Westbrook Planning Board Backs Data Center Ban, Reviews Stroudwater Meadows

[0:14] Chair (presiding officer): Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Westbrook Planning Board. This is Tuesday, October 6, 2026. We're at Westbrook High School, room 114. This meeting will be offered as a hybrid meeting, accommodating both in-person and remote participation. This meeting will be offered as a hybrid meeting. The link and the phone number to join the meeting through Zoom is located on the Planning Board agenda, which can be found on the City of Westbrook's website, westbrookmaine.com forward slash agenda center. Where a public comment is permitted, at members of the public attending remotely will also have the opportunity to provide remote testimony. If you wish to speak during a public comment or a public hearing, please use a raised hand function through Zoom, or dial nine on your phone when instructed by the Planning Board chair. Comments will only be accepted during a public hearing or public comment period, and should stay specific to the application that is being discussed. I want to add one more thing. That's, It's new now, but during our September 14th, 2026 City Council meeting, Council discussed the change in policy for public comment. And due to potential for safety concern, commenters are no longer required to provide their specific home and address, and instead are asked to just state their name and whether they are a resident of Westbrook. To remain consistent between the boards and the procedures, it's recommended that the Planning Board also adopt this policy. If a commenter wishes to disclose or address to demonstrate specific concerns or information regarding a project, they are not prohibited to, but they're not required to. With that, Jenna, can I have a roll call, please? [1:53] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Larry McWilliams. Here. John Turcotte. Here. Karen Axelson. Here. Jason Frazier is absent. Nancy Littercapes. Here. Kevin Price. Here. Robin Tannenbaum. Here. Oriana Farnham. Here. Lucas Schrade. Here. [2:13] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you, Jenna. Before we get started on the voting for our alternates, what we're going to do, just to clarify now with Jenna's going to call, but each alternate as a vote will go opposite on each agenda item. So we can flip a coin to start, or I could just pick one. Whoever wants to go first. Lucas can go first. Okay, Lucas will go first, and then every other agenda item will go back and forth to the agenda. And that's just for clerical reasons for the minutes, so. With that, I need a motion, please, to accept the minutes from August 4th and September 1st. [2:54] John Turcotte (board member): So moved, Mr. Chair. Thank you, John. Do I have a second? [2:58] Chair (presiding officer): Second. Thank you, Kevin. Can I have a roll call vote, please? [3:05] Karen Axelson (board member): Karen Axelson? I wasn't here for September 1st, but is that okay? [3:11] Chair (presiding officer): You can still vote. Okay. Yes. [3:15] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Jason, oops, Nancy Littrocapes? [3:18] Kevin Price (board member): Yes, and I watched online. Kevin Price? Yes. Robin Tannenbaum? Yes. [3:27] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Oriana Farnham? Yes. Lucas Schrade? Yes. John Turcotte? Yes. And Larry McWilliams? Yes. [3:36] Chair (presiding officer): Seeing it's unanimous, thank you. With that, we'll go into regular business. Janet, can you read the first item into record, please? [3:46] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Item number 26-000404 subdivision amendment approval extension request rock row south campus dirigo center developers llc the applicant is requesting an extension to the subdivision amendment approved on june 2nd 2026 for the reconfiguration of several lots within the south [4:08] Chair (presiding officer): Campus subdivision thank you and applicant presentation yes good evening for the record [4:14] Wayne Morral (Jones Beach Engineers, applicant): Way moral from jones beach engineers as the board knows we came in front of your board a few months back and got con conditional approval for our subdivision plan that plan then had to go through the city of portland to get signed because there is land that goes over the city line we have been working with the city of portland we thought that we might have it ready for the board to sign tonight it is not ready so we're asking for an extension so it gives us a little bit more time we're hoping That it will be in front of your board next month but where it had to be recorded by october 30th we needed to request the extension thank you thank you staff yep so just to [4:55] Chair (presiding officer): Clarify this wouldn't need to come back to this board i think it would just be coming back for signature but tonight's approval would extend the recording period through january 28 2027 With that, we have a public hearing. If anybody wants to speak on this issue, please come up, state your name, and if you live or are a resident of Westbrook. See none. Anybody through Zoom? [5:24] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): If anyone is participating remotely via Zoom and would like to comment, please raise your hand. [5:32] Chair (presiding officer): None? Okay. With that, the public hearing is closed. Any board comments? I see none. I don't see any issues with the 90-day extension, so we need a motion to put a memo on page [5:52] John Turcotte (board member): Page 2. Mr. Chair? Yes, John. I move that the planning board approves DeRigo Center developers LLC request for an extension on the waiver of section 335-13.3.D to allow an additional 90 days for recording of the Rockrow South Campus subdivision approved by the Westbrook Planning Board on June 2, 2026. All findings of fact, conclusions, and conditions of approval of the June 2, 2026 approval remain valid. Thank you. Can I get a second, please? [6:24] Chair (presiding officer): Second. Thank you, Robin. Roll call. [6:29] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Karen Axelson? Yes. Nancy Littercapes? Yes. Kevin Price? Yes. Yes. Robin Tannenbaum? Yes. Lucas Schrag? Yes. John Turcotte? Yes. Larry McWilliams? Yes. [6:43] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. With this, now we'll go into new business. Janet, can you read the first item in the record, please? Yes. [6:59] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Item number 26-000827, Subdivision Amendment, Wormel Farms Subdivision, Wormel Farms LLC. The applicant is requesting an amendment to the approved subdivision to transfer approximately 10.02 acres to their adjoining property. Currently identified as lot 3. The properties are under common ownership and the proposed lot line adjustment will facilitate future development. Tax map 019, lots 029 and 029B, Tax Map 016, Lot 002, Zone Residential Growth Area 2. [7:39] Chair (presiding officer): Applicant? Matt, if you want to go back, there's a folder for this that has the subdivision plan. Oh, on here? Yes. Under the Brooks Edge Farm folder. You could open that up just to give a visual. Great. [8:09] Matthew Peltier (Pterodot Consultants, applicant): Fantastic. Hello. Good evening. My name is Matthew Peltier. I'm with Pterodot Consultants on behalf of Wormwell Farms LLC. I'm here to request approval for a first submitted subdivision plan for Brooks Edge Farm subdivision. Just to give a little background, some of you are probably aware, Wormwell Farm encompassed that entire parcel. And a couple of years ago, it was subdivided into three lots. Lot 1, which has been developed kind of in that bottom left corner. Lot 2, which is Brooks Edge Condominiums, which is currently being built. And then Lot 3, which is currently under development review. We are here tonight because for Lot 3 to proceed with the units that we are proposing, I'm going to transfer about 10.02 acres to lot three from lot two in order to meet net residential area calculations for that project. That project is still ongoing. I am the design engineer for the lot three project, which was called Brooks Edge Apartments, which is a little confusing. we've now changed it to Minnow Brook apartments and that is currently under design it's moving forward in the design as currently we have an architect who is working on the footprints right now excuse me and that is currently moving forward so the goal of this project of this subdivision amendment is to transfer that land but in order to do that we had to make sure that the lot to two net residential area calculations were impacted as such where it didn't meet the zoning requirements. So we took about this 10 acres identified in areas one through four, which are on the plan. We took out all the unusable area, which is wetlands, steep slopes, floodplains, to make sure that it met those net residential area calculations. Populations, so lot two will now contain 38.62 acres, resulting in about 28.86 acres of net residential area, which equates to about 62 duplex buildings, and those condominiums were being built for 59 duplex buildings, so that all works, there's no issues on lot two. And then for lot three, which we are currently in design, which is taking some time, it is a site law development project for DP. It takes a little bit of time to put that together, but that will go in front of the board in the next couple months or so. We will provide those net residential calculations once we submit that plan for final approval. So tonight we just respectfully request that the planning board approves the subdivision amendment for that transfer. [11:14] Chair (presiding officer): That's all I have. Okay, thank you. Staff? No additional comment. And I think Matt explained the application and situation well, just for clarity, so you're aware the green line on the map was the old, it's the current lot line, and the red is what they're requesting to amend it to, allow that land transferance from lot two to lot three. Okay. This is also a public hearing. So if anybody wants to speak on the public hearing, please step up to the microphone, state your name and residency, keep your comments to this item specifically. With that, I will open the hearing. Anybody wish to come up and speak? I see none in person. Anybody through Zoom? [11:58] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): If anyone is participating via Zoom and would like to comment, please raise your hand. [12:08] Chair (presiding officer): NONE? OK. HOW ABOUT BOARD COMMENTS OR DISCUSSIONS? [12:14] Oriana Farnham (board member): YES, ARIANA. LOT 3, WE HAD A WORKSHOP ON LOT 3 A FEW MONTHS AGO, IS THAT RIGHT? YES. OK. Okay. I'm just curious whether the scale that you're thinking for lot three is impacted by this? Like, are you still thinking, I don't remember how many units you were projecting, but if you could just tell us like what the vision for lot three is, I would. [12:36] Matthew Peltier (Pterodot Consultants, applicant): Yes. Yeah. So we were projecting about 108 units. And I think at that sketch meeting in the workshop, we were already assuming that we were taking some land from lot two and it's not going to impact the scale of that development. It's really just to help us with net residential to make sure we can get the 108 units, which will be 12 buildings, and then distribute it. The 108 made it just kind of work really nice with what we were proposing. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. [13:07] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): Anybody else? Robin? I just wanted to give some feedback. I don't think this is coming back as is, but the graphic is very difficult to read, what you've given us in that. It's very hard to understand. It would help to have big numbers and line weight variations and so forth because I can't tell what's going on. So whenever you do come back, could you make it really clear which lots are which? [13:29] Matthew Peltier (Pterodot Consultants, applicant): I believe we have it tonight to sign through. [13:33] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): But you'll be coming back for that particular? Yes. Some feedback for legibility. Yes, absolutely. [13:42] Chair (presiding officer): Anybody else? I have one quick note. So if it stayed at the 50 acres, what would the amount be for the amount of units if it wasn't adopted? We haven't received formal net residential calculations for that, so I can't answer that question. That would be required as part of the final submission, but the applicant has indicated that they need these amounts. So presumably, I don't know if you have the current net residential for lot three. [14:13] Matthew Peltier (Pterodot Consultants, applicant): I don't have the top of my head, but it was something around like the, I want to say 80 unit range, somewhere in there, but I don't 100% have that number. Tonight it's just for the subdivision amendment for the land subdivision, but we're focusing on lot two because that was the most directly impacted parcel because it's obviously approved and being built upon. But we will provide those numbers and bring it up when we submit for the next development review. [14:44] Chair (presiding officer): Okay. And are these you proposing apartments? Are they going to be additional duplexes similar to what you guys are building down there now? It will be apartments. Apartments. So it's just whatever, up to 12 units, you said, 12 units? [14:56] Matthew Peltier (Pterodot Consultants, applicant): Yeah, we're still working on the design, but it will likely be 12 buildings, and they'll be in pairs with a center connecting building to make it easier for utility connections and a mailing room, which we're working with USPS on. So the front buildings will probably likely have eight units in each piece, so 16 in each pair. And then in the pairs in the back, we'll have 10 units each. We're still working on it, but it works out well with the 108 that we're proposing. [15:31] Chair (presiding officer): Closing. So it could still be plus or minus depending on how many units you're thinking or different buildings, not buildings, but building size, either 10 or 12. Yes. So the [15:40] Matthew Peltier (Pterodot Consultants, applicant): size is our architect is working on that to make sure we can kind of fit everything properly. [15:44] Chair (presiding officer): I got one other question because I remember this coming up way back when too, when it was started. The snowmobile trail. Yes. Is it still going to be able to be accessed through lot three as well? [15:56] Matthew Peltier (Pterodot Consultants, applicant): We made our client wanted to make accommodations, so we had a parking area that we've kind of shortened a bit to make enough room if the snowmobiles wanted to get around, they could. Okay. And we'll bring that up. That will be shown more clearly when we come back. [16:13] Chair (presiding officer): Yeah, because that's definitely a major hub to get through, and I know that was one of my big concerns, especially back then, is we need to preserve those type of areas and trails and access for public recreation, so especially for wintertime in Maine yes so we do have a we do have an area where they could still access on the on the side okay because if they're on the if it's in a if it's like a parking lot though they're going to tear the parking lot yeah not the parking lot not in the parking area so it's around the parking area is that what you're saying yes okay because I mean I could tell you if you're going to put it on asphalt with snowmobiles yeah it's good it's going to tear it up okay so it'll be a designated marked area or whatever once we get to see in that [16:52] Matthew Peltier (Pterodot Consultants, applicant): Yeah, again, we're still working on it. We're still working on those plans. But we do have an area on the side that we're not putting any parking that's wide enough for a snowmobile to get through. And that's something that our client wanted to designate. [17:04] Chair (presiding officer): That's right. I look forward to seeing that because I'll be paying attention. So hopefully that'll that'll go good. Great. Other than that, anybody else have any other comments? I see none. With that, we have a motion. I don't have my page number. Three. Thank you. Motion on page three. [17:25] Kevin Price (board member): Mr. Chair? Yes. I move that the Planning Board approves the subdivision amendment application for Warmall Farms LLC for the transfer of approximately 10.02 acres between their adjoining properties, which will facilitate future development. Tax map 019 and 016, lots 029 and 002, zone residential growth area, residential growth area 2, excuse me. Approval includes the following findings of fact, conclusion, and conditions as stated on pages 2 through 4 of this staff memo dated October 2, 2026, which are adopted in support of this approval. [18:09] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you. Can I get a second, please? Second. Thank you, Dorianna. Can I have a roll call vote, please? [18:19] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Karen Axelson? Yes. Nancy Littercapes? Yes. Kevin Price? Yes. Robin Tannenbaum? Yes. Oriana Farnham? Yes. John Turcotte? Yes. And Larry McWilliams? Yes. [18:38] Chair (presiding officer): We'll see you in a couple, maybe a month. Yeah, a couple months. A couple months. Can you read the next item into the record, please? [18:51] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Item number 26000274, site plan subdivision, Rock Row South Campus, Building SG and SR, DeArgo Center Developers LLC. The applicant is proposing a mixed use development within the Rock Row South Campus. The project includes a six-story 277-unit residential building with ground-level retail, as well as a seven-story structure containing ground-level retail and a 700-space parking garage above. Tax map 042B, lot 14I, contract zone 12, Rock Row contract zone use mixed, retail multifamily. Thank you. Advocate, [19:39] Wayne Morral (Jones Beach Engineers, applicant): Good evening, for the record. Here on behalf of Waterstone and Rock Row Properties. With me tonight is Tim Regan, the architect for the residential portion, and Amanda Sanders, who is here for the parking garage. We will have, I'll go through some of the site and then I'm going to turn it over to the two of them. The site itself, where we are is we are on phase three of the Rock Road development as everybody knows along Main Street we have the phase one where the Market Basket Chick-fil-A and the retail spaces are a couple years back we went to the arterial which is the mob campus and now we're in the middle in between Nascent Brook and the railroad so we're boarded by Larabee Road the railroad tracks Route 95 and Nason's Brook. This part of this project that you'll be looking at tonight is the residential portion. So it's built in SG and SR, which is right along the railroad tracks. It is bordered by Rock Road Boulevard, which comes off of the arterial, then goes across the railroad tracks, goes past Market Basket, out to Main Street, and then Quarry Drive, which comes from Larrabee Road down through the project and it crosses the railroad tracks over into the Portland land. This parcel that you see right now comprises of 3.41 acres of land. It is currently graded and stabilized out on the site. The buildings have been staked out for geotechnical investigations. This lot does have 1,990 square linear feet of frontage. This lot, But the subdivision plan that you had in front of you that has been conditionally approved separates this property right down the middle to the garage and the residential in the future so that there'll be two separate lots in the future. This building itself, as we're looking at it, this is looking from the railroad tracks, looking out to the medical office. You can see the parking garage SG on the right-hand side and the SR, which is a residential, on the left. Rock Row Boulevard runs right along the garage, and then Quarry Drive wraps around the Building S residential itself. The site itself, as I said, is a parcel of 3.41 acres. There is currently nothing on it. We've been working with the city staff on the private roads of Quarry Drive and Rock Row. Those two private drives will get all of the utilities into the streets, all the drainage, so that all these site plans that you see that will be coming in front of you will have the infrastructure of the roadways approved by the private road committee. This site itself will have most of its services coming off of a main drive lane that's at the back of the site itself that runs along the railroad tracks. This is a one-way road that we have for utility corridor, a one-way passage for traffic circulation to come around that way. You can see that in the brown areas on this plan are the commercial pieces that are on the bottom floor of this building. And then the residential itself on the right-hand side with the actual landscaped area in the center. And then the parking garage with some commercial space underneath it along Quarry Drive. So, as I said, the limit of work goes right around the site. This site is currently in front of DEP for a SLOTA application for the major amendment. This SLOTA amendment will encompass everything that's on Phase 3. So every site that will be coming in front of you is currently on the review at the SLOTA level. As I said, the drainage and utilities all coming from these road infrastructures. That's what you're seeing on the site. