Rockland Council Advances Main Street MOU, Hears Housing Bond Plan

[0:00] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): The Rockland City Council is now in session. The City Clerk is recognized for the roll call. [0:03] City Clerk (roll call): Mayor Lockman. Here. Councilor Callahan. Councilor York. Here. Councilor Davis. Here. Councilor Kellett. Here. City Manager Luttrell. Here. City Attorney Costigan. She's here. Here. [0:16] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. [0:20] Councilor York: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States [0:23] Mayor Lockman: of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [0:36] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): The first 15 minutes of any special meeting are set aside as a public forum for the public to address council on matters pertaining to city business. Anyone wishing to address council, I ask that you rise, go to the podium, state your name and address for the record. Please remember that speakers are allowed up to five minutes. And just a reminder from city code, persons present at council meetings are cautioned to refrain from applause or other expressions of approval or disapproval of any statements made or actions taken at such meetings. Persons speaking during such public comment periods shall strive to be accurate in their statements, avoid personal attacks and innuendos, and conduct themselves in a respectful manner expected of all meeting participants. Public forum is now open. Does anyone wish to address counsel? [1:29] Eddie LaFlemme (public commenter): Hi. My name is Eddie LaFlemme. Let me apologize. I'm a horrible public speaker. speaker. And I'm going to read something rather than just say things. Thank you for allowing me to speak and for your attention. My name is Ed LaFlemme. I live in Warren. My address is 1897 Eastern Road in Warren. But I have been a taxpayer in Rockland for four decades. To give you a little background on me, I was the clerk of the works for the Warren Wastewater treatment plant and the executive director of the plant for 33 years. I also served as a selectman in Warren for nine years. I think these past positions give me a unique viewpoint of the pressures you're under with the Lindsay Brook decades-old problem I and I and flooding and from the DEP and by extension the EPA. Past councils have kicked the cans too far down the road and solutions are expensive. Currently, I own a three-generation family business in Rockland. It has a large amount of impervious material on it, 13 buildings and a rental home. This has caused me to be very concerned about Rockland's proposed stormwater management utility. I've read everything on the website and received a copy of the budget for this. That includes your 165-page report from Wright Pierce and also your 17 page report on what it what makes up a utility district. I'm also aware that there are only five stormwater utilities in Maine and Rockland is trying to become the sixth. I have great concerns about your engineers proposal for the ten projects they outline that total the thirty million dollars you're trying to raise. For instance, all ten have a contingency fee of 40% of the overall cost of the project. I have never heard of a project with a 40% contingency. The eight million dollar project that I oversaw in Warren had a 10% contingency fee. And then on top of the contingency fund, your engineering firm is proposing that their fees will be 40% of the overall cost. Between engineering and the contingency fund, 9.2 million is proposed to be taken from taxpayers before a shovelful of dirt is moved. I understand that you're going to have a public hearing on this but of the businesses that I have contacted no one had even heard about what you're proposing. Unless the businesses, nonprofits, and residents of the city are aware of this proposal they will be absolutely blindsided. If this does pass I pray that you will take great care in writing your ordinances to help everyone in Rockland. I also have many questions. One of which is that you're proposing a utility that is going to charge large amounts of money for this. What happens once the work is done? Is this utility just going to continue generating revenue for the city forever or will it be sunsetted? At my business we've had four rate increases in almost 40 years. Businesses in the city have to balance the tax burden with ever-rising costs. Places like the Rockland Golf Course fear that this utility will be the end of them. Rockland continues to lose businesses because of the tax burden and high expenses. As you know, heating oil is at $6.30 a gallon. Diesel is close to $7. follows. Rents are through the roof. Is this really the best time to hit everyone with another tax? Some businesses are just hanging on and this may well be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Thank you again for your time and considering this project. [5:29] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Thank you. Any other speakers wishing to address council? Council. [Councilor: Do we] have any written correspondence from anyone? Public forum is now closed. Do any [5:53] Councilor York: councillors wish to respond to public comment? Councilor York. Thank you very much. Mr. LaFlemme, [5:58] Mayor Lockman: First of all, I want to thank you for coming all the way into Rockland to be at this meeting tonight and to make your statement. It's greatly appreciated. I do want to let you know that we have had ongoing discussions with business owners in Rockland for, city manager, correct me, like two and a half years now it's been quite a while yeah and we've we also have invited them come in and we did have quite a few folks that came in and participated in a couple of the sessions that we had recorded that you can find on our website so i just i wanted to tell you that not to dispute anything that you've said here tonight but just to make sure that you know that we are making efforts to get the business owners aware and make sure that non-profits and everyone have been offered a seat at the table i appreciate it thank you absolutely thank you sir and also your statement was very well written you're a great speaker see manager yeah i'll just add a little [6:54] City staff (stormwater/conservation): more info for you too part of doing a stormwater utility is to take it out of the tax base so any of these projects going forward it'll be a stormwater utility fee which all property owners including nonprofits will pay for so I think there was a slide hopefully in the stuff you looked at to show a property owners tax burden compared to the utility fee and the utility fee okay yeah and it will go more on some of the bigger commercial plazas and stuff like that but I don't encourage you to come to the next workshop that we're trying to set up at the end of this month [7:37] Eddie LaFlemme (public commenter): I'm not a resident of Rockland, and a lot of times you appoint committee members only that are residents, but you've got a lot of businesses out of Route 90 now, and we would love to take part in this. Not a one of them had heard of this when I stopped in and talked to each one of them. [7:55] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): And I just want to, first of all, thank you, and second, my colleagues' comments for you coming and giving really clear remarks very helpful for us it's just important I think understand that where we are in the process that we're we haven't even seen a draft ordinance so there's still a lot of time to gain further input so anyone who isn't like yourself or any other people who feel all this is coming as a surprise there's going to be time and I think a concerted effort to get more feedback and Input, and then once we have an ordinance, that's even another opportunity to actually weigh in. So there's nothing that's been determined, decided, and I think it's important to really take a methodical approach here, not rush into anything, and to understand what the impacts are, because there are there are costs today that are being borne by taxpayers that are, I would say, inequitable because of their involvement in the sewer district, one way or another. So part of the effort is to find a way to find a better equilibrium, and also make people understand what constitutes what would a credit be, and there's a whole set of considerations. I think even entity like the golf course with mostly, I would think most of their property is grass, so but there's there's valid concerns, and there's a lot of education that has to happen around this before we make any decisions. So your points are very well taken, Counselor Davis. Question for Tom, [9:51] Councilor: when do you anticipate having a draft ordinance ready? The next meeting we have with Wright [9:57] City staff (stormwater/conservation): Pierce will have a draft ordinance, and hopefully that's, I've asked him for a meeting before the [10:01] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): end of this month. So all right, thank you. And just for the city manager, if we per the comment can make an effort to reach out to even non-residents but taxpayers who have property, I actually talked to somebody on Route 90 just recently, it was sort of the same gist, but I think making another concerted effort to reach out to property owners would be a good gesture on the city's part to get that input. Okay, the purpose of this meeting is to hear from three presentations. We have the Georges River Land Trust, Rockland Main Street, and a housing plan update from our city planner. And then we have an order authorizing an MOU with RMS, and then we'll set the agenda for the October 14th meeting. But we'll start off with the Georges River Land Trust if you wanna come up. Thank [11:09] Land Conservation Manager, Georges River Land Trust: you all for having me. I'm not sure if my mic is on, but I'll keep going. If you can't hear me, I'll talk louder. If it's not up on the screen, it will be, but thank you all for having me. I'm the Land Conservation Manager with Georgia's River Land Trust. We are based just on Tilson Avenue in Rockland. The purpose of meeting you all today is really to give you an informational briefing on something that the council will vote on sometime next year in the spring or in the summer. But it's, It's got some new information that many of you maybe haven't heard before. So I'm kind of preempting and we'll have some time for questions, hoping to be 10, 15 minutes with questions. So this is the purpose of the meeting. The Oyster River Bog Association is a local group that is looking to dissolve. They are a registered corporation with the state of Maine. They have conservation easements on city land. Mostly in the Rockland bog so they approached us a couple years ago with the intent they were already thinking about dissolving and then last year they approached us more seriously with we really do need to close our operations so they're looking to transfer these conservation easements they have to transfer to another nonprofit qualified entity and so we're the natural fit as you'll see from the next slides to be the holder of the conservation easements is what it's called so I'll just get Into it this is just an overview of this is the st. George River watershed this is what our land trust is focused on conserving land within we have 25 public preserves some of which are in Rockland they're all open to the public they're free to use we also have over 80 miles of trail that we maintain our watershed is approximately Montville area and then down the two peninsulas in Cushing and st. George so Rockland is kind of squarely within the middle of it we've been around since 1987 the Oyster River bog Association actually predates us they were formed in 1977 by a group of local citizens they wanted to protect the wild nature and the character of the oyster river bog which a branch of it runs right through the rockland bog area they were really active in the 80s and the 90s they conserved a lot of land mostly through conservation easements and mostly through easements with the city Of rockland so they have 12 easements total they're all recorded at the registry of deeds eight are with the city of rockland and four are with continue to be private landowners in and around the Rockland Bog. They also owned, they owned like in fee five parcels of land that they transferred to us earlier this year that became part of our Rockland Bog Preserve. This is just