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[5:56] Kipa Jolly: Good evening, everyone. We're discussing a theme song so that we can call to order the City of Belfast Planning Board meeting for Wednesday, October 14th here in City Hall. So if any of you have any ideas, please send us an email for a theme song. With that, we'll have a roll call. I'm Kipa Jolly, the chair. Lewis Baker? Here. David Bond? Here. Jan Kinnard? Here. Aaron Simmons? Simmons is here, and I believe Biff Atlas and Shannon Scheimer are absent this evening. But we do have a quorum, so it's very exciting. In terms of taking care of business, Aaron will be a voting member this evening. Very exciting. It's good. And we'll move on with a couple of development reviews. Oh, first of all, we do have to decide on the agenda. I was all excited about the theme song, and I'm losing the order.
[6:57] Unidentified Board Member: Bub? Oh, there's the theme song. If I could just add something to the agenda that I forgot to put on there. Sure. For the number six ordinance amendment workshop, if we could just add as the first order of business in that section open to the public. I forgot to add that for the ordinance amendment section. So that could be like 6.0 or something. point oh one or something thank
[7:28] Kipa Jolly: you excellent any other can I hear motions to adopt the agenda okay and second two seconds which is that actually Jan's gonna third it that's good any other changes we do have one quick addition to the ordinance workshop anything else I think we're good all those in favor of adopting the agenda all right the ayes have it we don't need to ask for nays we have some meeting minutes which I have in my pile I was signing things so I didn't have it all out and organized can I hear motions and seconds to adopt the minutes for the September 23rd meeting Jan moves and we have once again two
[8:22] Speaker D (unidentified): two seconds. Great minds think alike. That's powerful.
[8:26] Kipa Jolly: Yes, great minds do think alike. Any comments, updates, corrections, anything anyone saw that needed to be updated on that? We're good? Okay. All those in favor of adopting the minutes? That looks like a unanimous as well, so I don't need to ask for a nay vote. Moving right along, we have our first development review that is a site plan amendment number one and use permit for cloud nine premium cannabis medical marijuana caregiver retail store and that's a 38 steric drive so we have jonathan and samantha martin as the applicants and they're proposing to lease 4100 square feet within an existing building to operate a medical marijuana caregiver retail store We're going to review this application tonight, determine compliance with the standards identified in the City Code of Ordinances, Chapter 90 Site Plan, Chapter 102 Zoning, Article 8, Division 8 Medical Marijuana Regulations, and Article 9, Division 3 Non-Residential Development Standards for Route 3 Commercial, and last but not least, Chapter 98 Technical Standards. So lots of checklists to go up against, as is usual for that. Staff, I'm not sure which one of you is taking it, but take us away.
[9:59] Alexandra Sykes: Perfect. Thank you. Alexandra Sykes, City Planner. So this evening, the first review, this proposal is on a pre-developed site within the existing multi-tenant building complex on Starrett Drive, and that's in the Route 3 Commercial Zoning District. THE APPLICANT REACH OUT TO US TO BRING THEIR MEDICAL MARIJUANA CAREGIVER RETAIL STORE, CLOUD 9 CANNABIS TO BELFAST TO OCCUPY UNIT B2 WITHIN THE BUILDING. As a part of this proposal, there's no proposed changes to the existing plaza infrastructure, site layout or parking or buffering to accommodate the new use. The last time we reviewed this property was in January of 2025 when New World Organics, another medical marijuana caregiver retail store, wanted to lease that space. At that time that proposal was for the entirety of Unit B within that complex, and this proposal is just for half of it, so B2. As a part of the proposal, this applicant is going to be completing the full separation of those two units, so B2 will be for Cloud Nine, and then B1 will remain vacant at this time. So many of the drafted findings you'll see are remain the same from the 2025 review, but there are a couple in there that specifically speak to the new ownership. So we have one of the applicants here with us, I believe, this evening, and they'll, I'll share some more specifics.
[11:38] Kipa Jolly: Ms. I'd like to invite the applicants up to the podium. You can identify yourselves and give us an overview.