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn it over to Amanda Sanders so that she can talk about landscape for you and then go into some of the building design. [24:02] Landscape architect (Spacecraft, applicant): Hi. So as Wayne said, I'm going to talk a little bit about landscape on behalf of Spacecraft, who's our landscape architect. They're the same landscape architect that did phase one, but they are located out of state. So as you can see, this is the site here with the garage on the left and the residential building on the right. We have incorporated a typical retail streetscape here that incorporates a variety of trees and plantings to create a nice cadence as you move across the site. The width of our site does vary from building edge to sidewalk, and there is grade change, so we are using the planted areas to navigate the grade change between the road and the entry to the building. The building entries will be level. So starting with number one, which is actually on the plan right at the residential building, you can see that the grade change is a little bit, at the building entry is higher, and then we have a couple steps down to the parallel parking zone. WE HAVE A TYPICAL MINIMUM STREET SCAPE IS 18 FEET AND WE VARY FROM THERE. MOVING SOUTH, WE ARE AT THE TYPICAL SIDEWALK SECTION WHICH IS LEVEL WITH THE PLANTING AND THE BUILDING EDGE AND STEP DOWN AT THE CURB TO THE STREET. And then as you move to the left, more toward the garage entry, we do have a little more of a grade change there. But we widen out and start to incorporate some seating and things like that, places to stop and be. And then on the back of the building is the service road. It's a single-lane road, as Wayne said. There is a walkway there because we do have some entries to a couple residential units on that side of the building, and then the railroad tracks are separated by the fence. I'll turn it over to Tim. [26:25] Tim Regan (Menta Emma Architects, applicant): Hi, everybody. Tim Reagan with Menta Emma Architects, and I'll walk you through the residential building. The design is substantially similar to what you saw in the sketch plan review, so this may be familiar to some. North is up on the plan, so Quarry Drive is running along the bottom and turning up towards the quarry. What you see in the yellow is retail, which is shown as a large open space that can be subdivided based on the tenant uses. We've pulled in the corners at the east end of the building on the right side to create more outdoor seating for potential food and beverage restaurants or retail uses at those corners and then created a third corner at the left end where the yellow meets the blue here as more outdoor seating if there's a cafe here or spill out from the residential use or just public use the blue is the residential the lobby and main entrance is in the southwest corner on Quarry Drive that's also the access point from the garage access happens on level one. So this is the sort of main entry. The ground floor has all of the common area amenity space like lounges and fitness and such. So that sort of wraps around the courtyard here. On the north side of this, we have a second lobby, which is helpful due to the size of the site. This has another elevator that serves the lobby, but also serves a loading dock here for the residents so moving activities can happen through here there's also these are five loft style units that take advantage of the higher floor to floor on the ground floor and then this gray area that's all of our back of house so I talked about the residential loading dock there's also the retail loading dock all of the trash collection happens back here we have main electric rooms and the like from the retail loading dock this is a service corridor that allows access and deliveries for each of the retail tenants. It also serves as the second means of egress. And then this is the transformer alcove. We've been working with Captain Corey from Westbrook Fire and Central Maine Power to look at some arrangements for this, for configurements for this, to find something that everyone finds acceptable, and also looking at meter rooms on the ground floor moving upstairs this is a typical floor plan a mix of studios one bedrooms and two bedrooms looking out to the courtyard and looking out onto the street up above this is the so that last plan is representative of floors two through five so on Floor six, that's our top floor, same as below, but we've carved out this corner to make a terrace for residents that overlooks the quarry and has some common area space. Above that is the roof. We're trying to pull the mechanical equipment off of the roof edge to avoid sight lines from the street or various vantage points, and then providing access through an alternating tread stair and roof hatch that we've reviewed with Westbrook Fire as well. This looks at how we're thinking about the massing for the building. So we've drawn inspiration from the quarry next door and thinking about this as a big block of stone taken out of the quarry. And this building is 330 feet long. It's 220 feet wide, so it has a large presence on it. So we thought about chipping away or carving away at this stone to provide some relief in the facade and break up the massing. So this is where we carved away to make that quarry deck. And then we carved away here where retail meets residential to create that outdoor public space that also allows you to look in and see the elevator lobby. So when people get off the elevator, they can see the street and see the courtyard before they walk to their apartments. And then we also just do slight carving to carve through the charcoal outer layer and reveal, like, a warmer wood tone type material to break up the massing. For the facade, we similarly looked at the quarry. These pictures on the left are how you cut stone in quarries. And so they drill these vertical lines and then break off the stone. Sometimes you see it on the side of highways. We liked the verticality of this. We liked the texture of it. So we're looking at different ways of how that can show up on the facade and how we can emphasize that verticality. This first rendering is looking at the southeast corner. So we're looking across Quarry Drive. The quarry is down this road. Rock Will Row Boulevard is to the left. So, you know, this, you can start to see some verticality and some texture in the facade. You can start to see some of the breaks that we're trying to introduce in the massing. It's a very long building, as I said, so we're trying to do these sort of vertical moves that draw your eye up the building to de-emphasize the length of it. We're also pushing in the retail at the corner to create some outdoor seating, as I talked about on the plan, so you can see some tables there. And then this here is the retail band that kind of is pulled out from the facade a couple feet and has a strong linear element that sort of breaks the retail from the residential above to try to make it feel more pedestrian to the user. So that's what it looks like a little closer up. The other thing this does for us is, you know, this is a storefront that we would provide for retail tenants, but we may get national retailers that come in that want to put their own branding in there. So that kind of provides a clearly delineated zone to contain that move. This rendering is now moved up Quarry Drive. We're looking back at the north elevation of this building. So we're like where Quarry Drive crosses the railroad tracks. And so this is the service road we were talking about. And because it's the service road, we have the retail loading dock, the residential loading dock, our transformers, water rooms and such. We're trying very deliberately to not make this feel like a back of the building. So, you know, we have a prominent retail corner here and the background is our residential lobby in those five units and we're giving a lot of care and attention to the facade up above so this feels like a three-sided building and not a front back building. This is an aerial looking at that quarry deck. This faces I-95, which we think is kind of cool for people driving by that they'll see the activity on the roof deck. And here are just elevations, which I think show how we're trying to break down the facade to make it feel more relatable to the pedestrian, and also I think conveys that there's really three fronts to the building. This zooms in a little closer and shows how we're trying to compose the different textures on the facade and emphasize the vertical elements by grouping windows and such together. And this is the last slide just looking at that southeast retail corner on a busy summer day with lots of shoppers. Turn it back to Amanda for the garage. So [34:17] Landscape architect (Spacecraft, applicant): as Tim said, the garage is located here on the left of the residential building. So the main entry to the garage is located here with the stair tower, sorry, elevators on the right and the stair tower on the left with the connection at the garage. I'm sorry, the residential lobby right here. The garage is seven and a half stories and it will hold approximately 700 vehicles. We do have retail on the ground floor here. This is shown as a likely demising location, but things might shift around as retailers come in. But it does generally align with the structure of the garage above. So it's sort of a natural thing. The trash and the trash will be located and serviced from the back service road. The second egress stair is located here. There is a single entry and exit to the garage located on Rock Road Boulevard, and then we do have we do have some bike storage and some utilities located on this facade here. There is a pull-off here for the bus stop and a bus stop incorporated in this location. These are just some elevations showing the garage. It will be a precast garage. We've incorporated windows and some patterning to the stair and elevator towers. Just so that we can make sure to maintain safety and give a little bit of texture to the facade, which is essentially a blank canvas for potential future mural or screen or whatnot. Those things are being evaluated right now. That's it's not finalized at this point to be more to come on that piece. We have intentionally simplified the facade here, similar to the residential building, trying to create a neutral facade that will really sort of highlight the storefront and the retailers and the goods and services that are provided within the space. So we're looking at a simple wood look panel within the signage band and then a more simple fiber cement cladding at the surround. This is a view. This is Quarry Drive right here and Rock Road Boulevard is here. So the garage entry would be located here and then the residential building in the back. This is an elevation view along Quarry Drive with the residential building on the right here. This is a streetscape view showing kind of the experience along the street. The entry to the garage would be on the right in this view. And then here's a view of the of the entry and the bus shelter here thank [37:48] Kaylee Gullickson (Sveo Technics, applicant): you thank you so [37:55] Wayne Morral (Jones Beach Engineers, applicant): Members of the board as you can see the ads have changed a lot from the sketch plan that you saw before. We made sure that all of our loading areas and every all the things that are back house are at the back of the building, not facing out towards the streets or anything like that. So we take a lot of respect of making sure that once you're in Rockborough Boulevard you're having that whole experience of being retail on the bottom floor in your parking decks in your residentials above so we're Here to answer any questions that the board has. We have received comments from planning staff, we've been working with the fire department and everybody else in town, so we're going to continue the work with your different staff departments until we get that our slower permit, and then hopefully we'll come back to this board with a slower in hand and be able to move forward. So we're here they answer any questions the board [38:46] Chair (presiding officer): might have. Sounds good, thank you staff. Not a lot to add to the presentation. As Wayne said, they're here tonight looking for general feedback on the direction as they go through their state permitting and are not requesting any kind of decisions or approvals tonight. Most of the staff comments are related to plan revisions that will occur moving forward. As you may have noticed, this is a tricky site to review because they went through the subdivision process. We're looking at each individual site plans, but at the same time looking at an overall plan. So it is a little bit of flipping back and forth between the SG and the SR and the private way plan that was previously reviewed by staff last winter, spring, just to make sure everything's in line with one another. other. But other than that, the applicant team is aware of everything and will continue to work together to bring it to a final submission once the state permits are together. Thank you, Becca. This is also going to be a public hearing, so if anybody wishes to come on up and speak on this agenda item, come on up. I see none. Anybody through Zoom? [40:05] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): If anybody is participating via Zoom and would like to comment, please raise your hand. [40:12] Chair (presiding officer): Nobody through Zoom, so I'll close the public hearing. I [40:20] Kevin Price (board member): just have a question around who will be able to use the parking garage? [40:40] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): I'm from Waterstone Properties Group. The garage will serve the residential building next to it as well as the hotel across the street, which you'll see in a few months as well as retail and getting guests coming to Rock Row thank [40:54] John Turcotte (board member): you. Yeah, just to follow up, sorry before you head all the way back, so these will be kind of dedicated, there'll be certain [41:00] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): dedicated spaces for the residency units, dedicated for the hotel, not dedicated spaces but the count will be dedicated for them. Oh okay, thank you. Yep, Mariana [41:13] Oriana Farnham (board member): we'd asked last time whether parking will be free in the garage for customers at Rock Row and I think just like in general, if you can explain how people visiting the retail spaces will access that back part, that would be great. [41:27] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): Yeah, that's the goal for us. Obviously, construction prices and everything else are changing so much right now. We're trying to hold on to that so it should change. But that is the absolute goal right now is to still remain free parking for retail guests. So from a pedestrian standpoint and how they're all accessed, they go in through the single entry with vehicular access and then they come out through that pedestrian access in between the residential and garage. [41:53] Oriana Farnham (board member): Okay. And two more questions. I saw a note in the staff memo about Portland Trails being interested in adding a trail along the quarry. And I'm wondering whether you're cooperating with Portland Trails or the city to make that happen. [42:04] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): Absolutely. We've had a great partnership with Portland Trails so far. I know they've been working with MTA to get an underpass agreement in place, some sort of licensing agreement with them to help expand the bike trail to Rock Row. And we're obviously totally on board with that and love that idea. [42:20] Oriana Farnham (board member): Great. That's great. I think people will be really interested in getting closer to the quarry. It's a point of interest around and it's a cool thing that Rock Row is built around. And my last question is just about price point for the apartments. Do you know what you're targeting for studio rent? I know there's going to be a mix of studios, ones in two bedrooms. [42:38] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): Yeah, I don't at this point, but I'm sure you'll hear it in the near future. [42:43] Oriana Farnham (board member): Okay. Are you thinking about them as luxury apartments? It's a really beautiful building. [42:46] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): I don't believe so. I'm trying to hit middle of the market. Okay. All right. [42:53] Oriana Farnham (board member): Just so you know, middle of the market for affordable in Westbrook, $1,469 for a studio, one bedroom 1658 two bedroom 2130 so just keep it in mind alright [43:12] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): Inveos? Yes Robin I had three and Ariana hit one about Portland Trail so thank you that's great to hear my other two this is just kind of minor but I'm wondering if someone can refresh my memory on what the height limits are here so that's just I'm just curious and Rebecca will be on it like that and then And the bus stop, which I'm happy about, and I know we talked about it last time. It's like, is it going to get used? Is it not? Can you just talk a little more about that? Which route is it? It's going to add. How does it affect whichever route it already affects? [43:44] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): Yeah, so we're still working with Metro to figure that out. This would be either a new route or an alteration of an existing route. We haven't gotten the specifics about that at this point. There's been talk about a BRT system. On, you know, there's a lot still up in the air with that. [44:00] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): And I guess my comment on that would just be to, I'd be curious to see how that unfolds because when a bus route changes, an existing one, it can be disruptive to people who already count on it. So it's a challenge because it's a great thing to add, but how do you do it without [44:15] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): disrupting? We leave that up to the professionals at Metro. [44:18] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): I'd love to, when you're back, I'd love to have that to know what the plan is and where that's going. Thank you. It's not crucial, Rebecca. I'm just curious. I'll find it. Okay, thank you. Can follow Mr. [44:35] John Turcotte (board member): Chair, so I really like the design. Last time we saw it, like it even more now. Just one reminder to underscore, when you come before us for other ones, we really like being able to see the overview to plug in the various pieces because it can be hard to visualize what we're seeing when it's just kind of isolated. This was super helpful last time and especially so tonight as well. Thank you. Great. All right, so it is up [44:57] Chair (presiding officer): up to 12 stories but no taller than 150 feet. Okay. Anybody else? Okay, I don't really have any comment either. I'm just looking forward to seeing the new design or it looks good as a, as you showed it before, so I think it's going to be, I hope we do get the murals or something to break up the cement on the parking garage for sure. I think I just think it'd be a really good asset we're doing something, whether it be some kind of pattern or something, just so it's, it's not looking like just a blob building. There's a motion on page seven. [45:38] John Turcotte (board member): Mr. Chair, I move that the planning board continue the application for Deergo Center Developers LLC to finalize design and obtain feedback from state permits applications. Can I get a second, please? Second. Thank you, Kevin. Roll call. [45:58] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Karen Axelson. Yes. Nancy Litcho-Capes. Yes. Kevin Price. Yes. Robin Tenenbaum? Yes. Lucas Schraett? Yes. John Turcotte? Yes. And Larry McWilliams? Yes. [46:13] Chair (presiding officer): Seeing unanimous, thank you. Senator, can you read the next item into the record, please? Mr. Trekk, can I clarify, who was the second on that motion? Kevin. Kevin, thank you. John first, Kevin second. Okay. [46:29] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Item number 26-000777, Land Use Ordinance Amendment, Section 335-1.8, Definitions. New Section 335-2.9.1, Data Centers and Section 335-6.12.B, Contract Zone 12, Rock Row Contract Zone, Permitted Uses. The proposed ordinance defines and prohibits data centers as a principal use in the city of Westbrook. [47:13] Chair (presiding officer): With that, staff, is that for you? Yep. Becca, go ahead. So just kind of a reminder of getting to this point. On June 1st, 2026, the Westbrook City Council enacted a 180-day moratorium and referred this item over to the planning board. Last month we held a workshop where we reviewed the different types of data centers, some of the different intended uses of the different types of them, as well as a kind of just general update on data centers in Maine. That this is not right now a prime location for data centers, although there are some. Most of the ones that we're seeing in Maine are the smaller ones and not, you know, the hyperscale centers that I think a lot of people think of when they think of data centers. That said, it is a growing industry. It is growing faster than standards and regulations can keep up with it. And it does have some impacts. They could be potentially negative impacts. They could be potentially positive