to kind of get a more clear picture of the area we're talking about. The green is a Georgia's River Preserve. It's called the Rockland Bog Preserve. It has multiple entrances. There's one on Route 90. There's a new one as of last year on Beachwood Street. There's also the city of Rockland maintained overlook trail. You can see that on the east side. But the dash line is the Georgia's Highland Path. This is a big through hike and a lot of it actually goes through city of Rockland land and a lot of it goes through some of the easements that we'll see later. But this is just to orient you to the area you know we own a lot of preserved land in the bog that's open for you know hunters bikers recreators and you all own a lot of land in the bog too so the area in orange are existing conservation easements that is land that the city of Rockland owns today and that in the 1980s and the 1990s the previous council and city manager you know signed conservation easements with ORBA the Oyster River Bog Association to protect those parcels and what I mean by conservation easement and protect the parcels is mostly these easements prevent more development a lot of these areas probably wouldn't have been developed anyways ways, they are very wet. The Rockland Bog is one of the largest peatland bog complexes in the mid-coast and even in parts of southern Maine, so it's a very, you know, wet area. There's multiple rivers that run through it, but these easements were recorded, you know, a couple decades ago. They can't be extinguished. They're like any other, like a utility easement that's on your land. You as a landowner you know you can't move them around but they can be transferred when environmental organizations you know dissolve like ORB is doing so there are eight easements overall that's 26 parcels of land so some easements were written with multiple parcels you know preserved at the same time it's a lot of land it's probably 1,100 acres we would consolidate like update them to more modern language and transfer them as one conservation easement including the 26 parcels just to make it [16:50] Councilor: administratively easier. Quick question. Are the restrictions on the current easements similar to each other or do they vary parcel by parcel? [16:57] Land Conservation Manager, Georges River Land Trust: They are pretty similar. They are not identical easements. They didn't use the same template. I think the ones that were done in the 80s are probably more similar to each other than the 90s. But they have a very similar purpose, and they have very similar – when you write a conservation easement, you're really writing it from the perspective of what are we trying to protect and what is restricted, and that's all pretty much equal across the parcels. Good question. This is a little summary of what does restrictions mean, what are the allowances. The easements that ORBA wrote are pretty typical. They're very straightforward. They're not extremely complicated easements. They allow things like forest management. They allow what they call de minimis commercial activities. It allows recreational use on the parcels. Things that it restricts pretty clearly are you can't subdivide the parcels. You can lease the parcels for forest management, that's not considered a subdivision, and you can't develop the parcels in like a commercial or residential sense. There are opera because these were easements in the 80s and 90s. There are opportunities when we transfer them to make them a little bit more clear and to give us both a little bit more clarity or like future ease, like we can add some standard clauses that go in easements nowadays, like there's a the first bullet add language for future inconsistent uses. That just really helps us in the future if the city of Rockland wants to do something that they hadn't thought about in the 80s or 90s as a possibility, like we have the flexibility to talk about it and decide together, like if for example if you wanted to do a community garden on one of the parcels nowadays, like it's not clear in the easement if that's allowed, but it seems like a pretty, you know, it seems like it could be allowed. So we just want to make it available as an option. So we wouldn't change anything about the core values and you can't amend easements to change the core, you know, conservation purpose, but we can, as we transfer them, we can kind of modern, like standardize them and modernize them another example of how that might look is these original easements they prohibit new roads but we could make it clear that if the city wanted to like create a road to connect to a parking area or if they wanted to build a gravel parking area that 's something you Could do within the easement, like for the purpose of recreation, so we can just be more clear about things that fit within the easement but aren't necessarily clear right now in them. And then another really good benefit that the land trust would love to kind of more clearly also state in the easements is protecting the Georgia's Highland Path that runs through a lot of the city land. You can name it in the easement and say where it is and approximately, you know, how wide it is and how long it is. And that would just allow the public to be sure that they can always access it. So overall headline is that whenever we do an easement with a city, generally the process is your legal counsel would review the easement, you know, we'd have a red line version of, we'd have the original, we'd have the amended and consolidated easement. We would approve new language together. Our legal counsels would probably end up talking to each other, is what normally happens, and we'd make all the decisions to, you know, clarify the easement or change the easement together, so nothing would be done without the city's approval, and you would certainly have a lawyer look at the final document. This is another opportunity for the City Council, you know, and the city manager to talk about. So while we were doing our research, let me go back to the one with the, these are current easements in yellow and orange. We had to do a lot of work as the land trust to figure out where the easements were. Orba didn't keep great records and the city wasn't sure exactly which parcels were or were not under easement, so we did a lot of due diligence, a lot of legal and title work to find the 26 parcels that were conserved. And during that kind of extensive due diligence process, we, our lawyer noted three parcels that the city tax acquired after Orba was very active. These were acquired in like 2016, 2018, and those are the parcels in purple. So something for you all to think about is that we could add these parcels to the overall easement when it transfers as additional protected land. That might be something you want to do. I'm sure if they existed when ORBA was around, they probably would have been in the original easements, but they don't have to transfer. Our legal counsel really brought it up as like, well, you already have protected 26 parcels in the bog. Do you want to protect all the city land in the bog? And the addition of these three parcels would protect all of the city land that you all own in the bog, with the exception of there's a very small, like, two and a half acre parcel off Bog Road that is not protected. And maybe we probably wouldn't advise to add it just because it's small and on the road. But these other parcels, they could be added. They would be in the overall document, they wouldn't be separate, so they'd have all the same allowances and restrictions. So something for you all to think about, and we can talk more about it in the upcoming months as we transfer the easements and just logistically. You all would vote to, you would vote on this separately from the main transfer. This is kind of like an optional additional possibility for conservation. And also, to orient folks, the 85A1 in the right corner, that's part of the Benner Hill project. And one half of it, the part that touches Bog Road, is, or not Bog Road, Tolman, is already under easement. So it's kind of like the other half. A little bit more on the process, and then I'll have time for questions. The easements are there to conserve the land. So one thing we talked about is they have to transfer to a new environmental organization. They don't change anything about how the city uses or manages the land, so you all still have, you still retain ownership of the land. That's the same for any conservation easement. And kind of crucially, we have the opportunity to update these easements, which is really nice. We're gonna get them into a standard easement language and we can make them all the same and we can make some sections more clear. We'll also do the work to have like new baselines done of all the easements, which basically means saying like, these are the parcels and this is what they look like right now. Like, we will be on the ground looking at the boundaries, making sure that in the past, you know, 40-some years, neighbors haven't encroached into the conserved land, that there's no buildings or other kind of structures on the land. So it will really, like, kind of bring these easements up to the modern standard. Technically, easements have to be monitored every year. So this would bring them like into compliance with the IRS requirements for conservation easements. So a lot of positives. The timeline, you all would vote to accept the consolidated amendment easement sometime next year. Our goal, I think, is spring 2027, but as you can probably infer, there is a lot of like legal legwork that happens with the easements. But I think that's a good goal. And then you also would vote separately whether you want to add those additional three parcels to the overall easement. And then usually the city manager signs on behalf of the council at a formal closing, and we re-record the easements at the registry of deeds. So that's the process. This is my contact information for any time after. I'm sure we'll talk more as we get more information on the easements. But for now, does anybody [26:01] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): have any questions? I just want to first thank you for the thoroughness of the presentation, but also for the land trust stepping forward to carry the legacy of Orba. It's really significant, and the bog is certainly a like a prize jewel, so thank you. It's all the work that's going into it [26:23] Mayor Lockman: up till now. Any questions? Council York. Thank you. I echo Mayor Lachman's comments. I just wanted to ask, for the folks at home who are watching this presentation, who are taxpayers and are thinking about their taxes right now, how do conservation easements impact taxpayers? I mean, I would imagine permanent development restrictions actually devalue the property to a certain extent, so it actually helps the overall assessed value of the city by bringing that parcel down in value a little bit. But what are the other benefits that taxpayers could expect from having conservation easements and conservation land designated? [27:04] Land Conservation Manager, Georges River Land Trust: Yeah, if you have land yourself that is under easement, you're eligible for a state of Maine current use program that people might be familiar with. There's the forest want that, you know, tree growth, and there's also open space. If you have an easement, you can apply to the open space program and you can have your property reassessed. So it affects an individual by potentially lowering the property valuation of their land. It does not affect your build, the existing building valuation, because they're already there. But if your easement prevents further development, then your land could be worth less money, so it can marginally help people, and it would also maybe marginally affect the overall tax payer pool. I don't think it would do so in a significant way. There aren't that many easements, and these easements, most of them are on the city's land, and then there's just those [28:03] Mayor Lockman: four private easements that are kind of a separate situation okay awesome thank you and maybe just a follow-up question for the city manager as well when you when we were looking at that map the 85 a1 parcel that was in purple that's not 93 bog road is it 's across the street from there i'd have to look i'm not really okay yeah i just i just wanted to make sure because i know that you and i've had some conversations about that parcel