[11:44] Jonathan Byron: The Press Hi, I'm Jonathan Byron. I'd like an overview of what our plans are. Ms. Yes, please. Yeah. The Press I'm submitting a request for the medical cannabis store located at 338 B2 Stair Drive in Belfast. The purpose of this proposal is to utilize the portion of a vacant commercial building for a medical marijuana caregiver retail store. The retail space is 30 by 86 creating 25 ad square feet of retail space there are two offices both 11 and 12 inside there's also a 30 by 33 foot storage space in the back creating a 990 square feet of storage space the location currently has a paid parking lot which we would have access to in section for our customers we plan on adding a side by the road using the existing poles additionally and eliminate side on the building over the section of the building be installed our hours of operation Would be eight to nine seven days a week we plan to have full four-time employees and two part-time employees and two employees on duty during all operating hours employees will be reasonable for serving customers logging shelves completely daily tasks cleaning tasks of the property there will be little to no order created since all products will be packaged and delivered to the retail store in Belfast. It will be packaged in Grand Allemagne. It's all like tamper, steel, child resistant packaging. Even on the transport hub, there's no smell. There will be no hazardous material disposed at this location as all rejected products will be returned to our Grand Allemagne location and the disposal will be handled there. We will be installing a 12 camera security system to monitor the interior and exterior of our rented portion. We appreciate the planning board for considering this request of a medical marijuana retail store and we are happy to provide any further details as needed okay terrific any questions from the
[13:43] Unidentified Board Member: Board at this time there's one quick question again I've done said that the applicant will
[13:48] Jonathan Byron: Be installing the device anymore yes you're doing that not the owner yeah well I'm going to be contracting the work to somebody else to do part of the lease agreement yeah just so that I'm subject to like my own time restraining against like if I put my others into my own hands the chances of getting it done quicker or better probably yes so any other questions from
[14:16] Kipa Jolly: Thank you, Mr. Martin. We'll probably call on you as we go through this process. Absolutely, we'll move along to the next item, and that is I will officially open a public hearing for this. Are there any folks in the audience who would like to comment? Okay, Alex, did we put out appropriate notice? Did we receive any response via email or in person at the office?
[14:51] Alexandra Sykes: We did do the duly noted public hearing in the Midcoast Villager and then also the Butters, and we didn't receive any comments prior to the meeting.
[14:59] Kipa Jolly: Okay, with that then I will close the public hearing. Short and sweet tonight. Night, and we can now move into the planning board review and discussion and any possible changes or actions. We do this typically using a pre-prepared findings conditions document and Alex will lead us through that. Thank you.
[15:24] Alexandra Sykes: So I'll just start off by going through the description and I just wanted to note in here this is this includes the information about the staff that Jonathan just mentioned about four full-time employees, two part-time employees, and then their hours of operation, and then also as a part of the description just wanted to note here that they're not proposing any interior or exterior changes as a part of the proposal except the
[15:57] Speaker G (unidentified): demising wall except the demising wall like if
[16:07] Unidentified Board Member: I could the wall's already there they just have to put a door on the wall actually as far as I understand what needs to happen in there
[16:16] Kipa Jolly: Yeah, so even easier. Yeah, and that will stay with Steve code enforcement. That's right, applies to all building codes. Would
[16:27] Alexandra Sykes: the board like me to amend that to maybe remove the interior from the description? Yeah, I'd just say
[16:35] Kipa Jolly: minor interior alterations. That's what it sounds like to me. You want to get fancy and add a sentence in about the wall and the door? Go ahead. But I don't think it's anything of real consequence to
[16:47] Alexandra Sykes: the permit. Okay. I can change that. So within the zoning, I just wanted to note here that this is a previously developed site with an existing within an existing multi-tenant building within the Route 3 commercial zoning district and the medical marijuana caregiver retail store is an allowed use with planning board review. And then the next section here, this is pretty typical, but just noting this is just a single meeting review, a site plan amendment. So the first section we'll get into within the findings is the review of Chapter 90 site plan. The majority of the findings from this have remained the same from when we reviewed this in 2025. So I was just going to touch on the ones that changed based on the applicant's information, if that seems okay with the Board. I'm happy to stop at any other ones, too, though.
[17:48] Kipa Jolly: They're nodding from the Board, so, yeah. That's great.