impacts depending on the location and what they serve and location, basically. So with all that information, the discussion at the board was the leaning towards the direction of defining and prohibiting data centers at this time, with the exception of essentially an enterprise data center, and that is like a server room. It serves an on-site use, and we would classify that under an accessory use. So the ordinance that we proposed before you, it creates a better definition than the definition currently existing, which was written several years ago before I think a lot of us really had any idea of what a data center was. So we kind of updated that ordinance, expressly stated that this would only be permitted as an accessory use and are proposing to remove it from the Rock Road Contract Zone, which is currently the only location where a data center would be permitted. With that, this is also a public hearing, so if anybody here wants to speak on the data center new ordinance, we see none. [49:27] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Anybody in the Zoom? If anybody is participating via Zoom and would like to comment, please raise your hand. [49:36] Chair (presiding officer): I see none. Okay. With that, do we have any board comments? [49:42] Oriana Farnham (board member): Oriana? I just want to thank the staff again for the excellent presentation that we saw last month. If anybody is interested in this topic, I recommend watching the presentation from last month at our planning board meeting. Thank you for doing the research and bringing it to the board and the community. [50:01] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): Thank you, Maria. Robin? So we're talking about removing it from Rock Row. Yes. Are they on board with that? We did. [50:10] Chair (presiding officer): They are here tonight. But we did reach out and let them know. And we also let them know that the intention or the impression from the board last month wasn't necessarily a lifetime ban. It was a situation that we don't know what we don't know right now. And so there could be a potential, you know, land use ordinance is a living document. And if there were a proposal at a later date, we would have a little bit more information, you know, to be able to build some standards around it. But without that, was why the direction was moved in the way it was. But they were, we let them know that this was the direction the board was going. Yes. Thank you, Robin. Anybody else? I see none. I know we talked about it. So let me just ask you this. With the moratorium, it was 180 days. I remember when they did it, but I don't remember how many days it's already been. So when is that moratorium, just for numbers sake, lifted? I believe it's the end of November would be. So November 28th is what's coming to mind, somewhere around there. So that's coming up quick already. So is the city planning on doing anything else other than making sure that we're not going to do it yet? Because the moratorium has lifted, and we don't have any other place to build in Westbrook, so we're not going to build one, correct? Well, depending on the results of tonight, if there is a recommendation made tonight, we would take it to city council at the next meeting, which would be 10-19 for first reading. Okay. Second reading would be early November. Okay. Thank you. With that, there is a motion, I believe it's on page 12. [51:54] Kevin Price (board member): mr chair kevin eight yes sorry motion to recommend an amendment to the westbrook land use ordinance section 335-1.8 definitions new section 335-2.9.1 data centers and SECTION 335-6.12.B, CONTRACT ZONE 12, ROCKROW CONTRACT ZONE PERMITTED USES TO THE CITY COUNCIL TO DEFINE AND PROHIBIT DATA CENTERS AS A PRINCIPAL USE WITHIN THE CITY. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. [52:32] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): SECOND. SECOND. Robin Tenenbaum? Yes. Oriana Farnham? Yes. John Turcotte? Yes. Larry McWilliams? Yes. [52:50] Chair (presiding officer): Seeing unanimous, I also need a motion now to go into workshop. [52:57] Kevin Price (board member): So moved, Mr. Chair. [53:01] Chair (presiding officer): Nancy, can I get a second, please? Second. Who was that? Was that Lucas? Thank you, Lucas. Roll call vote, please. Karen Axelson? Yes. Nancy Littercapes? Yes. Kevin Price? Yes. Robin Tannenbaum? Yes. Lucas Schrag? Yes. John Turcotte? Yes. Larry McWilliams? Yes. Okay, Jenna, with that, can you read the next item into record, please? [53:35] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Hold on, I've lost my place. I was right. Okay. Item number 24-001219, Site Plan Subdivision, Stroudwater Meadows, J.B. The applicant is requesting a plus or minus 322-unit residential complex to include a mix of housing types located along Stroud Water Street within the vicinity of the Westbrook Middle School. Tax Map 009, Lot 003A, Zone, Gateway Commercial District, and Residential Growth Area 2, Use, Dwelling, Single Family, and Dwelling, Multifamily. [54:17] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you. With that, can I have the applicant presentation, please? Good evening. And your presentation is on there as well, if you close out and go to the main folder. [54:55] Tuck O'Brien (J.B. Brown, applicant): Hi, good evening, everyone. My name is Tuck O'Brien. I am the president of J.B. Brown, and we're here tonight to kind of continue the conversation about the Stroudwater Meadows project we were before you all in May and tonight I have with me Tyler Norad from Westbrook Development Corporation and Kayla Barasa from LJB our civil engineer to kind of continue to get more feedback and answer questions. Our next steps are after we get the feedback tonight and make an offer to sit down with any of the neighborhood or neighborhood groups. We will be submitting our state and permits, hoping to come back for you in the spring and looking to get approvals next spring, early summer. The location of this parcel is about 68 acres stretching between Stroudwater Street and the middle school over to the arterial. it is currently zoned gateway commercial residential growth area two we were before you in may and we had a previous site plan that was before you that you see before you i'm going to take you through how we got here today and kind of kind of reflect what we heard back at that time and then i'll bring caleb up to go through the plan now and then at the end tyler will come up and talk about kind of the concept that we're getting into but the goal Our goal here is kind of to develop kind of an Innovative model where Westbrook Development Corporation and J.B. Brown are coming together to deliver a mixed income project on the site. We are also kind of thinking of this as kind of an extension of the existing neighborhood towards creating a new neighborhood as well. So it's kind of trying to serve both of those goals, really trying to target homes across a range of incomes. At the moment, we're focused on a rental, delivering rental housing. And we'll talk a lot about that because I know there were some questions, but we feel like there's a need and that we are able to, with this approach, to provide housing for a number of people, whether they're just starting out or they're empty nesting on the other end. And the goal here is to really take advantage of the environment that we have with the abutting, long-time standing agricultural use as a neighbor, trying to support the existing operation of the farm. We've had a relationship ongoing for about 11 years with them, and hopefully we'll continue to support that. That, integration of recreational assets, connection to the trail networks, all of that stuff as well. And then we're trying to really cluster the development to minimize the footprint, keep the scale of it down to fit in with the existing context, but actually minimize the impact across the whole site and preserve as much of the open space as we can. And so what we heard and kind of how we responded so far, you know, we heard a lot of concerns with the way that we had placed the larger building along Stroudwater Street. So as you'll see coming up in the new plan, we've kind of taken a new approach and tried to get the vernacular and the context and the size of the existing buildings. And also tried to do more screen and use the topography to transition away the housing towards the back of the site. We really tried to create much more of a neighborhood feel that is more contextual to stuff we see already with a mix of building sizes, but also kind of thinking about making a place, neighborhood streets in those contexts. We heard a lot about traffic. What we are still working with the city staff on exactly how that's in dot on how we're actually going to address that. Kayla will get into that in a little bit again. The layout increased neighborhood feel and reduce the scale outside of Straw Water Street connectivity. We've been meeting with Portland Trails talking about trail connections, trail access on the site, and trying to provide as much recreational opportunities for both the existing folks in the area and the new residents. Impact on Randall Farm, obviously that's a major concern. We've had a pretty good relationship over the past decade. Our goal is to continue to collaborate and try to, obviously, we heard a lot about screening. So we have started to think about how exactly we'll do screening to both, you know, create a place where like the proximity to the farm is something that makes the development more attractive, but also doesn't impede those operations while preserving the ability for the Randals to pasture their cattle on the site as they currently are doing. Stormwater, Caleb will get into, and then obviously providing recreational opportunities was another big issue from the site. So with that, I will hand it over to Caleb, who will go through the technical update, and we'll introduce you to the revised site plan. [1:00:15] Speaker R (unidentified): Good [1:00:23] Caleb Rassa (LJB, applicant): evening. Caleb Rassa with LJB, formerly Gordal Palmer. Tuck just touched on what we heard back from you all and from some of the public at our May workshop meeting and has outlined here. So I'm going to touch on some of those same elements, the scale, traffic, the site layout, that connectivity, and semi-tied into the recreational and open space elements how we're interacting with our neighbors and then the stormwater items as well just as an update and Tuck had mentioned this as well really we're back before you another workshop application what we heard back at that main meeting we wanted to make sure that we got this right so there's been a lot of thought that's really gone into this plan I mean And honestly, beyond that, too. So lots to be considered, but we're really narrowing down on it. And at this point, I wanted to come back in really one more time before we plan to really make ready for our state submissions for DEP, Army Corps, and that would be the Site Law and Natural Resource Protection Act permit, and then our Army Corps permits as well. That along with the D.O.T. permits, which we had started previously a little over a year ago, excuse me, but we'll be picking that up as well, understanding that from that previous review back in 2024-25, we've essentially halved the site and site in that scope, now really getting into the nitty-gritty a little bit more on site layout, what we're doing to interact again with those neighbors, those conditions along with straw water, and then just essential placemaking and then planning throughout the site. So along with that, we heard items from you on the last slide, and Tuck touched on those, but again, we're still continuing to get staff comments, which we got through this last review, and we had a great meeting with staff in person, which we appreciated. And so those two go along with just general design elements. So these are things that we're continually reviewing and things just like, you know, normal code requirements, state requirements, things like that. So we did review just some of those staff comments. I just kind of want to like really briefly go through. But items such as site access, pedestrian infrastructure, safety items, really big items there. There. Again, open space items, we're going to be continuing to build on that and we can talk a little bit on this plan, how we've built a little bit further on those things. There was a comment on physical barriers and buffering again to our neighbors, utility items, sewer in particular. We got some more fire department comments, which were super helpful. So things that will continue to build into our plans. And then beyond on that, items on the phasing and things that are just going to be built upon in our forthcoming applications in those plans. So things that we know about how we're going to ultimately come forward with this, our plan at the moment being that the lower area, as you'll see on the plan, that market rate portion will likely be receiving the site and subdivision permits first and we'll be coming forward with additional portions of the site as we go along. So on the design updates here that we have, really just trying to remind you all again, you know, we've received all of your comments and feedback, but then in addition to That we're remaining cognizant of many other factors that really do have implications on the plan, so things like emergency access, making sure that all these buildings have good access for the fire department and emergency services, remaining aware of just parking ratios, making sure we get that right on this plan. So we're aiming for, and I think we're generally, the requirement would be per code about one and a half spaces per unit, and at the moment I think we're about 1.6 to 1.5 at the at the moment, so gives you a little bit more room for perhaps guests or visitor parking and a little bit more than that. So open space elements both at the perimeter and then the interior of the site, we're continuing to build upon that, so I'll point that out on this next slide here. The storm water elements, what we're really narrowing down on will be a larger gravel wetland system that will serve that a majority of the larger market rate portion on the bottom of the plan, and then we'll have some soil filter basins as well that will serve a lot of the upper portion, that affordable housing portion of the plan, and then really just some of the downhill areas. Now just an image to the side, this kind of goes along with some of the open space element, but just a little bit of inspiration. This was actually a photo from the gravel wetland that is over in the Scarborough Downs, and this is actually a really good example, and just food for thought as to how do you get storm water done and then how do you get your open space done at the same time. So this was a pretty neat application of this, which was pretty well landscaped, in addition to it had a trail that circumnavigated it and just really connected with the rest of the neighborhood pretty well. So things like that we're continuing to think about, it's probably not going to look exactly like this, but we're really continuing to think about that as I mentioned, and how do we, how do we continue to interact to the perimeter and then the interior of those sites. Of course grading across this site, we've talked at length I think in other meetings about the topography across the property and how that continues to shape the plan. We certainly need to be aware of our wetland impacts that generally around the perimeter through some of the drainage areas on this site and the topography and how do we certainly make that up. And then, again, utilities. We fairly well baked into what we have for general road sections through here. How do we get those into each of these development areas? How might those be phased? Things like that we're continuing to think about. You're not going to see on this plan, but those will be in forthcoming plans. So here, just on the updated master plan, now, this was not a view that was included with the sketch plan that we had submitted, but trying to clean it up a little bit, that was more of a sketch level view that you had seen. On this plan here, we're showing 306 units at the moment, still with a similar layout, I will say, for the primary road that comes into the site. If you can see my cursor on here, we're still focusing on a primary entrance down here in our easterly frontage. It is hard to tell just based on color through here, but our plan currently will be for access at the middle school to be emergency access only. There will be pedestrian access that's built out through there as well as to the straw water frontage and going along with some of the staff comments, things that we've also heard from the DOT. We are already planning for a sidewalk along the frontage between this easterly entrance and then up to the middle school driveway so with that will come pedestrian crossing and other safety items that we're going to be continuing to review both with the city and the state now going back to those key items that we talked about from what we heard the scale the layout the connectivity recreation opportunities and traffic i just touched on but the scale you can see here at our front door on Stroud Water here. We're really breaking down those buildings. Previously, if I can flip back to previously here, we had a much larger L-shaped building that was a 40-unit building, if not a little bit more for units, might have been 46 units that we had in here. A little bit closer up against Stroud Water Street, much more prominent. And so we've taken a lot of the feedback that we had got. We're really trying to break down this scale. And you'll see in some of the additional renderings coming up here how that, how we're continuing to think about that as far as the building design goes too. But starting to break that apart as far as the layout too, starting to split up and really break down again some of these parking areas through here, and trying to really just reduce that large parking, sea of parking type feel when you see the plan. Caleb, would you be able to put this in full screen mode or something to [1:09:18] Chair (presiding officer): make it a little bit larger under [1:09:27] Caleb Rassa (LJB, applicant): view maybe? Am I, yeah, am I under the right track or no, you [1:09:31] Chair (presiding officer): were over. If you go back to menu and then down like a little bit past halfway, there's a view. Is there full screen? Yep, one up is [1:09:45] Caleb Rassa (LJB, applicant): that a little bit more helpful? Thank you. I apologize everybody. So, hopefully here this is a little bit better of a view for you all. And I think Still, our intent has been, there's going to be a lot more details that go into this. We've been trying to, we want to come forward with this plan without giving you all of the nitty gritty, the black and white plans that I put together, but trying to just solicit some feedback and show you what we are thinking here as far as scale, all those other elements there. So just going back to the front door conditions, that has been our plan for that primary entrance down here, really breaking down those buildings. Much of these buildings are all three-story buildings, and you'll see how we're breaking that down with the top level being broken up dormer with other roof variations there. What you'll also see here, we don't have any more of the townhouse units down in this lower market rate zone. own, helps us actually to gain back some open space, some recreational opportunities and placemaking opportunities through here. But the primary road network is still very much a similar alignment that comes in north-south and then starts to bend around and then connects up in a similar fashion to the affordable housing area through here. What we are showing additionally, there will be some on-street parking with this primary road as well as parking. That's all proximate to the units throughout. Much other areas, what we're starting to consider, this is a Woonerf concept, which would be a little bit of a variation in alignment through this area here, but allows for a little bit of a multi-use through there. There may be cars parked through there, but may also be used as well for residents. Now, up towards the top of the screen here, we've definitely built a bit more into the affordable housing portion of this plan. You can see a little bit more built into these buildings. These are two 36-unit buildings here, the rectangular-shaped building, and then an L-shaped building, which is about 40 units. And so really trying to front those onto this primary road that we have here we're beginning to build in again more parking sufficient for all of those units here and then we're still showing some town homes up in the top right corner of this plan as well again not really shown as clearly on this plan here but the plan being for emergency access only coming up to and connecting at that middle school driveway intersection section. What we're continuing to show, and I'll just go through quickly on the next few sides, again, we're going back to scale, connectivity, and we're really trying to build upon the architectural elements and the massing on this plan as well. So this is an initial concept of the affordable units up top. You can see we're already starting to think about how do we make up the topography through the site certainly that portion of the site there is quite a bit of grade