions that you asked. I'm sure Riley and Belial remembered those discussions. So you're thinking on similar lines as the comprehensive plan did. You know, taking A, B, C, and D, and we try to put all those different variables together, what's the best decision? So your comments have been constructive and useful, and I thank you for them.

Before we adjourn, can you watch the next meetings and what you hope we will accomplish at the next meeting?

Yes, so the next meeting we're going back to the drafts of the provisions. actually altered the provisions to your comments all 32 of them um of the last meeting we were at and so we're going to take another look at that um we are going to before we go there we need to take it a look at our um our chapter 46 which is our our street section um and the types of streets that we need to alter to allow on street parking things like that but then we're going to dive right back in to the provisions that we generally went through the last time and then we're going to introduce a staff would like to introduce the concept of a new form-based code district it's more suburban like a t3 and so that will allow More another tool in your tool belt when you're coming through and you're seeing these different areas So when we're talking about a compact residential type, you know, you can have a choice. Okay. Do we want it to be more? General business district. We don't want all the regulations or whatever have you or do we want a little bit more? a little bit more guidance on the form like we want the building to at least be 10 feet away, the lots, side by side backs to be 10 feet away from each other. So you can have that variation, and this is about making a new tool, and then from there, we're gonna refine, because then we're gonna look at it as a system, and then you guys are gonna go just like you did tonight, do again wait wait a minute this doesn't work from here it doesn't work here we're going to correct that we have some time to do that and so this is going to be the bulk of our work is working in those regulations and then we're going to start doing some mapping exercises and so as planners like to do i will give you a map with the current zoning and the outline of the proposed growth area and so you'll be able to see oh there's clashes here and what zones can these go to what what is the envisioning of these going to and that that's a part of this practice of we're going to need to get compliant with state law And in order to do so, at the same time the comp plan is passing, you need to be compliant with the new comprehensive plan as well. So we need to go to an interim stage of compliance. So we're going to start doing those exercises of how can we get to an interim state of compliance with both before we can dive in a lot more deeper into full compliance with the comprehensive plan. and what we've envisioned, but we only have until July 1st of next year to get compliant with state law, so we need to get to some interim stage before then, and that's basically our first step. That's why we're doing all this, this draft amendment here, so we have time to make corrections. So, long story short, at the next meeting, Ed, sorry, is that we'll start going back into our provisions and start taking more comments on those, and then we'll start making a new, drafting a new form-based code district that is more suburban in scope.

So when is our next meeting? September 15th. That's our regular kickback from the 8th because of some schedule. Yeah, I think it was moved from the 8th to the 15th.

Yes, it was rescheduled to the 15th, yeah.

That's our next meeting. Correct. Yes. When is our joint meeting with the council?

Our joint meeting with the council. I need to see the, we have a master calendar.

14th.

The 14th. Yes, that's a busy week. So you have your joint meeting on the 14th and then your regular meeting on the 15th. The 14th is the presentation, correct? So it's a presentation of the comprehensive plan that goes through the different portions of the comprehensive plan. And the 15th is our regular meeting. You've had enough comprehensive plan on the 14th, we'll just go into some provisions on the 15th. And the consultants and some staff will be there as well. But yeah, you all will still, you and the council will be up here and we'll be presenting to you with the public. We are looking at some applications Yeah, we're looking at just one application.

It's a change of use project Public comment

Mr. Chair, with total respect to you and the committee, I'm going to withhold what I had as a list of comments until the next meeting.

You're going to let him do that? Yes. You're going to be limited to three minutes. Or is it five? Whatever it is. So you may want to double up. OK. I'll have to talk quickly. OK. Miscellaneous. Any board items for discussion? Motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. Moved and seconded. We're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you all.