[17:53] Alexandra Sykes: So just wanted to note the first one here we have is seven, municipal solid waste and sewage waste disposal. And this is just noting that the board found the applicant will continue to utilize the existing dumpster located behind the building, which will be disposed of by a third party disposal company. And as the applicant mentioned in their presentation, they've also noted that all cannabis related products will not be disposed of on site and returned to their grand aisle retail store for handling. And then lastly, they noted that it will be screened by a six foot fence. In the back of the building, the next one we here have highlighted is number 10, financial and technical ability. The board found the applicant has been operating their cannabis establishment since 2020, with operations in both Grand Isle, Maine and Van Buren, Maine. And the board also found they've contracted with licensed contractors to complete the minor interior updates to support their business operations. Yeah, the next one we have is number 19, exterior lighting. The board found the applicants will not be installing new lighting, and they plan to utilize the existing exterior lighting on the building. The applicants indicated that they are proposing an additional sign on the building, which might have some light features associated with it, and that would just need to be in compliance with the sign ordinance. The next page we have number 21, noise, and this is just noting that the proposed use is not planning to create a concern with the noise, and identifying in here that the business proposes to be open seven days a week from 8 a.m to 9 p.m. And we have number 25, location of off-street parking. So within this, so the board found the existing paved parking area is a shared parking lot for all the tenants of the multi-tenant building at 38 Starrett Drive. At the previous review in 2025, the board reviewed the full square footage and parking requirements of each of those different retail units. And at that time found the parking to be adequate for the multi-tenant building, and it's continuing to provide 83 parking spaces, which includes two handicap accessible spaces. And there's no proposed changes to this lot layout, and as part of the previous review for the parking, the owner was going to restripe the property, and that has occurred. The next one we have is number 29, amounts and types of waste, kind of touched on that they will be collected within a dumpster, and if larger quantities of waste are needed, they will make proper arrangements. So those were the only ones I had highlighted in number 90. We will continue on to the next section, which is the Chapter 102 zoning requirements. requirements. And this is typically the dimensional requirements for the Route 3 commercial zoning districts. I can kind of just make a high-level statement on compliance because there's going to be no relationship changes from the building and the setbacks as a part of this.
[22:07] Kipa Jolly: Right. Since there's no exterior changes to the exterior of the building, it's all there. And it's all, yeah.
[22:14] Alexandra Sykes: And I mainly have kept the findings the same from the previous one, just noting that there's no proposed changes to the site or building. Okay, so the next area we have on the next page is the supplementary district regulations, and this talks about the off-street parking and screening of outside storage areas, and this has all been addressed in Chapter 90. So the next section within Chapter 102 we have is Division 8 medical marijuana regulations, and this is the majority of the things that have changed based on this new use, so I'll just kind of touch on the high points of each of these. This is usually the bulk of the review for the medical marijuana stores. Correct, so the first one here we have a permitted use, this just notes that the medical marijuana caregiver retail store is an allowed use within the planning board with planning board review in the Route 3 commercial zoning district. The next section we have is setbacks from private public and private schools, and this is requires that any medical marijuana caregiver retail stores shall not be located less than 500 feet from the property line of a private or public school, and the applicants provided a map identifying that it's over 500 feet from the store meeting this requirement. The next one we have is advertising and signage, and this is also a distance compliance noting that the signs need to be over the 500 feet for the sign locations. In here the applicant identified the board found the applicant Cloud 9 is proposing two signs for the proposed business to be in compliance with the city code of ordinances and any additional state requirements for the retail stores they're proposing replacing a plaque on the large kiosk for the multi-tenant building and then also a sign on their [Speaker G (unidentified): door and then] we have number sorry letter D which is compliance with other city ordinances the board found a proposed project a medical marijuana on a caregiver retail store, Cloud 9 is an allowed commercial use in a designated commercial zoning district and is consistent with the comprehensive plan.
[24:56] Unidentified Board Member: I just want to point out, and I don't think we need to address it particularly, but in the lease, it says the use can include recreational cannabis business, but we're obviously not approving anything for that.