change for us to make up so we're looking at somewhat of a front stoop condition through here which we'll have on the back side of this plan at grade access from the parking area so this will be actually kind of a nice view we're starting to think about you know that being that really walkable street nice big esplanade street trees all the way along and so lots of opportunity I think, along the fronts of those structures. This is a 3-D rendering as well, just of the market rate portion here. You can start to see what we're building upon and starting to talk about for just breaking down that scale of these buildings, these three-story buildings, but you're really kind of working that third level into that roof line, setting up some of those living spaces with some of the dormard roof areas that we have and working that back into the plan here. This is a view just from Strawbow Street looking at that front door, that front driveway condition. Gives you an idea what we're planning here for just these pitched roofs. Really trying to connect to the neighborhood as well in that local architecture throughout. Trying to bring that scale down and give you a look at that front driveway condition, that front roadway condition with sidewalks down both sides, big esplanade space that can also be converted further down the road into some on-street parking opportunities, but really trying to give a little bit of separation from some of the neighbors to the sides and some buffering opportunities, and then also still connect scale-wise at the frontage. This is another view of what would be the L-shaped building, and again, just another thought that we have as to how do you interact? How do you make up that grade change there? This could be at the really the outside corner of that L in the building, really a nice kind of community space on that ground level. And that can translate into some exterior space as well. So we build this all in here. I kind of take a step back into like, how are we gonna bring forward and go through the permitting for this whole project? So the intent has been that we're gonna come forward and likely do this lower that market rate zone against groundwater first but we're really spending a lot of time putting a lot of thought into the affordable housing portion as well really trying to show and bring this forward as like a unified development that architecturally everything's really being thought together and not individually after that 's as much as I have, so I will turn it over to Tyler Norod with some additional thoughts. [1:15:54] Tyler Norod (Westbrook Development Corporation, applicant): Good evening. My name's Tyler Norod. I'm the president of Westbrook Development Corporation. We are the development arm for the local housing authority. I know many of you are familiar with us, and thanks again for having us tonight. One of the things that we just wanted to come up and reflect as we're going through fine-tuning our design with J.B. Brown was just how fortunate we were to have a development partner, a for-profit development partner that's been around for several hundred years now that is actively trying to promote mixed income housing. That's a rarity. We've been doing this now with them for almost six years and gone through a change in leadership even and stayed consistent throughout that. And I think for many of you that have been on the board for a while, it's not a common thing to have market rate developers looking to partner with folks like us that are trying to serve folks at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. And so one of the things we were trying to do when we partnered together was look at well how do we take this site that's going to be larger than a lot of the developments we typically do and try to serve as many people as possible so we looked at data and every time we come and try to change the plans a little bit we try to refresh our minds and look at the data points to see okay so who are we serving how do we serve them what populations are existing in town and who's struggling to find housing right now and how do we fit the demand that's out there so one of the components just for the affordable housing, the capital A, you know, typical Westbrook housing, that we're building on the far side, those bigger buildings, they're for families, one, two, and three bedroom units. But when you look at the income levels that those are currently targeting, that serves about 30 to 50 percent of Westbrook's existing residents. So it's many of the neighbors that we know, it's many of our family members, co-workers that are already here. It's a surprisingly large THAT WILL BE ACCOMMODATED BY THESE BUILDINGS. THE FOLKS THAT ARE RIGHT NOW STRUGGLING TO PAY AND MAKING DIFFICULT CHOICES FINANCIALLY, AND FOLKS THAT ARE TRYING TO STAY IN THEIR COMMUNITIES, STAY CLOSE TO THEIR LOG ONES, STAY IN THEIR SCHOOL SYSTEMS. THAT'S REALLY WHO WE'RE LOOKING TO SERVE. RIGHT NOW, THE MEDIAN INCOME, ACCORDING TO THE MOST RECENT CENSUS DATA FOR THE CITY, IS AROUND $85,000 PER HOUSEHOLD. AND THAT WILL COME INTO PLAY IN A SECOND, BECAUSE USUALLY I COME UP AND GIVE MY SHPEEL ABOUT AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND THE DEMAND OF NUMBERS, BUT IT'S too. So we started looking at, I know there's some comments last meeting about homeownership versus rental. This project is phased. The portion of the project that Westbrook Housing is doing is going to be rental. That's the programs we use for subsidy. There's no real, it's going to be homeownership. J.B. Brown's portion is also going to be phased over a number of years. Right now, the market is saying that the price for construction for a sale, it doesn't make sense to do home ownership yet, but there's nothing that precludes that in the future as times change, market shifts. But I think what's interesting for us as we are looking back through, I mean, just looking through the history in the last 40 some odd years of the housing market in America, is in 1980, you were looking at the median home buyer age of 31. And that includes people buying and selling, right? The second time they turn into it from their first home, their second and or move to retire. Now it's 56. And I saw a stat the other day that median age for the first time homebuyer is 41. I don't think that's really surprising, but it is still staggering to hear that out loud. The disconnect between somebody that's working hard, typically used to be able to get into first-time home ownership, and is now stuck renting. And so sometimes when we're seeing what we're trying to produce out here, and you guys are seeing a lot of projects, not just dollars. There's a bigger push towards rentals, I think, because people can't make the numbers work to buy a home. The cost of construction has gone up astronomically, cost of lending, it's just getting really hard to make the numbers work despite all the demand. So what we're seeing locally is in that same period from 1980 to now, housing prices have gone up by about sixfold, but incomes have only gone up by a little less than four. So there's just a gap that is largely insurmountable for a large portion of the population that used to be traditional homebuyers. Right now, the medium household can afford a mortgage of around $250,000. The cost to build a new home is probably closer to $500,000 to $600,000. And the median home price of existing homes in Westbrook is in the range of $400,000 and somewhat thousand. So there's just a gap that isn't going to be served for a lot of folks that we traditionally think of as well-off, doing right, being very stable economically. They just don't have an option. So what we're trying to do with J.B. Brown is we've got this portion of the population with our programs and the money we can get through main housing and other sources to have income-restricted units. They're serving that 30% to 50% of the population. So its income ranges for a single person at the bottom end of people earning up to about $50,000 a year. And on the higher end of the income spectrum, if it's a larger family size, it's just below $90,000 a year for a household. Whereas J.B. Brown's trying to target those folks that can't quite afford that first home, which right now is estimated to be around a household income of about $153,000 a year. That's a pretty big gap. I'm sure that number is fairly shocking to many people on the board that have lived in Westbrook or this area for a long time. $150,000 used to get you onto something like Falmouth Forsyth, right? It's a pretty high bar to try to get that level, especially if you're a younger family starting out. So what we would try to do is, you know, we're not building extremely high-end luxury homes anywhere. We're trying to hit that sweet spot where the folks that are in our units maybe transition to J.B. Brown's units if they start earning more. It gives people an opportunity to have choice in different housing types, both physically and socioeconomically, and then how do we build the neighborhood that is designed to try to speak together and not stand apart. Even though our buildings from a legal and financing structure need their own space, we're trying to make sure that the design elements speak to each other and that doesn't feel like, oh, that's the affordable housing, this is the market rate. And I think some of that hopefully comes through in our designs that we're starting to get more into the details of what the renderings could look like. And then for those on the board that may have been here for a bit or be familiar with our Symbol Apartments project,, we're stealing some of those elements from us, the same architect. So we've already fine-tuned the price points to know we can build to that quality and how do we build some of those elements in here but make it still a unique project that speaks to what J.B. Brown's doing. So again, this is just a synopsis of what I was just saying, but really what we're seeing is folks are stuck renting. There's a lot of people that make good incomes. They need choices and there are a variety of different points in their life, family how many sizes. We even see some seniors that maybe owned at one point, got divorced, or became widows, or whatnot, and may have to move back into rental housing, or a different type of housing, or can't maintain the homes that they're in. I think the variety here is one of the things we're really trying to highlight, both socioeconomically, but also physically in the design choices we've made. And I would just play one last plug, which is, it's really interesting, that homebuyer stat, that, one of the things that's also interesting, if we aren't building rental, it's closing the door on a significant portion of the population that is below, let's say, 45 years old. What used to be, oh, you're renting through your 20s, maybe you'll become a homeowner later. We're seeing a lot of people be stuck. And so if Westbrook wants to keep younger workers here, people that aren't just a retirement community or, you know, for basically just anybody that can't afford to be in somewhere else, we are going to have a hard time recruiting those younger people if we aren't building a variety of rental products. So happy to take questions and comments. I'm sure there will be some. So thank you for your time. Becca? [1:23:57] Chair (presiding officer): I guess I just wanted to start off by acknowledging the thoughtfulness and the responsiveness of this development team. This is the third workshop that we've seen with substantive changes that have gone through. And that's not typical of the plans that we've seen. That's not typical of the plans that I've worked with. This project started with over 800 units, and we're now at 306 with a building design that was rearranged in response to previous public and board comments. And I just wanted to acknowledge that and thank the team for that. I know that there's still some further review to be done. There's still further comments to be done and, you know, areas where the solution hasn't been found. But we've come a long way through this process thus far. I also just wanted to say that I noticed a lot of folks taking photos of the screens. If anybody would like, we do have a copy of this presentation. We have copies of all application materials. Please feel free to reach out either via either email or stop in the office, and we can be sure to get that to you. So the project, this is primarily, we are still at a sketch level here. There are still some items that are need to be worked out, some of the Biggest ones are the site access. As the development team stated, they're currently proposing a emergency access at the middle school, and I think that it would be the preference of the city, and correct me if I'm gonna go out on a limb and say even the development team, if feasible, to have that be an actual site access for the project as well. The challenge there is that there's traffic management requirements for the middle school, and it's currently being achieved by a crossing guard, and that crossing guard is not a suitable tool to use at a four-way intersection. And so that's kind of the challenge for the development team, acknowledging that from a visual standpoint, from site access and traffic diffusion, it would make sense to have two. So that's a big item that we've talked about previously, and we're going to continue to talk about and work through as part of the traffic movement permit. Other than that, the point of tonight is really to get some feedback on the direction, hear from the public on where things stand, so this project can have some guidance on their next steps moving forward. Thank you, Becca. With that, we now will introduce public comment. Again, you do not have to mention your address if you don't want to, but if you'd like to, you're certainly welcome to do so. So come on up, speak into the microphone. You'll have three minutes to talk. You'll have the one opportunity to speak, specifically to the agenda item at large. And does anybody here in the public wish to speak? Come on up. [1:26:57] Fred Fowler (public commenter): My name is Fred Fowler, and I actually live in Portland, but I'm right on Westbrook Street, which was Stroudwater Street, so I'm significantly affected by this development. is the timer running here no it's not but thank you okay my immediate concern is first of all let me say I'm not opposed to the development and the expansion the growth of housing in either of our towns but I'm what I'm especially want to stress tonight is all of the access coming on to Westbrook Street which is two-lane residential in both directions and we just feel like that this could be altered and could be addressed onto the arterial now I heard feedback that 's a non-starter but I have several reasons to think that 's not true first of all this road can be altered the idea that it can't be altered is untenable the history of the Westbrook arterial dates back to the 70s and spans a wide efforts by Portland and its surrounding towns to create a cleaner traffic flow to and from the city. Originally, the arterial was planned to extend from where it is now straight down the Four River to Congress Street. The plan was altered numerous times before the road was actually built, and the extension along the Four River was blocked by the creation of the Four River Sanctuary, forcing the large elbow onto Rand Road to connect over to Brighton Avenue. With this change, the idea that this was a high-speed arterial into Portland was lost forever, making the road no longer a true high-speed arterial. There's no sensible reason that this could not change again as the pressure for developing communities changes and needs along the town's roadways. Even tonight, we saw at least two proposals of fairly significant development to Rock Row, which is growing gangbusters, and both of them are going to put more traffic onto the connector. There's already been since I've lived here six years ago, there's already been a light added on the connector. So right now there's Larrabee, and then there's the light at the Rock Road development, medical development, the, there's no significant time advantage getting into Portland for people who want to come in. If they were forced to go out Rand Road and down Brighton Avenue versus cutting down through the neighborhoods of Stroudwater. The speed limit, I've heard you can't change the speed limit. Speed limits can be changed with a sign if this wants to do it. And downgrading a speed limit is very successful because if you up the speed limit, you typically have to do structural changes. To lower the speed limit, you don't. Access to I-95, directly to I-95 from the development for people who are working in Lewiston or along the 95 corridor, that access is two miles shorter if you come out onto the arterial. So there are a number of reasons here. I am asking the planning board to give deference to those who have already committed to living in this area and are paying taxes in Portland and Westbrook over the convenience of the cost of a developer who probably doesn't actually going to live here or live with the consequences of the decisions they're making. Thank you. Thank you, Fred. Anybody else? [1:30:36] Woody Howard (public commenter): My name is Woody Howard and I'm also from Portland. I'm the president of the Stroud Water Neighborhood Association and there's two things I guess that I want to make the point of, we would very much love to have you guys come and speak to us. I know we're in Stroudwater, but we keep coming to these meetings with this complaint about the traffic, so if you wanted to attend one of our trustee meetings, we'd be very happy to host you and we could have a conversation. One of the things that's been said repeatedly is that the Department of Transportation, the DOT, is in control of this arterial, and that there's just a prohibition to it having any possibility of pedestrian traffic, which would, of course, come out from this if you have an opening for traffic to come out. And in taking into consideration some of the things that Fred said, I just don't know, has there been a direct appeal, a real sit-down appeal by anybody to representatives of the Department of Transportation? I'm in the process of writing our two state representatives from Stroudwater to actually do that, to try to help us have a conversation with the DOT about this. Because, again, it seems to me what Fred said is that it's kind of a commonsensical thing. That road has changed in nature. And with all the development in Rock Row, it's going to continue to change in nature. And maybe it's time for the DOT to think about that and consider a change of its regulation on that particular piece. So if anybody has a direct line to somebody at the DOT, it would be great if you'd share that. And I will make the communication. I'll go to Augusta. I'll do whatever. But I do think that somehow that's the next step for us. And we're in the process of doing it ourselves. Ourselves, but if anybody wanted to facilitate, we'd appreciate that. Thank you, Woody. [1:32:46] Chair (presiding officer): Come on up to the mic first, please. Oh, what's that? You stand at the mic and then speak your name. [1:32:50] Simon Snyder (public commenter): Oh, Simon Snyder, West- Thank you, Simon. I have a pretty good voice. Okay, what I would like to kind of repeat is what Rebecca said. I think I've been a bit removed from the process, but it looks like we went from 320, I mean, it was started higher, 322 to 306, which is a reduction, again, of 16. 