and it seemed like maybe the 85a one was a little bit bigger than that, so probably that's probably not the impacted parcel we've been discussing. Okay, awesome, I'll follow up with you on [28:43] Councilor York: that one. Sorry to derail. Thank you. Great presentation. Thank you. And as I mentioned, [28:50] Councilor: I just read a book about conservation easements, so this is all fresh in my mind. Do you know if the city did, the city sell the initial easement store about [28:59] Land Conservation Manager, Georges River Land Trust: do you know? I don't think so. I think they donated them. No to oyster. Okay. I was here. I know [29:09] Councilor: actually that was, that was my primary question. Thank you. It was great. [29:15] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): I had a, just a question of clarification. It sounds like there's a lot of benefits to the transfer itself in terms of modifications or modernizations of the easement. And given that the city still owns and maintains the properties, that their use doesn't change for the – it doesn't become more restrictive. It actually helps anticipate different types of scenarios. So – and that's kind of done in coordination with, like, how the city views just land use and conservation. is there consistency in terms of the type of is it because of the adjacency of the of the land or is it more like about the philosophy around land conservation like what 's driving the terms or the details of the conservation itself yeah it's a good question we would go back [30:16] Land Conservation Manager, Georges River Land Trust: to the original easements and they all have, they have a conservation value section and they have a conservation purpose section and those two things, like because easements are recorded legal documents and they run with the deed and the title to the land forever, they are very specific about why they were created. So you know, it'll say things like preserve the nature of the Oyster River Bog or preserve the untouched wilderness of XYZ or protect the recreational values, you know, and public access. For hunters, hikers, bikers, you know, it'll, it'll say these reasons. And so when we go to consolidate and amend the easement, our legal counsel is really gonna look at that, and they're gonna say, okay, what's like, what's allowable within the original terms of the easement? I think you'll find the easements overall were made really because, I mean, Orba was a really special organization, and they were, they're very passionate about protecting, you know, their local neighborhood and keeping it wild and keeping all these sensitive wetlands and available and open, so that drives the easement terms. And you, we can't change anything kind of integral, but we have a lot of guidance for what they were trying to do, and we'll try to make modernizations like within that guidance. But I think it will be helpful for George's River to talk with the city of like what possible other ecological conservation or recreational uses like could you imagine seeing on this land and making sure that it, if it's allowed within the easement, that were like clear about it. But I agree that I think the transfer gives us the opportunity to like really like organize all of them and then and have oversight over them like year over year. And does the [32:16] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): public engagement process happen when it comes before council, or does it happen at some point through stakeholder engagement or some other mechanism? I think originally these would have [32:29] Land Conservation Manager, Georges River Land Trust: had a lot of community engagement when they were probably crafting and deciding to put the easements in place. My understanding of how they transfer is really that you all vote on them and the city manager is the one that signs it, like they, the city manager signed the original ones with the support of the city council. And beyond that, the like actual crafting of the terms would probably be with our legal councils talking back and forth. There's, yeah, there's not a lot of like changes or public input really on the transfer process because they already exist, they're just moving from one qualified org to the other. And along the way, we're going to try to update them and modernize them as best we can, but we can't really like change them. And my last [33:23] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Question, and maybe also for the city manager, as you look at like the three additional properties, and that seemed to come out of your research, or the research looking into the easements themselves. What considerations should council have about adding? Because it sounds like completing the coverage and conservation protections of the bog itself sounds like a big win, but are there other considerations that the city should have in mind as we're looking at that? [33:52] City staff (stormwater/conservation): We've always looked at, before we do any of these conservation easements, is to see if this land is developable, first of all, and then what else may be on there for trails already that exist. And then we also have some proposals to use some of the land up in the bog that I believe is one of these parcels listed. We've just got to confirm which one. So all that will go into consideration before we get to the point of talking about transferring or putting a conservation easement on them. [34:20] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): But it sounds like some of those concerns could be crafted it into whatever conservation easement potential I believe so yeah they could be I think [34:29] Land Conservation Manager, Georges River Land Trust: The main thing I mean when I look at these parcels the 92a3 the one all the way to the left is surrounded by land that's already in easement it's it probably makes sense to have under easement too and the same with 90a7 it is you know it has an easement you know to the side of you know three sides of it the better hill project if you all are thinking about wanting more flexibility if you think you might develop something on there then maybe it shouldn't be under easement but also if you have a Clear vision of what you want to do on the parcel that can be in the easement too it can allow a conservation easement doesn't mean you can't build something on it if that's established in the easement before you make them so where would be a new easement if you did think you were going to have some kind of I don't know recreational structure or some other building on that parcel we could talk about incorporating that as a term of the easement but really I guess I would advise the council when You think about adding the new easements the question would be well what land use do I want to do we want to see on the parcel in the future or have the flexibility to decide to do in the future and knowing that before [35:45] Mayor Lockman: You put an easement on it is kind of the crucial question last comment if the [35:56] Councilor: City does decide to grant you some new easements, please join with us in celebrating that with some publicity or press release or event or something like that, because it's a significant thing when that happens. Yeah, definitely, I mean, [36:09] Land Conservation Manager, Georges River Land Trust: I mean, I think even the transfer is a significant thing because they are conserved, but they haven't really been, like, monitored. Every year you're supposed to go to the parcels and send a report to the state that says these are conserved, and we know that they are still conserved and protected. So I think this transfer is a really good thing because it's going to, like, bring land that has been protected and was intended to be protected, like, into modern compliance and being looked after. And we know the locations of them now and they can have a lot more eyes on them, I think it's a good thing. And we can protect the public access through the trail that exists. But all of that to say, also the additional easements, too, don't have to be decided even necessarily at the same time. If the city does think it's a possibility in the future, it would be clean to have them all as one document, which is just why we proposed it that way. But they could, they could be a separate easement later on in five years, ten years, you know, whatever, it's not, there's no real timeline to this additional piece. The transfer is going to happen and ORBA would like it to happen soon, so you know we're pushing for this spring and getting all the legal work done, but this was kind of the first step to make sure that city council and Tom felt, you know, on board and aware of what was happening so that we can kind of field questions early as we start to update them. Great. Thank you. Super. Thank you all. [37:44] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Please email me if you have any questions. So next we have Jen Shipman and Tessa Rosenberry from Rockland Main Street. You can come to the table or if you want to. [Mayor Lockman: That's alright. Just] make sure your microphones are on. [38:11] Tessa Rosenberry (Rockland Main Street): Thanks for being here. Hello, thanks for having us. My name is Tessa Rosenberry, and this is my co-board member, Jen Gibbon. We're here representing Rockland Main Street, which hopefully all of council knows about Rockland Main Street by now, but in case you're in the audience and don't know, Rockland Main Street has been committed to building community and economic Vitality in Rockland, specifically focused on the downtown region since the 80s, and is known best for the community events that we put on in partnership with the city and many other stakeholders, including the Festival of Lights, Summer Solstice, and now Sunday Stroll, Mornings on Main for business owners and other organizations in town. We're committed to building, you know, this community vitality, downtown revitalization, small business support, all these efforts that really make Rockland tick, and you know, kind of build life in our downtown, and that spreads throughout our community. And we are funded partly by revenues from the downtown TIF, as well as from business sponsorships, community donations, and grant funding, so it's not solely from city funding. We are a non-profit organization. Yeah, let's see what I have I missed. I guess that's our basic who we are. Over the past two years, Racklamain Street has gone through a big transitional period. We actually lost our staffing due to concerns around financial sustainability and capacity, and we've actually transitioned to a fully volunteer working board for the past year and a half or so. I joined the board this spring. Jen's been on a little bit longer, but the board as it stands right now is really committed to building this organization, and has been kind of managing all the operational day-to-day requirements as well as the strategic requirements of the organization for that time. And I'll get to more on staffing later, but just so you know, we're all volunteers, and we're doing our best to keep this thing going on. So we're here tonight because you hopefully have in front of you a drafted MOU with the city. This is the first MOU of this kind, at least in recent memory, for RMS and the city. The goal of the MOU is pretty much just to formalize the partnership that we've had with the city for decades. Nothing in the document is new necessarily, but it just helps to give some structure to this collaborative relationship we have, so that we can both know what to expect from each other and continue to build that relationship going forward. We've been working really closely with Mayor Lockman and with Tom for four months now to build this MOU and make sure that it's in line with the goals of both the city and RMS. And also, MLUs like this are pretty common for other downtown organizations, so this is not out of nowhere, and it's not because of this transitional period. It's just a new opportunity. So also in front of you should, I hope, have our work plan for fiscal year 26 to 27, so you can take a look at that. Okay, so in the MOU the basic principles are like I said to continue our collaboration as we've been working together and RMS is responsibilities that are laid out in there include basically keeping up with our mission so continuing to operate our community events continuing to provide business and organizational support downtown and continuing to