[25:10] Alexandra Sykes: In their lease document? That's in the lease document. [Speaker G (unidentified): And then] the last one we have in this section is the compliance with state requirements. And this notes that the board found the applicant must provide specific evidence to the city that all state license permits and similar approvals have been attained prior to the issuance of occupancy and the applicants provided their medical caregiver registration cards as a part of their application. and they're also required to submit main medical cannabis program caregiver retail store location authorizations form prior to their opening right so the next section we have in 102 is the performance standards specifically for the division three non-residential standards in the route 3 commercial zoning district many if not all of these have remained the same but I do have a few highlighted ones but I'll I'll touch on the first one I have highlighted is 102 1 9 1 internal circulation at this time the applicants not proposing any additional improvements to the site circulations but noted here within this finding that the site has been professionally re-stealed and re-striped to improve the visibility of onsite conditions and circulation patterns for both vehicles and pedestrians. Arrows have been placed within the circulation, and then also a pedestrian crossing has been painted from Starrett Drive into the lot, as discussed at the last review. The next one I have is section 102-1195, odor. As noted in the presentation in the application, the board found the applicant has indicated there will be little to no odors created on-site, as the products being sold will be packaged off-site with airtight seals and or airtight child-resistant mylar bags. The board found the applicant is amenable to providing an odor mitigation strategy in the form of activated carbon filters if required by the city. Does the board wish to discuss that any further or?
[28:03] Unidentified Board Member: Is that a problem with other places? Yeah. I mean, if I could. Yeah, please go. I think that the board has left, I think when you hear things like airtight, no odor, you think that's gonna be the case, but some stores have still had odors even when that was there. But I think generally the board has said if there are odors the code enforcement officer could make them So there's another layer Available, but maybe not necessary from the beginning.
[28:36] Kipa Jolly: That's typically how we deal with it. How does that feel for everybody? Yeah, so I think that's in the conditions as well. So
[28:44] Speaker G (unidentified): We'll get to that We have
[28:51] Alexandra Sykes: two more within here So we have section 102 1208 determination of project ownership mechanism to construct and maintain required improvements the board found that the specific unit b2 at 38 stair drive within the multi-tenant building will be leased by SM farm LLC from the property owner Paul Foster and there has been a lease agreement provided between those two parties Jan based on your comment would you like me to potentially add anything just I think in the conditions it does clarify that it's just for the medical should be addressed since it is in the [Speaker G (unidentified): lease absolutely and] then this last one in here we have is 102 1209 handicap accessibility the board found based on the combined parking requirements of the property at 38 stair drive the applicants required to provide four handicap accessible spaces and i apologize i do i didn't miss I did misspeak it is for and it's clearly you can from the area We can see that they're all marked to from the repaving. So I will change that I Was in the chapter 90. I'll make that correction to the floor and then the board found the site provides for handicap accessible parking spacers for the entirety of the multi-tenant building and the accessible parking spaces are located at the front of the building with immediate and open access to walkways providing interest to the building via stairs and or an accessible rail. So that brings me to the end of the findings. Does anyone have any questions or additional comments? So [Kipa Jolly: within] the conditions of approval many of these are very similar to what we see typically for all the different permits. I can kind of at a high level just go through what each of them are communicating, if that's where I can. So the main one we have here is the change in ownership and this is primarily what the permit is, a change of ownership. The use permit for the medical marijuana caregiver retail store is limited to SM Farm, LLC, and then any changes to this ownership must be reviewed by the planning board. And then as the applicant noted with the other permits for the addition of that door that's just a building permit that'll be required in the next page with six just noting that state permits must be provided
[32:17] Unidentified Board Member: under whether that should be repeated there or not. I don't know. Under 6. Just make it for consistency.
[32:34] Alexandra Sykes: Sure. Yep, I can change that. Change that one. And then the other one to note is just 11 odors. And as Bob mentioned, the applicant must follow their plan for odor control and mitigation as described in their application. However, if there is an issue with odors outside of the building, the applicant must work with the CEO on a solution that keeps quotas within the boundary of the specific unit. And that's the end of the conditions. That's it. Sipping right through.
[33:18] Kipa Jolly: So, with that, I'm now going to look for three motions and seconds with the findings of fact, conditions of approval, and then the approval for the site plan and end-use permit. So. Okay.