16, I think. Is that Westbrook Housing? The 16? No. Okay. Anyway. And the main thing is they redistributed the density, which is one of the things that we asked. I mean, obviously, traffic is a huge matter, but I would defer to the people that control that. But in terms of the direction that the development's taking, it seems to be well considered. [1:33:41] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you, Simon. [1:33:50] Kevin Price (board member): My name is Deborah Napier, and I live in Portland. I live off of Congress Street, and I really appreciate the beautiful renderings and all the attention that's being put into the design and architecture of the project, but it somewhat what seems to me like, as Portland does frequently, the cart is put in front of the horse. Where's the infrastructure planning? We hear about these entrances, and the one near the middle school will be, right now, planned for emergency use only. That means the one entrance will be closest to what turns into Westbrook Street, Portland. So most of this traffic of approximately 500 cars or more will be going into Portland through Westbrook Street, through our residential area. Now, I own a home here in Westbrook, a rental property. I frequently drive the route, and the amount of traffic coming up Westbrook Street, turning left onto Congress, which is the direction I live in, I can't get out of my street onto Congress Street because that light at Westbrook and Congress, by the time that turns for those people to turn left, the traffic coming up Congress Street, it's ridiculous. I usually wait five minutes to turn out of my street onto Congress Street for traffic to clear, regardless of the time of the day or day of the week. If any of you frequently drive Congress Street, you know that anywhere from the airport all the way down to 295 ramps is a mess. And heaven forbid in summer, when the traffic increases terribly, that airport entrance can be lined up all the way down Congress Street, blocking traffic so we're talking about Westbrook Street, Stroud Water Street, a two water, a two lane street with over 500 more cars, not to mention Stroud Water Preserves with their new project three and four coming into play, all the cars from that, those developments and the new one that's being developed right off of Congress Street, the new development for market and lower income housing. So the traffic on a two-lane street of Congress Street, I just hope that you all have, would take a little more time to focus on the infrastructure. And as both Fred and Woody have said, we should be working with the DOT. This should be going off into Rand Road. And it's just ridiculous to have all this traffic going down a two-lane street and onto Congress. Thank you. [1:37:00] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you. Deborah, anybody else? [1:37:09] Beth Paulson Olmsted / Elizabeth Gatine (public commenters): My name is Beth Paulson Olmsted, and I hope that protecting one of Westbrook's very few farms is going to be more important than putting that same food processor in jeopardy for the sake of yet another developer. Arthur Randall, who owns the abutting Legacy Farm, has asked me to read this statement to you. The Randall Farm continues to operate as a working four-generation cattle farm at 591 Stroudwater Street, with the fifth generation in training. Over more than a century, the Randall family has consistently fought off intense pressure from suburban sprawl to preserve this historic piece of land. The original house and barn were constructed with timber harvested from its own acreage. Existing farms are broadly protected from encroachment and neighbor complaints by a combination of state law and local grandfathering rules because their existence predates any housing developments. They are not bound by the 50-foot livestock restriction. New, incompatible development activities are not permitted within 50 to 100 feet of a farmland's boundary. This creates a protective buffer on the developer's side rather than the farmer's side. New residential neighbors cannot sue or file nuisance complaints against a pre-existing, properly managed farm for standard agricultural impacts like odors, tractor noise, dust, or early morning operations as long as that existing farm follows standard agricultural best management practices. We are here for a hearing on the viability of what's now a 306-unit residential complex. Realizing that the parroted buzzword is housing,, housing, developers understand there are no impact fees in Westbrook and that this increases their profit while affecting our schools, fire, police, et cetera. Although it may be permitted in your zoning ordinances, I would strongly recommend this is the wrong development on the wrong piece of land. While you, the planning board, seem inherently friendly to the developer's mission, you must pivot from where it is built to how it is built to legally protect the neighbors. For example, consider stormwater and runoff and pollutants. If the developer's design triggers localized flooding, or alters the natural drainage onto adjoining agricultural fields, it creates immediate civil liability. There should be an independent engineering review of the stormwater management system. The town should mandate a comprehensive traffic impact assessment that explicitly accounts for active agricultural machinery. As Westbrook does with other the developments, the developer should be responsible for a vegetative setback or privacy screen and secure fencing to keep future residents from trespassing and otherwise encroaching on crops and livestock areas. Developers consistently develop open areas instead of ledges, etc., because it's easy going for them with more profit. Developers' profits are prioritized over local food production here. God only made so much good land for us to get food. Let's not waste it. [1:40:33] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you, Beth. Anybody else? [1:40:44] Beth Paulson Olmsted / Elizabeth Gatine (public commenters): Good evening. Elizabeth Gatine. I'm a resident of Westbrook. And I recognize and appreciate the need for additional housing, including affordable housing and the importance of that and understand the zoning on that property. But similar to a theme, I do still question why, or still question both entrances being on Stradwater Street. I think you've heard about traffic, but I will just also say that for me, we have tried to move away from creating dead ends and roads that go nowhere and creating and connecting to community. And by just having it connect only to Stradwater Street, that neighborhood becomes isolated and removed from other parts of the city. And so that is one piece of that. And I don't know, you know, I know there's been a trajectory to these conversations with the state. I know that, you know, different city administrations, different city staff, I'm sure different people at DOT. I don't know what has always gone into the mix of all of those conversations. And this is maybe more of a comment for the city, but I just hope we can continue to have conversations. And my last point would be, because I'm also curious about the other piece of the property that does back onto the arterial, and are we saying that we'll never have arterial access? I don't think so. I don't think anybody is saying that. So what are those arterial accesses? What is it? What is the vision of, and I know, I think last time it was said, well, that's not the plan before for the planning board. So that's not at issue. But at some point, you know, it's like looking at something with blinders and saying, okay, this is going to happen here. But what I'm curious about is what is the vision for that whole piece? And if and when access comes onto the arterial, what will that look like? And how does Rock Row and the residential pieces there that are coming into the arterial meet? I mean, I think about the bus and I did hear the comment about changing the bus, But wouldn't it be nice to have a bus stop that also helped this development if there was access there rather than trying to bring a bus all the way down Stradwater, which there is no bus route there at this point, and just trying to connect to the services that we have, the emergency services. services. So I think it's just a comment that is a theme that you're hearing about. Is this really the only way? But I do want to appreciate the responsiveness of everyone to what has been said and to making changes to try to make this fit the neighborhood, and I do appreciate that. Thank you. [1:43:43] Deborah Romery (public commenter): Deborah Romery. I'm also a resident of Westbrook. And I think what is an attempt to have my surname on one of the plan documents is misspelled, so I just wanted to point that out. I believe it's on the Acido Kimball drawings. So details matter, I guess. So I agree with other comments tonight to acknowledge and appreciate the responsiveness of the design team, city, the civility, of these procedures. It's not easy on either side of this I think and I really do appreciate the civility behind that. I won't belabor some of the comments you've heard about traffic but I will just point out a couple specifics. On the night of September 22nd some of you may know that there was I think a multi-school cross-country race happening at the middle school. I think that's what was going on but whatever it was there was parking on Stroudwater Street all the way from the middle school, past the Gatine's house, past the horses, almost down to my driveway. So when you take the width of Stroudwater Street and you already have a line of parked cars there, I think you get a better appreciation for the trickiness, the danger of having that intersection, that entrance near the middle school. I think the safety issues can't be overestimated there, I think. So likewise, I think I think the access to the arterial is demanding more conversation and perhaps more public discussion. So I just wanted to reemphasize that point. And lastly, I guess two other points. At the last meeting in May, the city used the word holistic in terms of considering all of the plans that were before them. And I likewise find a fair amount of vagueness and open-endedness in the text and the narrative of the application that makes me question how this could be viewed holistically when there are still so many unknowns, particularly relating to that part of the parcel over near the arterial side. In fact, if we weren't so far into the process, I would at this point say, jeez, you know, I think this is really kind of flipped. I think Rock Row is the place to be. So move the development over there and let people access it, get those bus lines going, get people who may be working in those places easy access to a potential place of employment. Because the other folks who are going to be affected by this, and we haven't really mentioned them, are the folks on 4th Street, Haskell, Libby, Rochester. Because, man, when you get off the Turnpike or the Arterial and you try to take a left from 4th Street onto Stroudwater Street, you're sitting there for a long time. And so those folks are just going to see a lot of traffic. So I hang that on the holistic piece and part of the neighborhood feel to this. So, oh, last thing, I'm almost out of time. Please, you know, be careful that Randall's do have that piece of property on the arterial side. And if you isolate that so that they can't move their cows across the street because of the amount of traffic, you've essentially rendered that piece of their property useless. You know, it's kind of fun to watch the cows go across a couple times a year as they change pastures. So thank you very much, all of you. Thank you, Debra. Hi, [1:47:20] Rania Campbell-Boussier (public commenter): my name is Rania Campbell-Boussier. I live in Portland. Do you want to introduce yourself? [1:47:25] Chair (presiding officer): Hi, my name is Charisse Campbell-Boussier, and I have a daughter. [1:47:31] Rania Campbell-Boussier (public commenter): So we live off of Westbrook Street, just two miles from here. And I want to say I'm so excited to see more housing getting built, especially affordable housing. My concern is also related to traffic. But in considering traffic, it's really important to consider pedestrian and bicyclist safety along Stroudwater Street. I commute by bicycle along Stroudwater Street from Westbrook Street to the main mall area. And it definitely feels like the most dangerous part of my route already. And introducing, forcing people to use more cars because there's not options to bike and walk around safely. And there's no bus route down this road is just going to force even more cars and make it more dangerous for people who are traveling on other modes along this road. So just to consider that. It looks like there's been great consideration for pedestrian access within the development, but it's really important to look at along Stroudwater Street as well. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? [1:48:56] David Kent (public commenter): Good evening, folks. My name is David Kent and I happen to be president of Maine Farm Bureau. So obviously my interest is the Randall operation and we're in an atmosphere here or a location whereby farming is not popular like where I grew up. And just last week on the news media it was reported that a homeowner's association sued the municipality for the unpleasant smells that was coming from an adjoining agricultural operation. So even though they're not supposed to do that, maybe, as Mrs. Paulson said, excuse me, they did. I happened to be at Freiburg Fair today, and I paid some attention to this, and I was surprised at the number of folks I saw walking around the barns and it was kind of covering up their noses because they didn't like the smell. So it is a problem. So my point is you folks need to do something to have some type of education to the potential tenants and the owners that they are moving next to an agriculture operation, And there's going to be some sights and sounds and smells that they're not used to and they're not going to like. And it could come back to, like was reported again this week, that they sued the municipality because of the unpleasant smells coming from this farming operation. and I'm sure you know that in Maine there is a right to farm law so you need to be cognizant that so my point is just to give your heads up and hopefully you won't have some hot burn with some legal issues later down the road so thank you Thank you, David. [1:51:07] Chair (presiding officer): Anybody else? Going once, twice? Anybody through Zoom? [1:51:19] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): If anybody is participating via Zoom and would like to comment, please raise your hand. [1:51:34] Chair (presiding officer): Okay, so we have no Zoom participants, so I'm going to close the public comment. Well, we have a lot of questions. Staff, do you want to start with some of the questions? I know you wrote them down. I have a list, too, as well, so if we missed any, if you want to. Sure. Well, I think we can start talking about the arterial. I think that's a fair question. It's definitely the most prominent comment that we've received at these meetings and in the office when folks come in. And I understand that when you're looking at the plans and you're looking just at traffic or vehicular access and management, the desire and the perceived logic to have it have two points of entrance or if one point of entrance to go to the busier road. That makes sense. The holistic comment that I think was referring to is that there's more to the development than just the vehicular access in and out. There is the pedestrian traffic, the bicyclists. Introducing the vehicular access to the arterial is inherently introducing pedestrians and bicyclists to that as well. And there have been meetings, there were meetings with city staff, planning, Jenny, as well as the city engineer, the development team, J.B. Brown, Westbrook Housing, not sure, Caleb, if you were at that meeting as well, but with MDOT to discuss what these requirements were. And it was determined that the introduction of the pedestrians and bicyclists into the arterial with the roadway classification and the speed of that roadway would require a grade-separated crossing. It could not be just a crosswalk on the road because that would not be a safe situation. And what came to be from that is that was cost-prohibitive for the project. The project was not able to be able to install that. And also, I think we can all acknowledge it wouldn't be used, the amount of the layout that it would have to have in order to be an ADA accessible. There'd be a lot of switchbacks. And so it just, it inherently is creating a dangerous situation. That is why it was the recommendation of staff and also because of those compounding measures to have that entrance be from Stroudwater Street. And I would just recommend that there are other similar roadways to Stroudwater Street that are supporting developments about this size. And the amount of traffic that it feels like it's going to be versus the amount of traffic that actually is occurring once it's built out, it is not as impactful as it feels it's going to be. That said, I recognize Stroudwater Street in Congress is a busy intersection. It gets backed up. I've driven it too. I understand that. And that's all part of the conversation in this is what factors or what mitigating efforts can be reasonably placed in to try to lessen that where it can be. and some of those improvements may be bigger projects that are part of a Portland plan to you know I'm not aware I don't I'm not involved in that so I don't know if there are any plans within Portland to address that intersection there may be there may not be but that would be part of a bigger conversation that isn't necessarily part of this development conversation so I know that 's not necessarily a clear answer but that's just the history of how we got to this place and oh the other thing i wanted to touch on was the mention of the control of access highway. That is a designation. Now, I mean, is it possible that one day that will disappear? I suppose anything is possible, but that is what we're working within now, that there would not be permitted a new curb cut on that roadway. So for the purpose of this review, the purpose of any review on a control of access is that we have to, the arterial is what the arterial is right now. It has the curb cuts. The curb cut into the medical office building at Rock Row was an existing curb cut, which is why they were allowed to maintain it and continue to use it, but they would not be permitted to have an additional curb cut on the arterial or on Larrabee. It's the ones that they have, they have because they were grandfathered in. New ones would not be permitted. So that's kind of just the history of how we got to where we are. As far as the question about the infrastructure planning and the entrances and the vagueness and open-endedness, I think we can agree that is the phase that we're at right now because we're still in the workshop phase. The final plans have not been engineered. The final state permits have not been submitted or received. Some of that design has to happen still. So we don't know what they are because they haven't been determined. I just want to state for the record, I would entirely support the coordination with the Stroud Water Neighborhood Associations that were requested. And if there were any way for staff to help facilitate the coordination of that, please feel free to send me an email and we can make some virtual introductions. I wanted to clarify that there are impact fees in Westbrook. This project would be subject to the sewer impact fee that is applied at building permit issuance. And also, as far as the existing farm, everything that was said tonight is correct in that farm has a legal right to exist. The development team is aware of that. The development team would remain in ownership of this particular project. So I think for the education piece, they're aware that they're going in next to a farm. They are part of the recommend staff recommendations and the plan will be determining what that relationship is between the development and the plan at the property line. I don't know what that will be yet, but that's absolutely part of the conversation is to not impact the functioning of that farm. And I think those were all the questions for me I noted, but if you, if I missed any, please let me know. That's fine. I do have a couple other ones too, but I'll let the board go through a little bit of questions and then see what those questions might be. And then if they're duplicate to me, then we'll go, or do you want me to? Sure, no, I think that's right. I just wanted to double check. Is there anything that you wanted to respond to that I did not or, okay. So yeah, let's open it up to the board comment first. And then I know I have some items listed too, but I'm sure the board also has. Item so if anybody wants to, wants to go first, who wants to go first, all right [1:58:40] John Turcotte (board member): Sure, John, I'll just try to go in order of issues that were raised if I, if I can keeping them straight in my head, so as to the arterial, you know, Thank You Rebecca. I do find though that, you know, there's a spur there right behind, I think it's a Randall's property, so I think we're being told if the Randall's one to connect the arterial they can, but this one can't, and because Stroud water, you were in workshop and we're talking conceptual, but I just feared that we may be stuck in a carousel here Because the one entrance now is going to be a problem, it's just, it's going to be one of the reasons we have residents of Westbrook serve on this board is that this month will be 20 years since I moved to Westbrook. I've driven down Stroud water twice a day every day for 20 years, and for the last nine years I've stopped at either the high school, the middle school, or both in every single day of the week, and you know, if you're trying to turn from landing or more accurately for this proposal from Laugh and drive onto Stroud water in the morning, in the afternoon, or at 2 30 when the school gets out. You're just waiting, and that's existing traffic, and so it's It's going to be a problem, and I know that we just keep coming at it and trying to find ways around it, but that is the problem. In terms of the structure itself, again, we're talking conceptually. I don't know how we make that emergency exit emergency. I don't know how that's policed. I worry that the townhome units, it's a straight shot. I don't know why they wouldn't be able to go that way as opposed to coming all the way around. With respect to the massing around the existing houses, I guess my initial concern is that the massing is around the existing houses. And we've got parking lots pointed at this home in the middle of the area. You can't see the name on the plan that's been presented tonight. But so whatever's going to go there, that clearly has to be buffering. It's the first I'm hearing that there's a 50 foot buffer on the farm, I'm sure staff will be able to deal with that. And so conceptually from my perspective I want to make sure that as this goes in that we have buffering for the existing homes, sufficient protection for the Randalls to the to the there's no rose compass to the south, and we're just gonna have to deal with traffic. I think that's the albatross