communicate with collaborate with and coordinate these programs with the city it also includes This includes pursuing reaccreditation with Main Street America, which we lost when we lost our staff, so that is a new addition to this MOU, but otherwise it just encourages more formal communications, so it has an annual work plan and presentation included in there, as well as quarterly written reports from RMS to the city. On the city side, the city's responsibilities include considering funding each year for RMS, coordinating with RMS on all of these community initiatives, supporting those initiatives and communications around them. And also, it does commit to providing an ex-officio non-voting member of, or sorry, ex-officio member for RMS from the city. So this person would be kind of the go-between person to be able to represent city interests and then communicate back with the city from RMS meetings. So those are kind of the basics. If you have any questions about the MOU, we'd be happy to keep coordinating. The MOU is drafted by the city in partnership with RMS and with Maine Development Foundation, who is kind of the umbrella organization for all the Main Street orgs in Maine, so they have tons of experience and have worked on these MOUs before. About the work plan that we provided, I just wanted to run through kind of our major initiatives just so everyone knows what we've been working on and what we continue to work on for this fiscal year. A big one that we're really excited about is we want to take this opportunity of transition to look really closely at Rockland Main Street's mission and vision statements, our branding, and our website. So those are our main ways that we kind of communicate who we are, what we do for the community, and how we communicate with everyone. So we've begun that work already, and we are working to kind of provide basic new branding and voice by the end of this calendar year, and then kind of implement it into 2027. We want to do a more in-depth review of our internal bookkeeping best practices. We've begun a lot of this work. In this transitional time, we've really kind of had to overhaul some of our financial practices. So we're continuing that work and lining up our best finance, putting our best financial foot forward, reach our fundraising goals. That includes an annual appeal, grant applications, and continuing to solicit sponsorships and donations and execute our existing events, so Festival of Lights, Morning on Main like I said, and Rockland Main Street is now planning to take over Sunday strolls for 2020, 2027. So we're really excited about that. We've been working closely to kind of build that handoff plan. And then like I said, reaccreditation with Main Street America. So, that process will begin formally in February. We submit a self-assessment, and then we begin about a year-long process to become reaccredited with them. And then the final piece that we're really, excited about is hiring. We've reached the point where we feel comfortable and confident rehiring staff. staff. We are starting with an executive director, which will be a part-time position. We are in the midst of our hiring process. Mayor Lockman has been participating in that process. We got some really great candidates. We had a full open application process. And now we're working to kind of narrow down our candidates. And we're really excited by the people who have come to meet with us, and we're hoping to have that decision made in the coming month or two. Or even sooner. And we're really, excited because this person, of course, will be very key to implementing a lot of this work plan. And not only that, but helping to shape how Rockland Main Street kind of re-enters the public eye. And we've been sustaining these operations for the past two years. But I think Rockland Main Street, there's a lot of opportunity for us to really kind of reemerge as a resource for our community and as something that's really valuable in contributing to the quality of life here in Rockland. So, yeah, that's my rambly presentation. Would welcome certainly any questions. And if I can't answer them, hopefully Jen can. And if Jen can't, we will come back to you with answers. Well, thank you. [48:04] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): I don't know city manager you want to make any comments about the origin of the MOU or the because you've been really at the forefront of working with MDF and [48:14] City staff (stormwater/conservation): The board. Oh sure. I mean the MOU we've been talking about for I think a good year now about instituting something and We didn't recreate the wheel. We did look at past MOUs with other organizations their main streets and municipalities, so we took it. I think it's a good MOU. I think it really outlines the relationship between Rockland Main Street and the city and then goals that we'd like to have achieved on both ends, just the piece of them coming here quarterly to give updates, how we handle the funding, and what we expect with the relationship with Rockland Main Street. So I think it's a good document. I hope everybody's read it. I know we've put a lot of work into it, and it's something we took seriously and didn't just create overnight. [49:07] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Council York. [49:09] Mayor Lockman: First of all, thank you so much. I know that you and the rest of the volunteers have put in so much work behind the scenes and have really been propping this up in a time of uncertainty, and you've done a great job. So thank you for the efforts that you've put in. It's greatly appreciated. appreciated. My question is, I have a recommendation on the language under the financial accountability section in the MOU and I'm just wondering if I should propose that tomorrow as an amendment or what is the right, or maybe nobody else agrees with me. Let me just say what it is. So in the section, let's see, one, two, three, the third paragraph down under financial accountability which is section 9. RMS shall notify the City in a timely manner of any significant organizational, financial, staffing, governance or compliance issue that materially affects RMS's ability to perform under this MOU or appropriately administer City funds. I would like to see somewhere in that sentence changes to established programming. The reason I feel like that is important to have in here is just because I feel like probably every single person on council is still answering the question, what happened to summer solstice? And I feel like if we had a little bit more advanced notice before that programming was changed, then we could have supported you guys a lot better. And so I think having that in there would be an important add. [50:44] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): I would concur and I would say we have an action item tonight so we can propose an amendment okay great but that's good that clarity is [50:51] Councilor York: really good okay awesome thank you councillor Davis thank you for that [50:57] Councilor: presentation and thank you both RMS and Tom for working on the MOU I think the MOU is great with your amendment it's even better I don't love the work plan as a public document though and the reason is that it's not as I read the MOU you the work plan is intended at least partially as a justification of funding and that includes to me a statement of public value in the sense that if I'm a tax well I am a taxpayer but if I were just an anonymous taxpayer wondering what RMS does for the city there's only really one item out of pardon me nine in the work plan that actually is about public facing programming and that is the item about the events the others are primarily internal priorities it seems which are very important but in the context of a funding request it's not something I can take to folks who ask me why are we giving RMS $45,000 potentially I would personally I'm you only need three votes and I'm only one of five but before we vote on funding I would like to see a more explicit statement whether in the work plan or external to the work plan of the value that the public can expect to receive for the $45,000. I know the history of the organization. I've generally been very supportive of it. But again, in the context of a public document like this, I'd like to see something a little more explicit about that. Could [52:28] Tessa Rosenberry (Rockland Main Street): I respond directly, or shall I wait? I think we do have a letter of intention that kind of might speak directly to that. So if that's appropriate, I would be happy to reshare that. Yeah, and I think we'd be comfortable with that being a public document as well. [52:47] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Councilor Callick [52:49] Councilor: I don't like the city funding piece where it calls out the number that we're giving them I think I'd rather just say that we provide an annual appropriation from the downtown increment [53:05] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Make it more general and then have the authorization be a separate action item. Yeah, well, I think I'll just say I think the origin of the MOU was really intended to, one, enshrine the relationship and expectations and performance responsibilities and all that, but also be a document that is reviewed on an annual basis. So I could see why separating the mention of the specific number would be smart than binding into, you know. So that's a good point that I think can be amended out. Other comments? Questions? Well, first of all, I know how much has been thrown at you all. [53:57] Tessa Rosenberry (Rockland Main Street): We signed up for it. [53:58] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Yeah, I know you signed up for it, but not everyone joins a board and then realizes that the organization is going to go through a transformation and in a time period when the chamber is gone and there's a lot of pressures economic pressures and just community pressures so you guys have stayed with it and ours are sort of building I would say building back with capacity and with intention I do think the counselor Davis's point about this is a really an opportunity to communicate what Rockland Main Street is and to do so in a way that so not just identifies the value of what the work is but also So what you're carrying forward and how the community is going to come interact with the work itself. So I think if there is a public-facing document, it should be framed in the way of communicating the purpose of the effort. I know you have a lot of that already formulated. But something that's going to live publicly and justify the actions by council, So I think that would be really, helpful. And again, I've seen this work in so many other communities, so I understand the value of it. I think part of the, and I've said this to both of you at different points, like if you ask people what they understand Rockland Main Street to be, you'll get different answers. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. But I think as you go through this process, really try to be implicit about trying to hear the public side of the conversation because that's going to steer where there's needs that need to be met. I just spoke to somebody the other day who is kind of looking for a space to rent, and they don't know really who to turn to. And I know given that you are a volunteer board and there's not necessarily clear roles within that, trying to think about the stakeholder cases that are going to be a real asset that really helped the city. And so one of them is just helping stakeholders navigate the downtown and the access to opportunities. And I think it's all there, I hear it when we talk, but I think that could be just articulated a little bit more. I don't have anything else. I think the other piece about the MOU that's really In the city manager mentioned this is just the, this is a partnership, so it's not all on you to figure this out. And the more we have communication and the more, you know, it doesn't even have to be quarterly, that you could come to us and talk to us and provide us with an update. And I think just keep those channels of communication open. And look, best of luck with the hiring, because I think that's a major step forward to getting back to a organization that's not just volunteer [57:39] Tessa Rosenberry (Rockland Main Street): Driven, certainly. Yeah, and I think leaned into the more formalized side of things with this, but I think if I had a lot of time I could not stress more how fantastic this experience and this board is. I think that we, the commitment that the board shows to this organization just embodies the legacy of the organization, but also how much opportunity there is to work, to continue to work more closely with the city, to continue to build relationships downtown and throughout Rockland. And I, yeah, I'm, I am Happy to provide more opportunities for the community and anyone tuning in to see that. In terms of timeline for this MOU, would it be helpful for us to provide that material for the next council meeting? [58:45] Councilor York: I'm just wondering what the next steps might be. [58:49] Councilor: So what I was reacting to was really not the MOU, which I think is great. I think it's really in excellent shape. It was more the work plan and its relationship to the funding request or the supplemental letter you might want to send. So I wasn't expressing any reservations about, I think it's an action item for tonight that, yeah, about passing the MOU tonight. Yeah, I think that the two are [59:09] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Separate, but I think between now and next Wednesday, if you could provide that information, that would be really helpful. I also just wanted to make a point, because I know you guys are not doing this alone, and you're attending, you know, meetings and connecting with other Main Street programs, and that's a connection for this, for the city to learn from others. Main Development Foundation is with you along that journey, but you've taken it upon yourselves to make that outreach, and it's, that's how we do the best work, when we look at others and say, hey, they're doing this in this place, and listen over here. So thank you for that time and energy that you've put into this. All right, thank you, thank you, thank you. Next we have our city planner about a housing plan update. [1:00:55] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): Okay, I'll set up. So I'm Elias, I'm the director of planning code enforcement for the city, and I'm here just to give a overview of some of work that's been done on the housing bond program on the staff side of things. So I'm going to cover a few different things. The first is going to be staff process, a little bit of background, how we got here, how our decisions have been informed by the previous pieces of the process. Then we'll talk a little bit about the pillars of the program, which we've identified from that previous experience with the housing task force and housing consultant. Then we'll move on to the initial offering, some ideas about how we can get the program off the ground, and then finally some draft program parameters. So the first piece, obviously this is a culmination of a lot of work by council, by community members, by the housing task force, staff and consultants who we brought on to help us, and the draft program is really trying to center the priorities identified by these groups, with the goal of stable implementation and some quick successes out the gate that can build a sustainable program and encourage housing development into the future, more than just the next couple years. So some of the key goals identified by these groups include developing a diverse housing stock, providing revenue neutral housing incentives and program offerings that are complementary to state and federal housing programs, and a lot of that came through the Housing Task Force recommendations, as well as the work of the housing consultant on the housing plan. So we identified these key pillars of the program from those conversations. The first is revenue neutrality. That's been a major piece of the conversation from the beginning of the bond. And that's really what makes this program unique and also potentially helps it to become a model for the rest of the state of how to locally incentivize housing. The second one is diverse housing options. That's diverse in price and typology, and that was a key goal that was identified by both the housing consultant and the affordable housing task force. And the last one is right sized incentives, calibrating the incentives correctly to incent units without wasting dollars and efficient allocation of funds. First one, so revenue neutrality, like I said, is a key element of how the bond was pitched and critical to the success of the program. It's a novel way for municipalities to provide housing incentives, and if we can make it work, it's, it would really be, as far as I can tell, a unique program. The goal is that projects funded through the housing bond program will be revenue neutral after a period of five years. So there's an initial lead-in to the development where before the bond would be paid back, but it would be a short enough period that there would be return on value to the taxpayers within a reasonably short period of time. And then after that five-year period, it would all be positive incremental value contribution to the city's general fund. And so in order to achieve that, incentives will be tied directly to the amount of incremental tax revenue projected to be returned to the city's general fund after five years, and that would be calculated by trying to project out the mill rate and cost modeling using, you know, assessing software and other models to try to figure out if a project, or how much a project would be able to return. To that end, we're also suggesting adjusting, starting with lower risk offerings that have a higher chance to return dollars to the taxpayer in a shorter period of time during the program's initial phase. This is because we feel like quick successes out the gate are really the way to build sustainability in the program and make sure that the program is generating the revenue that it's supposed to. And really, that's early success equals long term program sustainability and maximum unit generation over time, right? We want to meet our unit generation goals not for the next two years, three years, we want to meet them for the next five or ten or into the future if we can. So diverse housing stock, one of the key goals that was identified by pretty much all stakeholders in the process, it's a core goal of the program, and the goal is to help fill the missing middle and provide housing options to Rockland residents. And like I said before, a diverse housing stock means a range of prices, a range of densities, and a range of living arrangements. The goal is not just to increase the total number of units, although that is definitely a core goal, but also to provide housing for a range of different household types. We want Rockland to provide housing that can meet the need of individual professionals, families of all sizes, and older community members looking for co-living or age-in-place opportunities to benefit from this program. And we also hope to fund projects across the full spectrum of 80 to 100% AMI in order to provide the broadest range of options across the spectrum of what workforce housing means to the community. Right-sized incentives. Efficient allocation of funds depends on right-sizing the incentive offered by our program. And right-sizing the incentive means funding only the amount needed to fill the gap between a viable project moving forward or stalling, right? Funds in excess of that are potentially wasted, and funds below that aren't effective in incenting units. The trick is finding that correctly calibrated incentive. So right sizing will avoid, you know, unnecessary costs and projects that do not have viable funding. And in order to achieve that, we would contract with professional underwriting services that would analyze the projects financial models to determine viability and the correct, correctly calibrated incentives. And these criteria would inform the final recommendation for funding through the bond program. So there'd be a couple different moving pieces. There'd be a staff assessment of city goals, there'd be a professional underwriting assessment of project financials, and then there'd be a final funding determination likely by council. So [1:07:59] Councilor: Question on that. So that opens up many cans of worms, as I'm sure you know, but you seem to be gesturing towards a bespoke model of funding per project. Is that the case? And I don't mean that in a skeptical way, but that seems to be what you're saying. What do you mean by bespoke? Well, in the sense that if you're examining the underwriting of each individual project and tailoring the incentive to each individual project, it sounds like what you're describing as a project is a sort of per-project approach rather than sort of coming at the market with a uniform set of incentives. [1:08:30] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): No, sorry, that's actually not what I mean. The right sizing of the incentive would be calibrated based on the incremental value that would be generated by the project. The underwriting would be for the assessment of the viability of the project, not necessarily to determine the amount, although they could say that perhaps this funding is inadequate or padding on top of what's needed as part of their recommendation. Helpful, thank you, but it wouldn't be we're gonna give this project this amount according to the underwriter and this other project this amount. Okay, so the initial offering prioritizing the highest return on incremental value to get those early successes and stable investments that prioritize revenue neutrality. So these unit, you, these unit types were identified by the housing task force and housing plan as key unit typologies for the development of Rockland's housing stock, and this is really just a starting point to stabilize the program once the program is proven viable from a standpoint of revenue generation. Additional funding streams may be established to fill out those other pillars that were identified by the housing task force, and the initial offerings are really intended to develop short-term revenue neutrality by prioritizing unit types that are likely to return incremental value to the general fund. Offerings that do not generate incremental tax value, although it deeply important to housing development in Rockland, will not be revenue neutral on their own and will rely on success of other. aspects of the bond program to fulfill that promise of revenue neutrality. That doesn't mean that they can't be part of the program. It just means that out of the gate, we want to have stable investments around which we can build out those other aspects of the program. So they should be introduced when the revenue-generating elements of the program are proven viable over an initial period of time. So let's talk just a little bit about each unit type. So going through some of the cost modeling data, looking at what these units actually generate, single-family homes generate the highest incremental value on a per-unit basis. They're desirable, you know, maybe perhaps more spacious. the benefit of single-family homes is they're an easy pathway to or they could be an easy pathway to home ownership, allowing younger generations to build equity, which is very difficult in the current housing market. The initial idea behind this was that these would probably be ownership units, but they could also be rental. Ideally somebody would come forward with a subdivision plan rather than a one-off home development, although that could potentially be possible as well. And the only real drawback is lower densities have a higher cost of service provision from the from the city. Duplex and multifamily, so obviously a lower building cost per unit, also a lower incremental value generation per unit, right? Single-family homes are more valuable than condos in a multifamily, and really these represent the opportunity to provide more housing for more people at a cheaper cost than a single-family subdivision. And among these, the value is highest for duplex on a per unit basis. It seemed like the midsize multifamily had the lower incremental value generation potential, and then once you got up to the bigger multifamily, that started to go back up again, but that's not a definitive or comprehensive research. And again, lower cost of service provision for city with higher density living, you know, more suited to an urban environment. The last one, adus, so adu is very topical right now, multi-generational co-living benefits are one of the biggest things that they