[33:34] Unidentified Board Member: Jan's ready. She's armed for business. Okay. Good job. I move that we approve the draft findings of fact as amended. I think we have some amendments. All right, second?
[33:47] Kipa Jolly: All right, thank you, David. Any further discussion or last words? All right, well, that's good. All those in favor of the findings of fact as amended? And I believe that the vote is unanimous, so I don't need to ask for nays.
[34:04] Unidentified Board Member: I move to accept the conditions of approval as amended. Second.
[34:11] Kipa Jolly: No seconds. Any further discussion or word on that? It's like going, gone in an auction. So, all right. All those in favor of the conditions of approval as reviewed and amended? All right. The ayes have it. Don't need to ask for nays. And last but not least. All right.
[34:31] Unidentified Board Member: All right, I move that we approve the site plan amendment number one and use permit as presented in amendment, or reviewed in amendment number one, sir.
[34:39] Speaker G (unidentified): Okay, great. I'll take that second.
[34:41] Kipa Jolly: All right, first second from Erin, very exciting. Any further discussion on that? Any final words? Okay, all those in favor of approving the site plan amendment and use permit? And that looks unanimous as well. Thanks, folks. Best of luck. And good luck getting things going. And welcome to the community. Shuffle paper. All right. Next on the agenda is a preliminary site plan and use permit review for Stowaway Sports and Storage on Searsport Avenue. Brian Field is the applicant, and he proposes to develop a mixed-use site located at Map 27, Lot 2B on Searsport Avenue. And the proposed site includes the construction of two new structures, one as a self-storage facility and the other as a restaurant lounge with a golf simulator, especially exciting to me, the very bad golfer. And associated site features to support the commercial development staff who's handling this one, Alex, you've got, you've got all the hot topics tonight. Want to give us just a quick
[36:16] Alexandra Sykes: review? Of course. Thank you. So the site is located on Searsport Avenue. It's between Rice and Noodle and Viking the property. This is an undeveloped lot and it's classified as a back lot because it doesn't have any frontage on Searsport Avenue and it's located in the Searsport Avenue commercial zoning district. The applicants are proposing the lot to be developed into a mixed-use commercial lot by the development of two separate single-story structures utilizing a shared access driveway with an a deeded easement off Searsport and infrastructure amenities on the project site. Due to the scale and the development of a currently undeveloped lot, this will be required to have two meetings, a preliminary and a final, and this is the preliminary plan review this evening, meeting number one. So within the packets you'll find the applicants have provided plans, code narratives, MDOT permits, and reviews by the city engineer, water district, wastewater treatment, and fire chief, and then we also have draft findings and conditions for further review. And I will turn it over to the applicant and let them share more specifics.
[37:26] Kipa Jolly: Ms. All right. I see the applicant has familiar representation. Come on up and give us an overview.
[37:35] Tom Fowler: Mr. Sure thing. My name is Tom Fowler from Carrier Firm and Professional Engineering. I'm joined by the owner and advocate, Brian Field, from Stowaway Sports and Storage. Mr. Cerboni has been helping him out with some logistics. And Rob Root from my office, who's done most of the drafting and design and application materials. So, Alexandra gave us a nice description of where we are. Tax map, 27-watt 2B, and it is, so here's a visual. She said that it was a back lot. There's a right-of-way over the front lot serving that it's a 50-foot wide right-of-way from one. The project includes two new buildings, a golf simulator which is 55 feet by 65 feet, that's 3,575 square feet, and 80 by 130 self-storage building, both single-story, both prefabricated, so I pre-engineered metal buildings, and connected via the roughly 500 foot access drive from route one. It's going to be served by public water. There's public water in route one on the south side of the sewer is on the north side of one and then longer one or aerial electric and communications, those are playing, all three of those are planning to run up the hill on the ground along that driveway. One note on the buildings, so self storage, pretty basic descriptions, can be a combination of non-climate controlled, so cold in the winter and warm in the summer, as well as sun climate controlled with an interior hallway, and the golf simulator will have two bays, basically it's a computerized simulation for honing your golf swing. Is that an accurate
[39:59] Kipa Jolly: description, Brian? It's good enough. Okay. All right, does that guarantee me a better golf score? You
[40:03] Speaker K (unidentified): You know what, it actually tracks a lot of statistics and shows you how your club's coming through.