on this. Thank [2:01:07] Chair (presiding officer): you. Thank you John. Anybody else? Yes Karen. Hi Mr. Chair, can you just I've [2:01:16] Karen Axelson (board member): I've lived here long enough that the S-curves is still in my head in regards to the arterial. It's plowed by the city, correct? It's a city road? To the municipal line. Right. [2:01:28] Chair (presiding officer): So it's a city road. Well, it's because it's within the urban compact. So it's the city's responsibility for plowing services and certain maintenance services. But it is not a city road. It's a DOT road. [2:01:40] Karen Axelson (board member): Okay. So that kind of defeats me. I was just saying if our land use is considered to be fluid, and we're always changing it, why doesn't that include roads? [2:01:52] Chair (presiding officer): So it's a design, it's, I'm not sure if it's a state or a federal designation, that is the control of access highway, but it's outside of our jurisdiction, and it essentially would involve a substantive payment, because it has to pay, if you want to, if you want to jump in on this, you're more than welcome to, because this is a, this is a tricky one for me to remember,, but it does limit the access. And I wanted to kind of clarify, John, what you said before. The spur behind the Randall's property is actually owned by Westbrook Housing, so the original proposal was to access at that point. If this project were just the project it is right now, where it doesn't have that spur, it would not be permitted because of the control of access restriction. Are you talking about the Hammerhead? Yes. Okay. Yes. [2:02:40] Speaker AB (unidentified): So the arterial is actually part of the interstate road system. It has that level of classification. It is beyond just an arterial status. So from that status alone, and the quantity of traffic, and the speed of the traffic, this is a road system that has a much higher designation than a lot of our road, most of our road systems in Westbrook. The federal designation that went through when we actually constructed all of that road system is where the control of access comes in. The control of access was purchased from all of those properties in order to construct all of those, in order to construct the arterial. There is no allowance for any more control of access through there because it was purchased as part of the road construction project of the arterial. [2:03:28] Karen Axelson (board member): At one point when it went like S, you had a lower speed, correct? It wasn't always the speed it's at now, so if it, to your point, if it can be changed, it's the road system we have right now, so was it a reduced speed at the time it was going through the S curves? So it was, it was a [2:03:52] Speaker AB (unidentified): road configuration which was a temporary situation, understanding the road was going to be continuing further to create what was going to be an extension of the arterial. So it was, it was a temporary situation to have those S-curves. [2:04:06] Karen Axelson (board member): It was a long time. It was. Okay. [2:04:12] Chair (presiding officer): So, Jenny, I just want to jump in now on this. So, with the road not being done, as Woody had mentioned, as far as where it was supposed to go directly into Portland, and it's not the high speed as it was because we have two lights there now. I know it's blinking light at the hospital still, but is that going to be it, that's going to be an active red light eventually, is correct, coming out [2:04:35] Speaker AB (unidentified): of rock row when that eventually hits the traffic counts, that will turn, so that'll be, that'll be [2:04:40] Chair (presiding officer): another slow down there. So how can we start this baby crusade to declassify the road, the [2:04:50] Speaker AB (unidentified): Section of road that we're talking about is a 45 mile an hour section, right? Is that we're not talking about the section once you get past Larrabee? We're talking about the section that's It's 45 miles an hour right now, which a lot of people are going even faster than that. The concern that we have, and DOT shares the exact same concern, is that we do not want to put pedestrians in the situation where they would potentially be putting themselves in danger. We do not want to create our own high crash location. We have enough high crash locations across the community where we have conflicts with pedestrians and vehicular situations. SITUATIONS. WE DO NOT WANT TO CREATE THAT SITUATION BY NOW PUTTING PEOPLE IN THAT SITUATION. THE ONLY WAY TO ADDRESS THAT IS WITH GRADE SEPARATION. A GRADE SEPARATION IS SOMEWHERE IN THE MAGNITUDE OF ORDER OF $5 TO $10 MILLION TO PUT AN APPROPRIATE BRIDGE ACROSS A SIX-LANE SECTION OF ROAD. IT IS A LONG SECTION, AND YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT HAVING TO GET IT UP TO AN ELEVATION IN WHICH TO HAVE THAT PASS OVER THE TRAFFIC. The switchbacks alone are going to end up being time prohibitive from people who actually want to utilize it because when you're looking at it's going to take 10 minutes to go up and down switchbacks, people are going to cut across the road, and that's where we're going to have a situation of pedestrians versus vehicular situations in a high-speed environment. Environment. So in looking at the situation, the DOT looked at the road system of Stroudwater Street. For the number of trips that are being generated by this project, Stroudwater Street has adequate capacity. Whether that there needs to be additional measures done at intersections, those will be the things that come out of a traffic movement permit. Okay. [2:06:39] John Turcotte (board member): Mr. Chair, well, thank you for putting a dollar figure to that. But I just want to clarify. So if the Randalls someday sold the Westbrook Housing Authority, could they use the spur or no there [2:06:51] Speaker AB (unidentified): could be access again that anybody who wants to cut into that arterial is going to be required to put in a grade separation absolutely yes and [2:07:05] Chair (presiding officer): that's a requirement of the roadway that's a requirement of the classification and the speed of the roadway so that would not change depending on a different development for example [2:07:18] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): What just to play this out, what about putting another traffic light 100 meters from the existing one, like at an intersection leaving this parcel. I'm just playing it out because somebody's thinking about if I'm thinking about someone else's. You can only put traffic lights [2:07:33] Speaker AB (unidentified): in certain locations. We could not put a traffic light. And again, what we're talking about is we should not be putting pedestrians in a location at a grade level with 45 mile an hour traffic coming through this area. If you introduce pedestrians to this area, it requires great separation, and that's the bottom line. Also, the only point of [2:07:58] Chair (presiding officer): access, it is at a signalized intersection, there wouldn't be any more points of access that could be permitted. [2:08:12] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): Yes, Robin. I have other unrelated to traffic. And it's just a comment, and I don't know if it's for Caleb or Tyler. I guess Tyler, I was thinking about what you said about the plan, and trying not to have differentiation necessarily between market rate and affordable, which is what we want. Sorry, I fully understand that. I think it is that the funding sources you're using to support the affordable, they have to be in their own building. You can't mix them. And I'm guessing they have to be separate parcels. So I understand everything you're saying. When I look at this, it feels like there's the affordable, there's the market rate. It's very possible that once this thing is built and lived in that will go away because I know that because I'm sitting here paying attention so I just want to acknowledge that it's a tough one the buildings are substantially bigger in mass I get there's efficiency I guess I'm just sort of processing it myself but one question I have is architecturally will they be identical I mean is one going to get fiber cement and one's going to get vinyl how do we are there some ways that we can as best as possible not be like I spy I can tell yeah that's our intent so of our three [2:09:31] Tyler Norod (Westbrook Development Corporation, applicant): that'll be obviously different because one's an L shape and then we're going to try to create some sort of where the street tees into that other road some sort of nicer element there to try to make a moment right as you cover like a view corridor coming down part of the issue too why that feels I think so separate it wasn't in so much of an intent outside of the legal and financial frameworks that we have to work within it's the wetlands that aren't showing up here it doesn't it's really hard On an aerial, and to be honest, unless you're a wetland scientist, you go out there, it's not wetlands that I, at least I think of as wetlands. It's cow paths from over the years that have slightly different saturation points of slightly different plant life in them. It's not significant, but there's, we have to through the DEP process because there's such a large development, we go through a separate process with Slota. We have to show that we are dodging every single piece that we possibly can and still be able to make the deal work. And so it's not as maybe ideal as we would like. We would probably have a little bit more grittedness to the neighborhood. There's also a Portland water line main that runs diagonally through. It's very faint in there because I think it would be distracting if we tried to highlight it too much, but it goes diagonally from almost the middle school entrance across the site, and we're not allowed to put any buildings on it. It has to be open space or parking lots. So there are a couple of things that are a little bit unique here. And then there's the grade. This looks like a really flat site. We've actually struggled with it on ours. At first, we didn't think our buildings could fit there and afford the grade changes. It's something we're still trying to figure out how do we juggle and still have nice units on the first floor that either don't turn their back to the street or create more of a basement feel for people living inside them. So that's that stoop element that we have there. We're hoping we can afford to bring in some gray with a chop some away with do some more geotechnical studies. Before we spend all that money, we wanted to make sure at least the general plan is heading in a direction that people feel comfortable with. And so that's why we have very conceptual drawings. We've tested a couple different designs and it's really playing around with some of that creating which I know doesn't quite answer the question. But what we were trying to do from a site plan standpoint, since we have the limitations of the wetlands and our funding sources, similar streetscapes, similar landscaping plans, drawing people in together, have a reason to go around the loop with a dog, maybe put a playground there, have community space that is open to others that draws folks from one side to the other. We weren't trying to isolate people, as you can probably tell, because we have market right next to ours. It was just those are the developable parts of the site that we're trying to figure out how do you do as best you can with it. And one of the other things we were trying to do was just hide all the parking behind the buildings as best as possible. It's not perfect because you can see a lot of these sites from different angles. But we were trying to make really nice streets to encourage people to get out and walk, meet their neighbors, and be outdoors a little more to foster that sense of community. [2:12:29] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): It's not an easy thing. If I may, my other comment would be that, and I'm pretty sure this is one, as you said, we've seen some major revisions. And, like, maybe the very first one you ever showed us had a real village concept, am I dreaming? It had more of that party. I get it. Maybe not all of that. But if I had to sort of squint and say, what's going on here? What's the thing? I'm not saying other developments we see have this. I don't mean to hold you to a higher standard. But I wonder if, like, if where that road comes in to the affordable area, you know, if there's a moment, if there's a traffic circle or a park, if something like that can be repeated on the market rate side, it just, there was such a loveliness about that plan. I still remember that it had a little, a villagey sense or, like some of the moves I've seen it, the downs, not to spend all your budget, but, a couple of moments that could unify, I think might be a nice touch. Touch sounds too light, but would be nice sort of placemaking. I also think the people on the far, the northern side, it's going to be really hard not to want to use that access across the middle school. You guys will figure that out. [2:13:44] Tyler Norod (Westbrook Development Corporation, applicant): Yeah, and right now we're at least, we've always thought about it as pedestrian no matter what happens. It's hard to have this conversation in the sequence we do because DOT has to be informing it. So it's a cart before the horse. Yeah. We know that something has to be done there. So we know that without it doesn't warrant a signal based on DoT standards. So you have to do something else traffic circle or some other source of mitigation for how you address that intersection the simplest thing for right now, which potentially is maybe a shoulder is the just it's an emergency access. There's a gate. There's something that doesn't look, there's curving, so vehicles can't go through. We've always known that even if we didn't design and put it in, people are going to cross there, right? There's a sidewalk on the other side of the street that goes down towards downtown Westbrook, towards the high school. So we've always thought about, there's a minimum, there's flashing pedestrian light, there's a crosswalk. The exact design, we didn't want to spend time and money doing that until we have the conversation with dot, because we're gonna have to do real engineer drawings and figure that out. And depending on what they want us to do there, designing it now is getting ahead of ourselves. I totally understand. I also just [2:14:54] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): I just want to thank you for the thoughtful design of the buildings. I think you guys made a good call there. I think it makes everything not palatable, but it just makes it feel appropriate and respectful. So I applaud that. [2:15:11] Chair (presiding officer): I know we're still in workshop, but there was a couple questions that weren't answered yet, and screening was a big issue for one of them. And the other question was brought up about what are we going to do with the other half the parcel. Is that something that's still in the in the realm of things, or is that something [2:15:31] Tuck O'Brien (J.B. Brown, applicant): that is going to be put back to open space? So taking that one first, this is the project that we're doing. We brought a larger project, you know, we talked about the complicated complexity of the arterial. We are not adding to this development program, and we don't have plans to unless the situation with the arteriolar were to change. So this is the project we have. We still are working with the Randalls. They're still using it for pasture. They'll be putting some cows out there, I think. I got a text about they're putting some of the herd out there in a couple weeks. So that's what's going on with that. We would like to create some connectivity of a trail nature, between what's going on here with, you know, some other parts, but again, the arterial is what it is. So most of the connectivity we're going to try with Portland Trails is going to be going over to the middle school anyways at this point, and that's where we're at. Okay, in terms of screening, we've tried to be extremely conscious with how we're making changes to this project to achieve those, points. The changes we made to the Building layout, the parking layout, and the landscaping are all designed for screening towards both the existing, the existing buildings. And we've been starting to think about how we're going to treat the interface with the pasture. I think kind of best practices is you do a two-tiered thing where you have a one fence for the animals, then a like a kind of wild buffer, and then you have a fence for the dogs and the humans on the other side. We haven't got that far, but that's kind of the research we're doing and the best way to do it, and we'll obviously work closely with the Randals on figuring out what the best solution is. Again, they've, we've been, they've been using this land for a lot longer than we've owned it, and they've been using it the whole time we've owned it, so they'll, they'll be our guide on the best way to do that. And so that's it. And one of the other, only other things I will say is like, we didn't, this doesn't show topography, both of the complexity of the slope of the Westbrook Development Buildings, but also there's a slope down away from Stroudwater. So a lot of the larger massing on the market portion is actually downslope. So there's some natural screening that happens as well. But it's been something we heard very loud and clear the last time, and so we're really focused on it. [2:18:01] Chair (presiding officer): Okay. I just wanted to bring it back up because the questions were brought up again. But I appreciate that. Thank you. Does anybody else have any other questions? Orianna, just a quick comment, mostly to second [2:18:14] Oriana Farnham (board member): what Robin said about the affordable housing section up at the top of the map. I said this last time that I fee similar take as Robin, that it just feels very different, separate. I appreciate that you are dealing with extreme site constraints, topography, and the waterline and everything, and I also appreciate that you're coming at this from I think a like genuine values place of trying to create a really great community for people to live in that is mixed income, especially if there's no way to get Out up there it just feels like affordable housing island at the top of the site, and I just think I know you'll keep working on it and just want to encourage that. And especially, you know, to Robin's point, that something at the top of that t that just like makes it less of a here you are at these big buildings. And I really appreciate that everything we ask you to do is more money that you're spending on design and architects and landscape, etc., and that's cutting into the budget to build great affordable housing. So I know you're juggling all of that, and I just wanted to name that piece that I think like, you know, people do experience that psychologically when they have to drive farther than everybody else to get to their parking lot when they get into their neighborhood, yeah. [2:19:37] Tuck O'Brien (J.B. Brown, applicant): Just and I think Tyler answered it. I mean, I think we've we've kind of been playing around with like how do we create that building scale instead of having the affordable component replicate what's going on the market, kind of doing the opposite. And so we've definitely played around with, you know, if you look at the townhomes in the upper corner, like does that just continue the scale and the style of that building down, so that integrates it, so you can't tell the difference there. Or do you do in the center portion or the back portion of the lower portion, do you do a larger building just to get that continuity? So we're continuing to play around with that. I think it's really just a function of, and I think you'll see more now that we're going out and looking at construction pricing. I think we'll be able to kind of take that a little bit further. Anybody [2:20:31] Kevin Price (board member): else? Sure, yeah, thank you for the presentation, and I to value all the work that you've brought in front of the board, so thank you for that. I'm the master plan, so my question is brief because really everything that I've been musing has been brought up, but here on this master plan, the green grass, the space, will that will that be meadow, what will that be, all the green area? Because I would love to see it be meadow, and because it is now, and it's beautiful, so if we take like the left half [2:21:17] Tuck O'Brien (J.B. Brown, applicant): and the right half of the plan that you can see the current plan is for the right half is still going to stay pasture that's and the i think it's an open question of how we treat the interface between the two sides and what happens up there probably not gonna be awesome for cows anymore up there but maybe that's where the gardens happen i don't know you know who knows what happens there's a lot of things we can do right now it kind of needs to be brush hogged again so the some of the trees are starting to come back, but you know, I think we're trying to be creative of instead of having this antagonistic setup with the residential coming in to the long-standing agricultural use, how can that be something that is cherished in an amended deal of what we are trying to do here? Thanks for that. [2:22:09] Chair (presiding officer): We heard good