can do for a community. especially an aging community or an older community but they can also be source of rental income for homeowners people who want to you know take down their mortgage or their property taxes can be a helpful thing for that and they can be built in any residential zone the issue from a revenue neutrality standpoint is these would have the lowest incremental value generation in particular attached ad use have a very low incremental value generation because the way that they're counted through assessment they're counted as an addition and not as a separate unit so a detached ad you would be counted as a separate unit and has higher potential for incremental value generation the other thing that we have to parse out a little bit is that the whole concept of an ADU is kind of intended as an antidote to single-family only zoning which we don't have and so the way that our ordinance contemplates ad use is really only relevant in the areas that are truly very rural areas of rockland where lower density, where you cannot build high density, because in most of the growth area that's served by water and sewer, you can build whatever you can fit on the on the parcel. So that being said, however we choose to define ADU according to the housing program does not necessarily have to be the same as the way we define it under the zoning chapter. So the program parameters, the goal of the program parameters is that they should guide the program into the future as city staff and elected officials turn over. There's details of the actual program can change or adapt over time, but these would be really the fundamental pillars that would hold up the program as institutional knowledge changes over time. So professional underwriting we discussed earlier, really that would be one, an independent set of eyes to look at the project, and second, a very qualified set of eyes, right? We don't always have the capacity for staff to assess financial or real estate information on the level of detail that would be necessary. Second, compatibility with city plans. This is really where the role of staff would come in, looking at the community goals identified by the comprehensive plan, by the housing plan, by the zoning ordinance, and other planning documents, and trying to assess how well that project fits with that. Maximum annual disperse, disbursement, that would be an idea for the initial period to avoid, to avoid it's spending too much too early before the program is proven viable. We could cap the initial Maximum disbursement on an annual basis, and that would minimize debt exposure and help secure the revenue neutrality for the long term. The last one, which we'll go into a little bit more on the last slide, is incremental value generation and amortization of debt service, which will be closely linked to ensure revenue neutrality. So incentives would be tied to the incremental revenue returned to the city's general fund. That those are dollars that directly help the tax base. So that's what we're thinking of when we think of revenue neutrality. These are dollars that are going to offset the city's budget and help bring down the tax bills. So the theory behind that is that the maximum incentive for each unit would be equal to the principal amount fully amortizable, including debt service, within five years of disbursement. So that would mean that everything after five years would be a net positive contribution to the city's budget, but it would take five years to get there. You could select a lower a lower period or a higher longer period, but yeah, so amortization would be calculated using projected incremental tax revenue returned to the general fund for unit of average quality, and that average quality is the key part. With the right sizing, the average quality is an assessing cost model that is used to calculate value. So units above average quality probably wouldn't be workforce units. Below average quality also not necessarily something that we would want to be spending our dollars on. The five-year payback was selected because it minimizes the risk of long-term debt management and returns value to the taxpayer, and that gets to that last bullet point, which is threading the needle. If the period is too short, the subsidy won't be high enough to fund effectively units, and if the periods too long, we'll be funding too much at the expense of the taxpayer. Another do you [1:17:39] Councilor: mind if I interrupt you? So in terms of it being potentially too short, can you talk a little about whether you think that'll be enough of a subsidy or why it [1:17:49] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): It might be enough. Yeah, so that's the threading the needle part. I think there's still more work to be done on that front, and there's still more projections to be done. I think when we say revenue neutrality, if we say it's revenue neutral over 10 or 20 years, that's a lot different than saying it's revenue neutral over one year. If you say it's over 10, it's a harder conversation to have. So maybe you could go up to 6, 7, but 5 felt like the right point where we have a chance to provide. Again, more work to be done on calculating the actual numbers. But based on the initial look, it seems like 5 would provide a reasonable amount of subsidy without extending that period where it's not revenue neutral too far. [1:18:42] Councilor: And I would imagine, too, if we don't get any takers or get fewer takers, then we thought we could extend that. [1:18:47] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): You could always extend that period. All right. Yeah. And then the last, this is the projects must not be tax exempt in order to return value to the general fund. So that's all I have. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions? [1:19:05] Mayor Lockman: Council York. So, what do you think as we're moving forward would be a good time frame to be able to revisit some of the key metrics that you talked about in order to determine if we are headed in the right direction? Like, will we say, we'll come back to this in a year? Or do you think that in six months you'll say, we have no takers, nobody's interested in this program, and then we can talk about, you know, tweaking things based on feedback that we might receive? Like do you have a time frame in mind? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think I think it depends [1:19:39] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): on what the perceived issue is, right? Because if there's no takers and we're not getting feedback, then maybe we would have to come back to it after a year, right? Sooner. But if we're talking about assessment of whether we're getting projects and we need to assess whether they're doing what we thought they were going to do in terms of a value generation, that's a longer time frame, five year time frame, right? Or even a three to, you know, three year time frame once they're built and we [1:20:03] Mayor Lockman: Have a couple years of return on value. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. And so can we create, like right out of the gate, can we create like a metrics dashboard or something where you can share it with council routinely, like you know how we're doing with underwriting and you know compatibility with the comprehensive plan and things like that, just so that we can make sure that everybody's aware on how many applications we've received, like if we're having success actually even getting them through the underwriting process, you know, things like that, just so that we can kind of keep a finger on the pulse of it rather than having to wait a whole year, just because this is such a [1:20:40] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): hot button item. Visibility is important. Absolutely. I think I think an annual report both on the revenue generation of the program as well as on those aspects you mentioned would be a [1:20:54] Mayor Lockman: critical element of any program. Yep. Okay, great. And then also if we have ordinances that are as a result of this, I think it would be important for us to put some kind of a trigger mechanism that if we're finding that it went south or it went really well that we have an opportunity to revisit at any time. So if you know it doesn't work for whatever reason, then we can just say we're not going to do this and we're going to shut the program down, right, like a chicken switch, right [1:21:24] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): and there's no minimum amount, like there's no minimum amount of fees that must be dispersed, right, like so if say you got three applications and none of that and the underwriter said none of them are really projects you should be funding, right, okay, that would be that. Yeah. [1:21:39] Councilor York: Okay, great. Thank you council members. Well, I think Tom, did you have your hand up? Well, I was just [1:21:45] City staff (stormwater/conservation): going to comment that you know the reporting back to council that'll be done more than in a yearly process. Yeah, I can see us every time we get an application updating council. That would be great, probably doing a quarterly report just to let you know how it's going. Yeah, I just think that the more [1:22:01] Mayor Lockman: visibility that we can create around it will create more interest in the program and also it will show our key stakeholders who are our constituents that we're taking their feedback back very seriously. Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. What a great presentation. [1:22:17] Councilor: I didn't say thank you. Thank you. It's because I interrupted you. I didn't have time to say thank you. So if I'm a developer and I want to build a four unit building and just want to get a sense of if it's going to pencil out, how do I, what's the avenue for approaching the city and getting a sense of what might be available? [1:22:37] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): So I think, well, I think that's TBD a little bit right because there's a lot of administrative processes they're going to defend they're going to depend on what the final program actually looks like. I mean like any other plan like the staff in char like any other city process generally whatever office is in charge of the process would be the principal touch point for information. I think like if a developer wants part of it's the application process right like you can you can put your financials together and going to apply for the funding, and that's when the substantive review happens, just like with planning board, like somebody can come in, I can communicate to them the information about the process, walk them through the steps that need to be done, but the substantive review of the plan doesn't happen until the application's before us. [1:23:31] Councilor: I think I'll try to put a finer point on what I was thinking of, because I think I didn't really express it well. How much work would I have to go through to actually get a ballpark number for what the subsidy could be in the sense that if I have to go through months of right I mean for what might be a relatively modest subsidy in some cases how do how [1:23:51] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): do we handle it the idea would be that the city manager their designee would set the funding for each unit type each part of the program offering on an annual basis based on updated cost models assessing best practices whatever else so it wouldn't be on again it wouldn't be on a project to project basis you're doing a multifamily project we're assuming it's of average quality we're gonna offer funding based on the fact that it's average quality so if you want to put whatever you want in there you can but it's not going to change the [1:24:22] Councilor: the subsidy so yeah all right that's really what I want to hear so that we'll be able to have a public posture to the world and to developers saying we're willing to offer this much subsidy per unit depending on these parameters right and then that's great that's that's really I think the ideal way to do it [1:24:37] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): So thank you. I think what you're talking about is like predictive modeling, yeah, so not waiting until months down the road to know whether [1:24:45] Councilor York: it's even a viable product or not. I just had a question for Tom, did the bond [1:24:52] Councilor: funds expire? So