[40:07] Kipa Jolly: It does, yes, I know.
[40:10] Unidentified Board Member: Do you actually hit goals? Yes.
[40:12] Tom Fowler: Yeah, and they go into a screen.
[40:14] Speaker K (unidentified): And you have a course in front of you, so you're simulating playing on an actual course.
[40:18] Unidentified Board Member: You should have brought it here so we could see it. Right here.
[40:24] Speaker K (unidentified): I don't have it. You can play public beach if you want to.
[40:30] Tom Fowler: The remainder of that building. so the bays are pretty big because you do actually get a golf ball so you need some space for that and you're taking the full swing with a real club this isn't mini golf this is this is regulation size so you need some space of that but the remainder of the building is offices a bathroom and then a lounge space we 've had some discussion with staff about the use and it's more of a place for gathering and very similar to a bowling alley, not a restaurant. There is a kitchen there for some basic food prep, but the idea is to be able to go and have a drink and snacks, and we're gonna golf swing through all four seasons. As you know, here in Maine, we have a pretty limited time when we can actually do it out on the golf course. Regarding the utilities, we included letters of capacity for both the water and wastewater, and after speaking with the water district and all of our other wastewater departments. Department. And we also met with Chief Richards, the fire department. We actually tweaked the site a little bit to expand back. The site plan that we submitted to you actually shows the turning movement of a large, that's a, I believe it's a bus, which is very similar in scale and turn to the straight firetrucks that we have in Elmfest.
[42:08] Unidentified Board Member: Is that a bus? Yeah, it's a 40-foot wheelbase type of thing.
[42:13] Tom Fowler: Yeah. So, pretty big vehicle, but he requested a little more space to make that back turn. The drive alleys on each side of the self-storage building are 30 feet wide, which allows, because along the storage building are small garage door bays, and so somebody can back up into them in a car, and if they have a bigger truck, then they would just pull up parallel to that, but while that's happening there's still emergency vehicle access all the way around. So basically it's like a very large loop. So we made that adjustment at the fire chief's request. Another item that we discussed with them is that there's a gate planned at the end of the right-of-way in the beginning so Brian's property is this big this big parcel here which as we've previously said is undeveloped currently but at the end of the right-of-way in the driveway there 's going to be a gate during normal business operating hours that will be open but during basically nighttime hours that will be closed and those people who want to come access their storage unit will have you'll have a keypad and then the fire Chief also requested a Knox box, which is a pretty typical arrangement for allowing them to get in there at any time. So basically they have, they have their own way to get in, and all that is part of the plan, both the keypad, which I imagine we can give them access to that, and the Knox box, a couple of belt and suspenders on that, just to make sure that they have access, which is obviously a [Speaker K (unidentified): couple] of items. Well, we've gone through some discussion with Alexander about some of the site details, and I think we can probably best handle those because together nice concise finds of fact and conditions, where we're going to go through some of those. One of them is stormwater. We did provide some, provided you a model that we sent the main DOT. This is a basically an improvement of an existing curb cut, and the one that's there is one there, it's pretty rudimentary. We've designed an actual road to replace that rudimentary entry and got the necessary curb cut DOT asked about, because this site, the general flow of storm water is from this side of the property straight down to Route 1. So the road ditch along Route 1 captures runoff from the north side of the road. And then periodic culverts along Route 1 drain that to the south side and obviously pretty straight to the ocean there. There. So we did a model for DOT, they request a hundred year model, and we showed that this site will not have a detrimental impact on their culvert, which is actually a little bit east of Viking. This is Viking's site, it goes on for quite a ways, if you've ever gone on in there it was about a mile back, and you know there's a, there's a culvert crossing move on there, we showed them that and they accepted that. In our conversation with Alexandra that we're also talking a little bit more about specific storm water to the site, we've done a little more modeling and I think we'll just go through that with you, just one more section of that school
[46:05] Unidentified Board Member: But, Tom, there are no plans, no future plans for the back of the site?