feedback from both sides. I hope you can take that with you. I know we can't answer any other questions. You can't answer any questions until we get to the permanent process effect when it gets to that, so just take it in consideration with what we say and what the public has said to, and when you come back to us again we'll go from there. Thank [Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): you. We] have one more thing on the item. Right, two more things on the items. Okay, Jenna, would you read the, is it still in, they're still in workshop, then, too? They're still in workshop, yes. Okay. So, Jenna, could you read the next item into the record, please? [2:23:02] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Item number 26-000821, Site Plan, 680 Methodist Road, Methodist Homes, LLC. The applicant is proposing the development of six duplex buildings totaling 12 dwelling units on a lot located between 630 and 706 Methodist Road. Tax map 014, lot 009, zone rural district, use dwelling to family. Thank [2:23:36] Chair (presiding officer): you. Applicant presentation, please. Or let me mention this first before we go to the applicant. Kevin is in a butter and [2:23:44] Kevin Price (board member): you want to make a statement. Just like to disclose I am within the notification radius. I'm not immediate butter, but I feel I can be objective. Today's a workshop, but I welcome the board to move to have me recuse myself a subsequent vote later if you feel [2:23:57] Chair (presiding officer): necessary. How's the board feel? Objections with him? Okay, awesome. So with that, Oriana had to take leave because she's not feeling well, so she just recused herself from that. So we're still in workshop or not voting on anything at the moment, so just mention that. So staff presentation, good. [2:24:28] Kaylee Gullickson (Sveo Technics, applicant): Evening or applicant presentation. I'm sorry, good evening, thank you board for having us here tonight. My name is Kaylee Gullickson, I'm a civil engineer with Sveo Technics. I'm here tonight presenting the 680 Methodist Road sketch plan showing six duplex buildings, and one shared entrance off Methodist Road. In totality, the site is a little over 19 acres. It is wooded and undeveloped right now, and we are in the rural district. With this design, we've really tried to keep the wetlands and the woodlands there, and we're shoving our development kind of towards Methodist Road. The site will be supported by public water, private sewer, stormwater management infrastructure, applicable landscaping and site features, as well as open space to the rear. Based on comments that we received from staff, we understand the site cannot utilize the cluster standards. Additionally, we have updated RESIDENTIAL CALCULATIONS. THERE IS ALLOWED TO BE 15 UNITS ON THE SITE. AS WE DIVE INTO THE ENGINEERING AND THE DESIGN OF THE SITE, WE'LL BE ABLE TO VERIFY MORE OF THOSE DEVELOPMENT GRADES, RETAINING WALL INFORMATION, SHOW UTILITY LOCATIONS AND CONNECTIONS AND TOTAL DEVELOPMENT AREAS. AT THIS MOMENT, WE ARE ANTICIPATING THE DEVELOPMENT TO BE UNDER ONE ACRE OF impervious surface, so we don't anticipate any state permitting. Tonight I am here with the applicant, one of the applicants, Muhammad Al-Taha, to but we're here just to gain the board's feedback and answer any questions you have. Thank you. Thank you Steph. Yes, so this plan was before [2:26:31] Chair (presiding officer): IT WAS APPROVED AS A PRIVATE WAY AND A NINE LOT SUBDIVISION. THE GRADING IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THAT PRIVATE WAY WAS EXTREME AND BECAME DIFFICULT TO CONSTRUCT. THE APPLICANT HAS COME FORWARD WITH A REVISED PLAN THAT BRINGS THE DEVELOPMENT CLOSER TO METHODIST ROAD, WHICH LEAVES A VAST MAJORITY OF THE PARCEL TO the rear undeveloped and opened, and also would remove all of the land manipulation that would have to happen. The actual unit count from what could have been developed on the land division and this one remains approximately the same, but the actual impact to the parcel is greatly and drastically reduced by this proposed design that they are moving forward right now. As far as staff comments, we had some plan clarifications and further engineering that would need to be developed. We had a recommendation to pull that retaining wall back to just offer a little bit more of usable yard space to those rear units, but all things that we can continue to work with the applicant forward as they proceed to final engineered drawings. Thank you. This is a public comment session. If anybody wishes to speak on this particular application, please come [2:27:59] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): IF ANYBODY IS PARTICIPATING VIA ZOOM AND WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT, PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND. [2:28:07] Chair (presiding officer): WITH THAT, I WILL CLOSE THE PUBLIC COMMENT SESSION. ANY BOARD COMMENTS? [2:28:17] John Turcotte (board member): IS THIS THE PART OF METHYS ROAD WHERE THE LANE DESCENDS DOWN TO WHERE YOU ARE BUILDING? NO, UP. [2:28:24] Waterstone Properties Group representative (applicant): THIS ONE IS GOING UP. GOT YOU. [2:28:28] Kevin Price (board member): THEIR WATER COMES TO MY BASEMENT. [2:28:30] Chair (presiding officer): OK. Okay all [2:28:34] John Turcotte (board member): Right, I don't, I don't have any comments about it. I think that the, you know, I was looking on just Google Earth, bring myself down to the street view because I'm trying to visualize where this was. If we're going to stay up on this side of the road and not go down in it, I don't have any problems with the design. I mean, I'm happy to see what these are going to look like, but other than that, I don't have any. Thank you, John. Anybody [2:29:05] Chair (presiding officer): else? I remember, I REMEMBER THIS PROJECT WHERE IT WAS GOING TO GO UP AND HAVE A CIRCLE AROUND, CORRECT, AND COME DOWN. WERE THEY ALL SINGLE FAMILIES OR DUPLEXES AT THE TIME? CAN YOU COME TO THE MICROPHONE, PLEASE? THERE WERE NINE LOTS AND THERE WERE EIGHT SINGLE FAMILY [2:29:25] Wayne Morral (Jones Beach Engineers, applicant): HOMES. THE LOT FIVE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A SECOND PHASE WHERE WE WOULD PUT TWO DUPLEXES IN IT. [2:29:32] Chair (presiding officer): OKAY, I REMEMBER THAT NOW. SO THE EXISTING LAND THAT we're looking back now is just going to be in a preserved land and it won't be developed at all [2:29:43] Kaylee Gullickson (Sveo Technics, applicant): is what the plan is for now. That would be the open space would kind of take over the rest. Okay now [2:29:49] Chair (presiding officer): how about the buffering on the on the roadside of Methodist? Is that going to be with, I know there's a lot of trees right there, but as far as where the entrance goes in and I'm seeing green, but how much of that setback is that? I can't really tell on the map here how far off. 25 feet? So 25 feet from the road. What kind of buffering is still going to stay in [2:30:11] Kaylee Gullickson (Sveo Technics, applicant): front of those duplexes from the road? So we believe that there will still be some existing buffer, but we're also planning to also add some landscaping to that to make sure it is buffered. [2:30:23] Chair (presiding officer): Okay, thank you. Yeah, anybody else in addition to the building setback of this district? There's a requirement to have that 25-foot vegetative buffer for Methodist Road. So you're seeing two setbacks on the plan. There's a 25, and then there's a 30-foot. Okay. I caught the red. That was easy to read. So my eyesight is kind of getting cloudy with some of the prints. So we'll have a 25 and a 10. 10-foot off the building, 25 for the screening for vegetation. Is that correct? It's 30 for the – I'll double-check that 's the front setback and not just the sides. but it's 30 for the structures but 25 foot is a no disturbed vegetative buffer so they wouldn't [2:31:04] Kevin Price (board member): be able to just completely open up that. Yeah, I got it, thank you, Mr. Chair. Quick comment just that hammerhead that faces six would face 6 30. I can't quite see exactly where that would come out, but just some screening there too that would point pretty close into kind of what might be the even the back side of that house there. And then just because I've often find it alarmingly I'm taking my trash up Sunday nights, the goats at 632 I think are great, but I would also just make sure any future residents are aware of goats because it can sound awful like a scream, but just kind of in the spirit of our earlier discussion as well. So I yeah, I think it's good to see this come back. I kind of wondered what was going on there and glad to see it back before the board. [Chair (presiding officer): Anybody else? No.] up to look forward to seeing it is that i do actually sorry for my delay i was so at the top of the where the driveway comes in and if someone turns right and there's that last building their headlights will go right into burgess lepage property i don't know if there's a house there i don't know what's there 's nothing represented on here that shows a structure but i'm just wondering if there's enough buffer because there will always be headlights from someone who's turning into the driveway and that top structure on the right. Yep. [2:32:45] Kaylee Gullickson (Sveo Technics, applicant): So there is, I can confirm there is a house on that parcel, but we would definitely ensure that there was screening in some way, shape, or form that would be able to block the headlights. [2:32:59] Chair (presiding officer): Okay. Good. Thanks. Anybody Else? I see none, so I look forward to seeing some of the better plans. You know, kind of how we like to see our designs for our duplexes. They're not square boxes, just to keep that into play. We'd like to have some kind of architecture to it, maybe, you know, even setbacks, we do one to the other where you have a little bit of pushback from one duplex to the other just to give it a little bit of characteristics. Other than that, keep that in mind as far as that and the landscaping and the screening, and we'll look forward to seeing you in the near future. Okay, we have one more item into the record. Jenna, would you please read that? [2:33:59] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): Item number 26-000847 land use ordinance amendment section 335-7.1 village review overlay zone section 335-8 shoreland protection zone section 335-9.9 floodplain management appeals VARIANCES, SECTION 335-14, ADMINISTRATION AND ENFORCEMENT, SECTION 335-15, ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS. THE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS INCLUDE MODIFICATIONS TO THE VILLAGE REVIEW OVERLAY ZONE REVIEW PROCESS AND THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS AS A PART OF A CITYWIDE INITIATIVE TO REVIEW THE STRUCTURE AND PROCEDURES OF CITY BOARDS, COMMITTEES, AND COMMISSIONS FOR CONSISTENCY WITH LEGAL REQUIREMENTS AND LOCAL PRACTICES. THANK YOU. Jenny? [2:34:59] Speaker AB (unidentified): Jenny Franceschi, Assistant City Administrator. I apologize, I didn't actually introduce myself properly when I came to the podium the last time. This evening, we are going to be talking about two of the boards that the City Council has been discussing recently. One of the projects the administration has been working on this year is a comprehensive update to the sections of our Code of Ordinances governing city boards, commissions, and committees. THE CITY CURRENTLY HAS 12 BOARDS THAT SERVE A VARIETY OF IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS. SOME ARE QUASI-JUDICIAL BODIES ESTABLISHED BY STATE LAW, WHILE OTHERS SERVE IN AN ADVISORY CAPACITY TO THE COUNCIL OR STAFF. OVER TIME, HOWEVER, WE HAVE FOUND THAT PORTIONS OF THE CODE NO LONGER REFLECT CURRENT PRACTICES OR THE EVOLVING NEEDS OF OUR COMMUNITY. WHILE THE EXISTING LANGUAGE WAS AT ONE TIME APPROPRIATE AND SUFFICIENT, IN SOME CASES IT NO LONGER REFLECTS THE ADJUSTMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE IN PRACTICE to respond to the emerging community needs. Staff have conducted a thorough review of all code provisions related to our boards to ensure greater clarity and consistency regarding each board's purpose, membership, duties, and scope of authority. This has been quite a significant undertaking, and our goals have been to eliminate conflict and outdated language, ensure each board is appropriately structured for its responsibilities abilities and aligned with best practices, and to provide clear guidance to support the work of our board members. The city council has conducted several meetings through the committee of the whole to review each body and suggested ordinance amendments to be consistent with the approach applied to review a board's purpose, membership, duties, and scope of authority. Amendments related to seven of the boards, committees, commissions, and committees were voted and approved on by the city council on September 21st. Two of those bodies have additional amendments within the land use section of the ordinance that need to be cleaned up. The item before the planning board this evening is a referral on two amendments to align the recent council actions related to the zoning board of appeals and the village review overlay committee. I'll start with the ZBA amendments. In your packets you'll see a cover sheet detailing the process conducted to review each board, and on page two under scope of authority is where we'll get into the details. It was brought to staff's attention, and this is again related to ZBA through our legal counsel, that the current ordinance related to the appeals of enforcement actions should be amended to address the cost of litigation to conduct the business of ordinance and approval enforcement. An enforcement action should not be appealable to the ZBA, but rather the violator can seek remedy through the courts. To clarify, this amendment is not applicable to appeals of a CEO's ordinance interpretation or the denial or approval of a permit, as those actions would still be allowed to be directed to the ZBA. Additionally, the current ordinance could be interpreted to require immediate enforcement action by the CEO. It has been the city's preference to work with property owners to obtain voluntary compliance on matters versus resorting to immediate enforcement in all situations. Therefore, the current language does not preserve the discretion over enforcement decisions. So as you're looking through the recommendations portion of the document, when you get down to chapter 335, land use, that is where we will be focusing in on. For the floodplain, shoreland zoning, and the administration and enforcement section, as well as the Zoning Board of Appeals. And you'll see in the associated document that is attached, you'll see the various edits and changes that have been made to address the issue of appeals of enforcement actions, as well as applying the discretionary enforcement. In addition, in the flood plane management section, it appears to be a much larger edit than what it actually is. We have reorganized that section just from a code formatting standpoint, but the components of the flood plane management have not been changed. So that is the section on the ZBA. Moving into the village review overline. Okay. I'm going to, what you have before you is our, again, our cover sheet where we sort of walked through, again, the purpose, the membership, the duties, and scope of authority. And I'm going to jump to the summary recommendations as it relates to the ZBA, but what this will provide folks that are listening is a bit of history related to the zoning, the village review overlay zone committee. The village review overlay zone was established in 2007. At the time of establishment, the ordinance was intended to be a guide to owners in the maintenance of important architectural qualities of their properties or in creating new structures that relate to the surrounding properties. Sometime thereafter, an informal committee was created, although not codified, for applicants to meet with and help educate our property owners in the VROZ district, though all review and approval authority resided with the planning board and staff. There were limited standards by which the VROZ committee had to work with at the time. The purpose of the informal committee was to encourage property owners to invest in their properties in a way that could incorporate higher quality elements, i.e. traditional windows versus vinyl replacement windows. And this committee worked hard in its task to advocate for the architectural improvements, but also understood its reviewing authority was limited to only those structures with architectural significance. In 2017, the city supported updating the VROZ ordinance to provide standards that projects would be able to comply with. These standards came from the 2009 downtown streetscape planning study which recommended ordinance requirements to create the vision of the downtown. The review and approval authority remained with staff and the Planning Board, though the informal committee was engaged in the new ordinance process and supported the new standards. In 2019, the city supported the committee was codified as an advisory committee to the Planning Board as instructed by our attorney at the time. Where the previous informal process was insufficient to require applicants to engage with this committee. This review was now of large scale projects in the VROZ zone was now conducted by the VROZ committee and the Planning Board. The review of signs and smaller projects remained under the authority of staff. The VROZ committee was inserted into the demolition ordinance which was broadly applied to any building in the district which conflicts with the original intent of the ordinance only to apply to buildings of architectural significance. The process created a significant delays to property owners that wished to remove a garage or a shed or a blighted structure that would not have meant the intent of architectural significance. This is not the fault of the committee but rather the ordinance. Which is proposed to be amended at this time as well. Over the last 10 years, the Planning Board's role in reviewing downtown parcels has become much more detailed. The VROZ committee, whose initial role was architectural advisement and education, has done an excellent job in raising the bar in Westbrook, to the point that the VROZ standards are now common talking points in the Planning Board process and in expectations of developers. The VROZ committee meets on an as needed basis and lately those meetings have decreased to one to two per year. The meetings are conducted via Zoom and have been in an early morning meeting format based upon the member's preference. In reviewing all of the committees and their processes, the public participation for VROZ review needs to be placed in a more formal setting and provide better accessibility to the public. In addition, the process of both the VROZ committee and the Planning Board can feel duplicative to applicants in that the same review is being conducted by both bodies, and ultimately the Planning Board has the final decision. In looking at the purpose of a committee and when the time should be to sunset it, we should base these decisions based upon successful completion of the original intent of the city in establishing those standards and the revised processes. In that vein, staff felt it would be an appropriate time to move the responsibility of the VROZ committee back to the planning board, as the planning board is the most appropriate venue for public discussions to properly document and conduct the public process of the VROZ review. With this change, the structure of the VROZ committee has reached a successful conclusion and may be sunsetted as a city committee. The proposed changes return the requirements of the process review to the original ordinance structure. The planning board now has the tools that it needs to conduct the architectural review process. The committee has been a great resource to bridge the gap in architectural review from where the city was in 2007 to today. Staff provided the committee with an update on this during the course of our review to make sure they were aware of what we were proposing. The highlights of the ordinance changes related to the land use ordinance that I want to highlight are that the VROC committee is removed as an advisory committee to the planning board, and the duties have been reallocated as follows. To address the issue of the demolition permits, the formal permits would only be necessary for structures listed or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The committee reviewing them would be made up of city staff and the planning board chair. If the recommendation was not unanimous, the matter would then be heard by the planning board. And the planning board will now conduct the review of the VROC standards. And just one clarification was that where we have dangerous buildings is that the process is exempt in those situations. And I am here for any questions that the board may have, thank [2:46:12] Chair (presiding officer): you Jenny, any [2:46:13] John Turcotte (board member): questions? So Mr. Chair, good, huh, so I've got some issues with the zoning board language. So I served in the zoning board, and just so everyone knows, I practice real estate litigation, that's right, but that's what I do for a living in my day job, and that includes appeals as EBA's