if we don't use them in seven years, no, I mean we've been [1:24:58] City staff (stormwater/conservation): authorized to spend or to borrow up to ten million dollars and we can take as [1:25:03] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): many years as we want. Okay, so I had a question. I love this idea of like a dashboard or annual reporting being baked into an ordinance or at least some reference to the reporting, but just like taking a step back, what do you see the timeline going forward now [1:25:24] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): in terms of like next steps? Yeah, I mean, I think next steps would be, I mean, what we've talked about was that, you know, and actually similar to what other cities have, for example Portland, for their housing authority, they have a sort of like enabling ordinance and then the program documents are not written in the ordinance, right, they're developed by staff and published and they do an annual sort of program guide document that comes out every year. I think we could do it either way, we could put it in the ordinance or we could write an enabling ordinance and then designate, you know, the city manager or staff to, and if you do it that other way there's [1:26:04] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): opportunity for public input and engagement in terms of draft programmatic guidelines and that you will get feedback from the general public, or how do you envision like the opportunity to provide input? [1:26:18] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): I haven't gotten that far yet. But certainly I think you could do it anywhere on that spectrum of we're telling staff to develop this and they're going to report to council and the public, you know, at a workshop before the new rules come into effect or something like that. But you can do it any way you want to do, right? [1:26:41] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Yeah, and I think I know you're engaged with a number of different housing finance bodies in the state, and I think that's one good question of, like, how do they incorporate feedback? I know as programs change because the market changes, there's nothing worse than putting something out that then there's no takers. So part of the design has to sort of take into consideration what's going to be viable and what's not going to be viable. The other thing, I just don't want to misinterpret what you were suggesting, and I think this conversation probably warrants a sort of dedicated workshop at some point down the road. But it's not as if the view of the return on the bond investment is going to be equal to every type of product that it could support. There is a general view that there's going to be some that have greater return on investment than others or shorter return on investment than others. Others, but is there a general view in terms of how you look at these things in the aggregate so that as a total of funding obligation that it meets the requirements of the five-year or less than five years, but that some products will carry others forward, that the average is going to net out positive? [1:28:09] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): Yeah, and I mean, I think, yes, short answer. Long answer is I think in the long term, I mean, there could be a targeted return on value to the taxpayers that could be suggested over a 10-year period or something like that if you wanted to create a benchmark. Otherwise, you could look at it over a five-year period, we're going to net out to zero or we're going to net out to plus 5% or whatever it is, and you take it in the aggregate. Get, but that was kind of what you're getting at. Part of the reason why we're suggesting just the first three is because we're not going to have any surplus from whatever projects generate more of their share of the of the incremental value, so if we start off with the ones that aren't generating any or are actually like lost leaders, everything, right, exactly, then we're starting off in the in [1:28:59] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): The red, and we don't want, we don't. Yeah, I think the other thing I would like more input on is around, like, what options for covering the borrowing costs that don't impact the tax base. And I know we've talked a little bit about, like, how TIF funding could provide some of that coverage. But just thinking of anything that can be done to not have the borrowing have an annual impact on the tax base would be even better for the prospects of revenue neutrality. but it sounds like you are looking at there's a number of like levers and parameters that you're can taking into account but one thing i would want to avoid is that it only like steers to like the best product and so that 's all you see getting built out of bond funds because the reality is we need a mixture of types of housing that some of which are going to pencil out much more favorable some will be less favorable but probably still revenue neutral so just the mix of housing that's produced I think would be would be great. Yeah, so at a certain point when you have a sense of sort of a proposed timeline in terms of ordinance development, please share that with us. Absolutely. Yeah, council Davis, just a final [1:30:27] Councilor: general comment, this is real exciting, this is as far as I know this has not been done anywhere else, this type of program, is that your understanding as [1:30:33] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): well? I found one bond funded housing program in Massachusetts, but it was much smaller, I don't know, structure differently. All right, so we're trail [1:30:40] Councilor: blazers, we really are, and this is in a sense the culmination of a lot of the work we've been doing for the last however many years we've all been doing this, it almost makes me miss being on council. Anyway, this is real exciting and I'm really very pleased with the fact that you're leading the work on this. So thank you. [1:31:03] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): The other just, this is like more of a technical question, but just something to think about is like when, are there commitments that are made through bond dollars that there are performance requirements that have to be met, so the funding and the stack comes later on in the development, so that we're shielding ourselves from exposure of actually making that commitment, so that other things have to take place. And so that might actually get us closer to a much shorter time period than the five years. [1:31:31] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): Yeah, no, and that's something I've contemplated a little bit. I mean, the goal would be that the funds wouldn't be released until the project was breaking ground or even partway through project development, depending on what we decide is the right time frame for that to happen. Funds could be authorized, right? Funds could be authorized at the beginning of the process so that people aren't out on a limb, I am not knowing if they're going to get the funds, but they're not actually borrowing. [1:31:57] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): It's sort of a reimbursement model where, like, if you meet these performance requirements, then the funding will get it. [1:32:03] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): You go through your site plan review, you get your building permit, you're ready to break ground, maybe you break ground, and then you get the actual funds. And that way we know that there's at least, we're as close to it as we can in terms of a guarantee of the project actually moving forward. [1:32:18] City staff (stormwater/conservation): Yeah, we're trying to prevent from borrowing funds that the taxpayers need to pay back with the developers sitting on it for two or three years. [1:32:25] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Well, there's inherent dangers of being first, and it's better to be – I mean, this is a new product that doesn't exist, so the fact that it's available should help encourage other financing tools that are more risky to take shape than the public dollars being the ones that absorb that risk. [1:32:49] City Clerk (roll call): All right. Well, thank you. I really appreciate this work. City Clerk. Order number 83. In order, authorizing a memorandum of understanding between the City and Rockland Main Street, Inc., outlining the responsibilities and expectations of Rockland Main Street, Inc. You've heard the reading. [1:33:08] Mayor Lockman: What's the wish of Council? Councilor York? Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move passage of Order No. 83 and offer an amendment. [1:33:14] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Councilor York moves passage and is recognized for the amendment. [1:33:19] Mayor Lockman: Councilor Kellick, were you saying under Section 2 where it says city funding to strike, where it says of 45,000 yes that's yes so if we could modify that to strike that amount and then under section 9 under financial accountability and the third paragraph it should read RMS shall notify the city in a timely manner of any significant organizational financial staffing changes to establish programming governance or compliance issues that may materially affect RMS MS's ability to perform under this MOU or appropriately administer city funds. [1:33:56] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Councilor New York makes an amendment to strike the mention of $45,000 in Section 2 and adds mention of programming in Section 9 under financial accountability. Is there any discussion on the amendment? City Clerk is recognized. Councilor Kellogg. Yes. Councilor Davis. Yes. Mayor Logman. Yes. Yes. Councilor Yorke. Yes. The amendment passes four in favor, zero opposed. Is there any further discussion on the order as amended? City Clerk is recognized. Councilor Yorke. Yes. Mayor Loughlin. Yes. Councilor Davis. Yes. Councilor Kalik. Yes. The order passes four in favor, zero opposed. And the City Clerk is recognized for the regular meeting sent in the agenda. Okay, [1:35:00] City Clerk (roll call): Under communications, we have a letter from Brenda Gerard, resignation from the Economic Development Committee, and a letter from Alexis Amarino, resignation from the Healthy Aging Working Group. Under resolves, we have two resolves, number 21 will be a commendation for the Rockland Police Department for their community policing program, and a commendation for Paul Benjamin on his induction to the Blues Hall of Fame. Under ordinances and final reading public hearing number 27, it's chapter 4 article 5, the vacant buildings question. [1:35:43] Councilor: On this, since we didn't get a chance to schedule a workshop in October, does it [1:35:48] Councilor York: make sense to postpone this to allow for a workshop? I believe over this, the city [1:35:53] Mayor Lockman: plan are still here, we've we've had several meetings and we have an amendment by substitution that we will provide some language to you folks, but there's not really anything different than what we've discussed in workshops past, so you know, we didn't really see the value of having the workshop, but you know, certainly I'm open to feedback from the folks. My memory from the last [1:36:19] Councilor: meeting is that I think whether or not it was, it was all of us are intentional, I think we indicated to the public that there would be a workshop. So I would be more comfortable probably having a workshop before moving this. Before passing this and finally reading, [1:36:35] Mayor Lockman: would you object to that? I think the city manager wants to, yeah. [1:36:38] City staff (stormwater/conservation): I was trying to schedule this workshop along with the stormwater utility that will be happening later this month. [1:36:44] Councilor: Okay, is that okay? Is that okay with you? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Thank you. [1:36:49] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Yeah, just pursuant to that. I sent and you and the city manager per our conversation some suggestions of names of people and just welcome you know feedback. I don't want to own this or anyway, but I do think and I know you've done a lot of work in talking to a number of different municipalities, but for the for the public to hear about like how is it going and what they've learned, it's going to be helpful to any you know implementation at a staff level, so that would be I think a good intent of the workshop. It would be nice to hear from our city planner, but also hear from a few others who have a little bit further down and say, oh well you know you might want to think about this, or this didn't work out to the intent that we saw, so really to help just people understand like NOT JUST THE WHY, BUT THE MECHANISM OF IMPLEMENTATION. [1:37:52] Mayor Lockman: I also would just like to take the opportunity to thank the City Planner and the Code Office, the folks who have helped work on this. There has been so much research done, and I just really want to thank you all for your [1:38:04] Councilor York: incredible support, so thanks. Will the amendment from Mary [1:38:10] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): be in the packet, even if it's going to be potentially postponed? Is that something that we can add, just so that it, yeah, okay, as long as I have it by [1:38:21] City Clerk (roll call): time to send it out in the packet on Friday. Yep, okay, number 28, Chapter 19, Section 19 206, [1:38:31] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): pet daycare and grooming establishments. And if we could have the City Planner, he's provided us with a memo this ordinance, yes, [1:38:50] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): so I did leave a memo on all of your desks this evening, but it was a little late, so no worries if you didn't get a chance to read it. I reviewed the ordinance that Mayor Lackman proposed, and in particular I was very interested to see if the one acre minimum would be prohibitive, and it based on my analysis, my spatial analysis, it certainly does not seem to be. There numerous parcels on which that would be permitted, and a fairly limited number of residential zones that would be affected by the proposed amendment, and I, it's my opinion that the performance standards in the ordinance are sufficient to mitigate any undue impact on the abutters. Can you walk us through where [1:39:37] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): the amendment would allow these operations to take place, and like why, [1:39:41] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): how you selected them? Yes, certainly. So we really were trying to, I, in my analysis I was looking at the zones I thought would have the least impact on residential, that would be industrial, business park, commercial three, which is out on Farwell Drive, as well as Plaza commercial, and these are, you know, high intensity usage areas that already have a lot of other activity happening in them, noise, construction, you know, commerce, and so I selected those zones based on the fact that it didn't seem like the addition of dog or pet services would be substantially more impactful than whatever other uses are [1:40:27] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): going on around the general area, and I know you mentioned some areas that might require like additional consideration or conditional use review. Can you talk a [1:40:38] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): A little bit more about that. Yeah, that was really in there. If there were any particular concerns from abutters in who live in any of these zones near where this is proposed, if there was a zone that was in question, for example, if you wanted to permit it in say the transitional business zone or commercial one, or those aren't in this amendment, but if there were to be consideration of expanding the use or specific concern about the zones that are suggested here, you could mitigate that by changing it to a conditional use, which would allow for some additional level of review by staff or the Planning Board depending on [1:41:17] Mayor Lockman: what the proposal was. Just a question for you. I'm looking at the map that says figure two south and our southern Rockland focus. I'm looking specifically at what I believe is right around Valley View Drive, kind of across the street from South School property. It seems odd to me. Like, I know the areas all around those are residential parcels. It seems weird to me that we would have availability in that small space in the middle. [1:41:53] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): Yeah, that might not be correct. [1:41:57] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): That does seem odd. Yeah. What do you mean that little green spot? [1:42:01] Mayor Lockman: Yeah, I mean, there's nothing in there right now. [1:42:03] Councilor: That's the solar field, isn't it now, I think? I think so, yeah. [1:42:07] Mayor Lockman: It's vacant, but just thinking about for future purposes, if that was no longer a solar field, I would think that might be a significant burden on the people that are in that neighborhood. That's right by the, it abuts the train tracks, I believe. [1:42:23] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): Yes, I will double check on why that's in there, I think. Yeah, I'll double check on those. I think it's in it. Yeah, it's an industrial zone, which is why yeah [1:42:31] Councilor: I actually remember years ago when that solar development was built there was we discussed at some length I forget that I think I was that was before I was on council I think I was on the Energy Committee then and that's why I was involved with it. But there was I remember discussion of that being a weird space with industrial boarded by residential and so I think when we wrote the industrial the solar regulations, we did it with a mind towards trying to mitigate the impacts around surrounding properties, which is maybe only relevant here conceptually that we dealt with that before in that. I just remember that from many years ago. [1:43:07] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): I will say that the current use there does seem to have, like there's usually, it's a large garage, there's heavy machinery that's parked there. So maybe that use isn't, like we could think about rezoning that area to be more compatible with the area around it. But I'm not sure the dot like you're allowed to do construction right there right. So I'm not sure there's a substantial [1:43:27] Councilor York: difference between. Yeah no that's that's a great point. Any questions? Just thanks [1:43:34] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): for the clarity on this. And so will you provide a updated table for the amendment? Yes. [1:43:40] Tessa Rosenberry (Rockland Main Street): Great. Yeah. Happy to help. I have a question. Oh. Mary, hi. [1:43:46] Councilor: I noticed in that ordinance the decibel level is 55. It seems like you're kind of setting that up for failure. I don't know if any dog daycare could meet 55 decibel. The decibel level in commercial zones and industrial zones is 75, just for comparison. [1:44:08] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): so it's just something to think about. That's a good point. Now would you recommend modifying that to be? I would yeah to be 75. Yeah okay. Yeah that's the [1:44:21] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): commercial standard and we're talking about commercial industrial zones. There's no reason it should be lower than the other uses that are allowed in [1:44:27] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): the same. So all right. Thank You Mary. Yeah number [1:44:35] City Clerk (roll call): 30 is chapter 8 section 8 -708, the maximum levels of assistance for general assistance. Ordinances and first readings, number 29, Chapter 11, Section 11-210, the short-term rental cap that was postponed from last month. [1:44:54] Councilor: Speaking of workshops. [1:44:55] City staff (stormwater/conservation): Yeah, I was just going to say, do we still want to workshop that? [1:44:58] Councilor: I'd like to, yes. [1:45:00] City staff (stormwater/conservation): So I can, depending on how Wright-Pierce comes out, if they can do it at the end of this month, Maybe we'll tack on STRs and vacant buildings in the same night or maybe do [1:45:12] Councilor: The water one separate sorry stormwater separate and do those two together. Because they tend to take a little bit longer. Yeah, no we can do it. Number [1:45:28] City Clerk (roll call): 31 chapter 20 sections 2408 and 409 historic preservation incentives and enforcement. [1:45:38] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): I just want to recognize that City Planner has worked with Ann Morris on this and found some improvements. It's, I would say, very much in the spirit of what was originally intended, but if anyone has any questions, I'm sure he can answer them. [1:45:58] Councilor: So this is Mary. Do you – so is there a different version of this than what's in the – than what I see in the packet? [1:46:07] City staff (stormwater/conservation): No. No, I think that is the revisions. Okay. [1:46:13] Councilor: Because the issue, the concern I have with it is under enforcement. You're only enforcing with one distinct category, but the requirements still apply to everybody. So this, you're only enforcing income producing properties, but you're still making everybody go to the board. I [1:46:45] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): think they wanted, my understanding was that, or my goal was to avoid assessing penalties to single-family home properties renovating their house or something like that, but certainly, yeah, maybe should be [1:47:04] Councilor: adapted to also exempt them from review. Well, then I would just exempt them from it, right, and not require them to do something, but then say but we're not going to enforce it, because then some people are doing it and then some people are not doing it and get away with not doing it just because it's not being enforced, as opposed to not being required in the first place. I agree with [1:47:24] Elias (Director of Planning & Code Enforcement): that. Yeah, that's a good point. Thanks. Under [1:47:32] City Clerk (roll call): orders, number 84 is authorizing use of city property for the 2026 holiday celebrations, also known as Festival of Lights. [1:47:43] Councilor: Oh, I had a question about that. Is there anything for Hanukkah? [1:47:54] City staff (stormwater/conservation): Festivity, we don't close the road down for that. Oh, okay. [1:47:58] Councilor: It just wasn't in this. Does RMS usually organizes that, right? RMS usually organizes the Hanukkah Lighting Rite. That's right. Yeah. Number [1:48:13] City Clerk (roll call): 85 is authorizing grant application and acceptance for improvements at the Fish [1:48:18] Mayor Lockman: Pier. I'd be happy to sponsor that, sir. [1:48:25] City Clerk (roll call): And number 86 is authorizing a reserve fund expenditure for RMS funding. [1:48:34] Councilor York: Sponsor. I'll sponsor it. And [1:48:41] City Clerk (roll call): number 87 is authorizing an accredited enhancement agreement for Rockland Commons. [1:48:46] City staff (stormwater/conservation): So with this Order 87, the CEA agreement is still going back and forth between the two attorneys. We may not be ready for this for a vote on the 14th, but if we are not, we can either add it to the November agenda or to one of the workshops later in the month. Okay. Okay. [1:49:10] Councilor York: And if we do put it on, who would like to sponsor it? I had a question, is Rick Rockwell aware that [1:49:15] City staff (stormwater/conservation): might not be done? Hopefully. Well, it's in his attorney's hands currently. Okay, so now we will communicate with Rick if it's not going to be on the agenda and tell him when it will be readdressed. So [1:49:32] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): that is just my understanding that might [1:49:35] City staff (stormwater/conservation): be coming off, might be coming off. Yes. Yeah, in my mind, most likely it will be coming off. Nothing against the CEA. It's just I don't think it's ready for it. Ready yet. Sponsor? Sponsor? Anyone? [1:49:56] City Clerk (roll call): That's everything I have. Anything else? [1:49:58] Mayor Lockman: Councilor York. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. [1:50:01] Councilor: Consent agenda. If we want one. [1:50:03] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): If we want one, I don't think [1:50:05] City Clerk (roll call): There really isn't, I didn't see. Never mind. [1:50:10] Mayor Lockman (presiding chair): Councilor York makes a motion to adjourn at 7.20. Without objection. Thank you everyone.