[46:10] Tom Fowler: None as of now. Yeah. Nothing designed there. Let's see. Regarding the entrance, the DOT specified a 22-foot wide entrance under Route 1, which we've got, plus two-foot shoulders, which yields about a 26 foot wide space there. Then as we go get on to the right-of-way away from move one, we've got that little designed at 18 feet wide of pavement and three foot wide gravel shoulders for a total of way of 24 four feet along there. And other permits, we've just got one that's needed, which is a stormwater permit by rule from the main DEP. This project will, I'm sure we've talked about this on other projects, but it's going to disturb more than eight, more than one acre, and that means by disturbed we mean like turning a shovel over in some way to turn some dirt over. So more than forty three hundred and forty three thousand five hundred sixty square feet will get basically rearranged. And when I talk about disturbed area, these contours are kind of the end limit of what's going to get reworked by an excavator in some way, shape, or form, but it will create less than an acre of new impervious area. One acre of impervious area is a trigger for Maine DEP stormwater permitting. If you're over that, you need an individual stormwater permit, which has a very specific set of guidelines and rules for stormwater design, stormwater quality, that kind of stuff. And if you're less than that, then you're in the permit by rule regime, which we are. We applied for that a couple weeks ago and received it today. We just sent that to Alexandra. So there might not be any packages tonight, but we did get this one. I'm
[48:30] Unidentified Board Member: curious, in terms of that impervious coverage, how is the paving on that easement calculated?
[48:37] Tom Fowler: Is that not part of... That is not part of it. We called DEP to ask that very question. And that land is not owned by the applicant, and so it is not part of the same, it's not calculated that way. And we called because we wanted to know how to do that, because we wanted to be above board about it. And so as a result, we're pretty, we're like at, I don't know, between 41 000 and 42 000 square feet of impervious in here, and a little bit, this is probably on the order of a couple of thousand, I'll see 18 times 500.
[49:25] Unidentified Board Member: I think you've done the math anyway. If you added the driveway, it would be over there.
[49:31] Tom Fowler: But you definitely called to ask that question, right? So that would impact
[49:36] Unidentified Board Member: impact, if Viking ever wanted to, I think that would impact their impervious dog. What's that? If Viking ever wanted to, I think that would impact their impervious dog. Yeah, possibly.
[49:44] Tom Fowler: So. They own that, Viking owns that land, and depending on the extent of what they want to do, the former use of that property was a house. It was just one house there. It wouldn't impact a single family residence, but if they wanted to do something bigger, yeah,. It is on It is on their property, which Brian also has rights to. I'm just curious now. I'm going to figure out how much this is. That's 9,000 square feet. So, yeah, we'll probably be in the low 50s right now for all that stuff. As I said, we've got a number of items for discussion, and I think they're very nicely laid out so we can handle those as we walk through and i can take any questions and comments we've
[50:45] Kipa Jolly: had the applicant presentation we are now going to open public hearing for this is there anyone in the room who has any thing they'd like to say i see no alex done all the notifications and did we get [Unidentified Board Member: any response? No] response. We can now close the public hearing. Also a short and sweet one. And now let's move into planning board review discussion and possible action. The findings, the draft findings of fact and conditions of approval to kind of make sure we checklist everything. So Alex, will you take us through that please? please. Thank you.
[51:40] Alexandra Sykes: So I'm going to, we've reviewed the description of the project a couple of times. I'm not going to go through that again. but I'll just note, in the description of the zoning, the lot is approximately 4.6 acres of undeveloped site. And it's located in the Sears port Avenue commercial zoning district. And this district allows storage, self-storage facilities,, RESTAURANTS WITH INDOOR SEATING, AND RECREATIONAL FACILITIES INDOOR AS ALLOWABLE USES. AND THE PROJECT IS NOT IN A SHORELAND OR FLOOD HAZARD ZONE. SO THE NEXT SECTION WE HAVE, NUMBER 4, DESCRIPTION OF PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND ACTION. IN HERE THIS IS JUST OUTLINING KIND OF A FRAMEWORK NOTING THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TWO REVIEWS, the preliminary this evening on the 14th and then sections with tbd dates to fill in for when we have the final plan review so the first section we have for the findings is chapter 90 site plan for the preliminary site plan this evening i have a series of these highlighted for further discussion with the board kind of additional information or discussion kind of prompted but I'll kind of at a high Level maybe go through all of them just because this is a bigger project kind of, if that seems our first reading of it, yeah, just to make sure we have everything covered. So the first one we have here is number one, pollution, and this is noting that this project isn't going to cause any significant water air pollutions. This has been reviewed by the city engineer, and then also noting that because of the amount of disturbed land it does require a PBR, and this PBR permit was provided to you guys digitally but it wasn't printed in the packets, but if that's something you would like for the final make
[53:52] Kipa Jolly: it show I'm sure it's all together, but we do know it's been granted. Yep.