throughout the state. And when I was on the ZBA here in Westbrook for about five years, and Jen, you're on there with me. Once I left and they raised the filing fee, the number of appeals dropped dramatically. In fact, I think we've had years where there have been no appeals at all. And so what I see with this change is it's shrinking it even more, that except for decisions that involve a permit, a shoreline zone, or a variance, that's it. If you're aggrieved in any way, you have to go off to court if you're a Westbrook citizen. And I think that's a bad idea, and I want to tell you why the ZBA is, and also that's not how other towns do it. You know, I have cases where the code enforcement officer has said that you expanded a non-conforming structure, and here's your, here's your order, stop work order, here's your fine, and someone says, no I didn't, and off to the ZBA you go. You can get before the ZBA fast. There's a 30-day appeal period to appeal a decision of the code enforcement officer, but no one waits that long because they often have a fine per day. They appeal immediately, and they'll get before the board at its next meeting or at worst the next meeting after that. So it's two month wait at most you get to before the ZBA, which is made up of Westbrook residents. The court enforcement officer him or herself shows up, and you get to have a discussion. They make their case to both sides, and Jen, you were there, we overruled the code enforcement officer, not all the time, but we did, and it was resolved. I'm not aware that the city ever appealed the code enforcement officer being overruled by the ZBA. If you just make someone go to court, that Westbrook citizen, first of all, you got 21 days to go find an attorney to file an appeal in superior court, and you will be there for months. I have a case now, we're seven months in, seven months, and so I don't feel that's really helping the Westbrook citizens at all, even though our ZBA presently isn't seeing the level of business as it used to. It's an important service for our community. And I think shunting them off into court actually goes exactly against what it says that the purpose of these amendments is to reduce the cost of expensive litigation. You're insuring it because there's no attorney's fees involved for a ZBA meeting. ZBA members get paid the same as we do. We're cheap labor. Once you go to court, the city now has to hire an attorney. So you're going to automatically have fields with any appeal that you have because they're being shunted off there. And so I guess I'm really wondering why the need to limit a board that's already, I feel, underutilized in Westbrook for things that are much easier, much less expensive, and much faster for Westbrook citizens and the town to [2:49:17] Speaker AB (unidentified): I would tell you that this request has been a long time in the making, and that when we have had attorney with us as well as our current attorney, it was immediately recommended upon our change in attorneys to move in this direction. And the reason is because what we used to do when you and I were on the board isn't how we operate anymore. When we have an appeal of an enforcement action, the city attorney represents the CEO, and they are present in the meeting. The board is represented by its own attorney, and they have separate attorneys. So when we go into a ZBA appeal on an enforcement action related to a code enforcement officer's, not determination, because those still would go to ZBA, but if we're talking about enforcement action, we are paying for two attorneys for [2:50:13] John Turcotte (board member): every meeting now. Where is that in the ordinance, though? Where did that come in that we had to have two attorneys present for every ZBA meeting? This is now... We didn't for decades. [2:50:21] Speaker AB (unidentified): Is it in the ordinance that we have? It's not in the ordinance. It is part of now standard practice, is that we cannot go to these meetings now without having separate representation for the CEO and the ZBA. And it's because of those actions that now we're seeing enormous legal bills that when we go through these matters that the city bears. So the cost for an applicant to appeal an enforcement action is a very low bar for the applicant, or in this case the violator, that the city then bears a significant cost in legal fees when a lot of these cases sometimes take two or three meetings. So we're dealing with thousands of dollars that the city is absorbing in these cases that if it goes to court and this is heard, then we're paying one attorney, we're not paying for two attorneys. So that is the difference, and I understand where your thought process was, because when you and I were on the board, we didn't have the attorneys always present with us. It typically was just Rick. That process has now changed. And we now require representation at all of our meetings. [2:51:42] John Turcotte (board member): That might be a larger issue because other towns do not do that. [2:51:46] Speaker AB (unidentified): I can appreciate that. [2:51:48] John Turcotte (board member): And also, I was just going to throw out there one more little bon mot there, that one night of an appeal as opposed to seven months of litigation is going to cost the city more. [2:52:01] Speaker AB (unidentified): Again, we're getting advised from our own attorneys that this is actually in the city's best interest to move in this direction versus the current process that we are in. [2:52:11] John Turcotte (board member): And I guess my last point then is that it's, and I don't mean this the way I'm going to say this, I'm just going to say this, all of us chickens here, that it's a very selfish amendment on the city's behalf and to the detriment of Westbrook citizens who could get in and out on their appeal much faster as opposed to shunting them off the Superior Court. [2:52:32] Speaker AB (unidentified): What I would say in contrast to that is that how we operate, and this is in the codes office, in collaboration with projects in general, is that we don't get to a point where a project is in such a level of violation that we're in those early stages. We've had multiple letters that have gone out to a project at this point. This is significant violations of the land use ordinance or a violation of a project's approval. We have now raised this to a level where we've had it reviewed by our attorney before that we're sending these letters out. So we don't enter into these situations lightly. slightly. So the thought of having somebody come in to just, you know, be heard by the ZBA and maybe overruled by, you know, by the ZBA and in reflection to the CEO, I just, I would emphasize that we expend a lot of time up front, one, trying to get people into compliance, but secondly, is that we have other people that are reviewing these decisions by the CEO. It's not just the CEO operating in a vacuum to make sure that we are operating efficiently and effectively. And so we have limited times that we have to exercise this. But when we do, then that really puts the city in a position where we are expending funds on a process that we should not be. So if we have a project where somebody is doing illegal filling, that's a violation. violation like we should not then have to then expend two attorneys times to come to the zba and have to have to expend those funds that individual if they want to take the violation to court that is their that is their option but those are the situations that we are really [2:54:30] John Turcotte (board member): Dealing with at this time alleged violations. Now let me just ask you this though. We used to get a state of the union for the city. They used to show how many appeals we've had in a year and how many decisions this board has made. I haven't seen that come around in a long time. Since we're workshopping, next time that comes around, whoever puts that together, could that be put together? [2:54:52] Speaker AB (unidentified): So we used to do annual reports. We have gone away from doing annual reports. [2:54:56] John Turcotte (board member): I'm just curious to see how many appeals are we actually talking about. [2:55:00] Speaker AB (unidentified): We're not talking about, like, again, we're not talking about a proliferation of them, but they are city funds, and that we are not being judicious with our city funds. And that is really the bottom line whether or not that we're doing ten or we're doing one if we are expending funds that we should not be and our attorneys are advising us that this is additional funds that we should not be expending but that it's on the it's on the violator that needs to address this in court that's that is the direction that we have been advised to go in one [2:55:34] Kevin Price (board member): Thought I appreciate the like collaborative working to a solution culture that exists within the office now I would just point out that people and culture can change much quicker than ordinances can and so I'm glad that is the state now but if there's a turnover I'm not wishing for any of this but that could be a much different mindset and then you have a stronger then this is what is followed with that and so that it could that if that collaboration step goes away this becomes a bigger concern I think to what John His Boys has raised and so I don't wish that for any organization and it takes a long time to get to that point but it can go away really quickly I Have a question I don't know much about the zoning appeals board but rather than having two attorneys can't there be a mediator no there cannot why? [2:56:30] Speaker AB (unidentified): You have to have representation for both individuals because the CEO comes up with their determination on the violation. And then the Zoning Board of Appeals has to have its own representation because they're an independent body from the code enforcement officer. And then you have the appellant or the person who has the violation who then will be making their case to the ZBA. [2:56:58] John Turcotte (board member): This isn't a mediation right it's it's a mention think about it 's a trial it's a trial municipal [2:57:05] Karen Axelson (board member): Level so yeah, I was on the zoning board of appeals too, and I can only recall one instance where we had the right, it has changed there, didn't, yeah, I don't know, it was just one instance where we had the city solicitor and the appellate had a, so it didn't seem to be a lot, but obviously, things may have changed. [2:57:27] Speaker AB (unidentified): When you have a variance, those types of items, those do not need representation. Those are minor issues. We have also been really successful with how we've changed our ordinances, such that variances really are not something that folks are needing. We've reduced shed setbacks. So those things have actually taken a lot of those variance appeals out of the process because our ordinance actually is working fairly well, which that's again a credit to everybody. When your ordinances are working well and you don't have a lot of appeals, that's great. What we're talking about right now is strictly just an enforcement matter so [2:58:13] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): to that end I'm just going to restate it again. I'm feeling a little dumb, it took me a while to catch on to what's up, what you're talking about. There still be a ZBA, there'll still be appeals. I think that I can put my building here, whatever this is, only when people are violating the piece, so because I like happy medium, so to John's point, like you can still come and say I don't agree with this decision, you know, if I'm thinking of like a zoning or a shoreline zoning or something, so those items [2:58:42] Speaker AB (unidentified): you know, if there is a disagreement over the interpretation of the ordinance, that is still a ZBA function, so those elements still go to ZBA and that does not change. It's when the [2:58:55] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): violator or alleged violator is violating, correct, triggers and how many times a year might that [2:59:01] Speaker AB (unidentified): happen again? Like this past year we've had, we've had one, but it takes again time and it's city resources that are being expended. No, I'm just curious the magnitude of it. [2:59:17] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): UNDERSTANDING THAT IT'S NOT THE WHOLE OF WHAT THE ZBA DOES GIVES ME MORE COMFORT WITH THE PROCESS. CORRECT. [2:59:25] Recording Secretary / Clerk (roll call): CAN I ASK A QUICK QUESTION? I AM NEW TO THIS OFFICE, SO I'M STILL ARGUABLY IN A PERIOD OF OBSERVATION, BUT IT SEEMS THAT IT'S NOT NECESSARILY A SPIRIT OF COLLABORATION WHEN THERE ARE VIOLATIONS, BUT MORE SO STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE TO REACH OUT TO THE ALLEGED VIOLATORS IN TERMS OF, OKAY, WE NOTICE A VIOLATION, WE SEND A CERTIFIED LETTER. IF THAT GOES UNANSWERED OR IT'S NOT RESPONDED TO, WE CONTINUE ON DOWN THE LINE. So it's not necessarily, it doesn't appear to be a cultural process, but a standard operating procedure. [3:00:08] Speaker AB (unidentified): I think that's a great way to put it, Jenna. I think that, again, there is a protocol in which that letters are sent. When letters are sent, they are sent in this order. And, again, it escalates from there because you're given so many days to correct in order to address the problem. [3:00:28] Speaker R (unidentified): Yep. Just curious, I guess, based on everything, I'm also trying to piece this together as someone who doesn't really have any CBA knowledge. But I'm sort of sensing that there's a dynamic in which theoretically someone who was an alleged violator and then seeks an appeal and then would theoretically now be referred to court as opposed to having this taken care of internally. Certainly, they could now, with how it's currently set up, create a sort of feedback loop or essentially expend city funds knowingly. Now that we have two attorneys in a way that would make it, I guess, challenging for the city to continue. Continue is has there been a an issue with that previously or is this sort of just like nebulously trying to oh no this is prevent the issue upstream okay happened i mean as far as enough that it's like pervasive that we 're talking about it now correct is that we've had [3:01:36] Speaker AB (unidentified): Enough of these particular issues related to enforcement actions that we are we are actively doing something about it and we've had attorneys tell the city you need to fix this problem. Okay. And we have talked to the ZBA chair about this. Oh, I forgot to ask. Yes. So we did talk to the ZBA chair. We showed him what was being proposed. And he actually went one step further and said, you guys didn't include the shoreline zoning section. So you probably should address that and take the appeals process from ZBA out of shoreline zoning and conduct it the same way as the Planning Board. The CBA chair took our document and asked us to go one step further. [3:02:42] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): Are we just discussing? Do you need a recommendation? No. [3:02:48] Speaker AB (unidentified): Tonight is a workshop. [3:02:52] Chair (presiding officer): Tonight is a workshop, but we are planning on bringing this back to the Board at the November meeting for the public hearing and recommendation back to City Council. [3:03:01] John Turcotte (board member): Just be aware, my perspective is on the innocent citizen who has been unjustly set upon by the city. It's easy to come up with the horrible hypos, you know, someone opened a new dancing place in Westbrook, that happened. But it's often, you know, it's someone neighbor is the crank in the neighbor, complains to this road enforcement officer, so something is issued that forces the issue. And now a landowner now has to face an appeal or give in, and what does he do? You. And it's always, in real life, it's easy to come up with a horrible hypo, is it the dumping illegals in the river? It's real neighbors usually in some kind of dispute. That's how a lot of these fights come from. And now this guy's got to go to court. So obviously, bear in mind that I'm the guy who represents these people. And so that's where my perspective is coming from. It's more for court, but the fact that I make more money is not always good for the client. [3:03:58] Rania Campbell-Boussier (public commenter): Oh, 100%. [3:04:00] Speaker AB (unidentified): I mean, the permit appeals still go to ZBA. So if there's neighborly disputes related to a permit, that those are still going to go to ZBA, and will be addressed that way. [3:04:18] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): Well, on an easier note, I'm one of the original members of the VRAS, and I say... [3:04:22] Chair (presiding officer): Robin, can you use the microphone? Sorry. [3:04:24] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): On an easier note, as a founding member or founding participant of the VRAS, let her go. Times have changed. Adjourned. [3:04:35] Speaker AB (unidentified): Becca do you want to speak to maybe an evolution you want to discuss it of how [3:04:41] Chair (presiding officer): that might move forward yes so we did meet with the village review committee to talk to them about this before it went to city council as well and we talked about something that's come up from time to time about a process to update the village review standards the village review view standards were created at a time where you know the direction of main street i think was a little different than it's going right now and the standards are important but i think that they can be modernized and emphasized in certain areas and so what we'd like to do and what's kind of coming out of this is we'd like to take current and past members of the village review committee and bring them together and say these are the folks that are inter for lunch these are THE FOLKS THAT ARE INTIMATELY FAMILIAR WITH THESE STANDARDS AND HOW THEY WORKED AND WHERE THEY HAVEN'T WORKED AND KIND OF WORKSHOP WITH THAT GROUP TO BRING FORWARD SOME AMENDMENTS TO THOSE STANDARDS THAT WE WOULD LIKE TO BRING TO THE BOARD SOMETIME MAYBE EARLY 2027 OR SO. So I think that's the direction we would like to go, and I'm looking forward to working with them. I'm okay. Before we adjourn, though, I want to just mention the next meeting is when for the planning board? The next meeting is on November 3rd or Election Day, whatever day that is. That is Election Day. [3:06:07] Kevin Price (board member): November 3rd, yes. Oh, that happens all the time. That happens every time of the year. [3:06:11] Chair (presiding officer): Again, I feel that shouldn't be because I'm not going to be here. And I am the chair. I am running for a statehouse position, and I am going to be at the polls. I've missed only two meetings from this board since I've been elected as at a full appointment. And this will be the third one. And I don't feel it's right that we should have a meeting on Election Day. Bottom line, we can move it to the third. And as the chair, I don't know if I have the authority to move that to the third week. But if I do, I choose to do that. I think that this is something that we could reopen this conversation. We've definitely had the conversation in the past. And at the time, there was direction provided to continue having meetings on this night, just given other opportunities to vote and engage. But I do think that it's a conversation that can be revisited. For next month, I would ask to keep the meeting on November 3rd, if possible, because there are ordinance amendments, the data center moratorium, things like that are on a timeline that would be impacted by moving that meeting to the November. [3:07:19] Kevin Price (board member): The council meeting we have to hit. [3:07:21] Chair (presiding officer): Yes, there are council meeting dates that moving it to November 17th would impact that. Is there a way we can bring this meeting closer before November 3? I feel it is unfair that I know I am not going to be here. It should have been and it happened once before. I feel that is a detriment to the board. If I am the chair of the planning board, I should be able to be participating in this meeting where I know 100% I am not going to. We would not be able to bring it forward with noticing requirements. So if we have a quorum for November 3rd, I think that we'd have to keep that meeting date for this year. However, I think for future years, we can sort of work around that and maybe look to holding the November meeting at a different date. [3:08:10] John Turcotte (board member): I think we should do that. Going forward, we know this is a problem that happens every two years. And then you've got half the people in the audience looking at their phones to see how the elections are going. I think we should just on election day going forward. We just say that meeting will not be that first Tuesday. [3:08:24] Chair (presiding officer): It'll be the second Tuesday or the third Tuesday or whatever. I think it's the same way. It has to work. Yeah, I mean that's just good standard in my opinion. We wouldn't be able to push it off a week because our reserved days are that November 3rd and November 17th. We'll find out on Thursday. [3:08:53] Robin Tannenbaum (board member): The famous election night party that this committee has ruined. [3:09:00] Chair (presiding officer): All right. Well, with that, at the last statement, the meeting is adjourned. I'm not happy about it.