[53:59] Alexandra Sykes: So the next one we have is number two, sufficient water, and number three, municipal water supply. And as the applicant noted, so the board found that there is public water in this area of Searsport Avenue, and the Belfast Water District has confirmed in a letter that the district has adequate capacity to provide new water service to the site. A new tap will be utilized to tie into the existing municipal water main. I
[54:28] Unidentified Board Member: just actually have a question for Tom about this. You said that the site in front was a residence, but it's not going to become one again, right? I don't know.
[54:37] Tom Fowler: It's not? Are you good? There was a house.
[54:42] Unidentified Board Member: There was a house, but the house isn't there now.
[54:44] Tom Fowler: No, there was a house like here. Okay. But I don't know. I can't speak to any future use.
[54:49] Unidentified Board Member: No, I know. I know. No, I just want to make sure that the house looks so good. No, it got demolished.
[54:53] Tom Fowler: Yeah, it's gone. This is all, this is wooded and this part's open. And
[55:04] Alexandra Sykes: here this also just indicates further information in the water district's letter, just confirming that there's an 8-inch water main under Searsport Avenue. The one thing that I didn't see within the application and I wanted to know if the board wanted to hear more about was the fire hydrant location. I know that's come up before. The fire chief did, though, look at the plans, but I just wanted to see if the board might want to hear about.
[55:29] Kipa Jolly: Yeah Tom can we just confirm you had a review with fire department they had a few recommendations around turnaround did they say anything about the fire hydrants we did discuss firefighters
[55:38] Tom Fowler: Very good. There's one about 300 feet to the west along Room One right here. I think this is near the Fireside Hotel. Yeah, appropriate. And then I think it's 600 feet to the east. It's, it's off the plan, but there's another one further along with one. So there are periodic fire hydrants along with one. When we talk to the fire chief, you want to know if we're bringing in a line that was big enough for a hydrant for the water service, and if we were, then he would be looking for a hydrant up the property somewhere. But we are not. This is a two inch service, which you cannot run Ivan off, and we talked to him directly, and he said, that's okay, but that was the same conversation where he asked for a little bit more space for turnaround, basically.
[56:42] Unidentified Board Member: So he didn't think you need one, it was just if the opportunity were there, you...
[56:48] Tom Fowler: Yeah, if there were, like if we were coming across with an 8-inch main for, you know, which would be a pretty big service the water demand which we're going to get like we've already got to it we estimated 600 gallons a day and staff looked at it a different way and came up with just over 700 gallons a day in any case that's a very small number and a so there's no need for an 8-inch main to get 800 gallons, six to 700 gallons a day. So that's where we're going with a smaller service because that's definitely what's appropriate. And he was okay with that.
[57:32] Alexandra Sykes: Happy to add maybe a summary of kind of that into this finding if the board feels it's worth including. So the next one we have here is number four, soil erosion and sediment control. The board found the applicant has identified the new site work and as the applicant has indicated they'll be utilizing best management practices for erosion and sediment control they were also required to provide a grading and erosion control plan as the part of their PBR application and that was submitted in the that digital package the next one we have is number five which is highway or public road congestion so there's kind of two parts of this one here and this is one that i have highlighted just for a little bit further discussion so first we have the traffic and then also we have access so for traffic the board found the applicant indicated the proposed project will produce an increase to the existing traffic by five peak hour trips approximately 50 trips per day and the board found that applicant noted the existing segment on Searsport Avenue currently experiences a high average of daily traffic and hour capacity. Thus, the introduction of this new use would minimally impact the existing traffic patterns by less than one percent per peak hour in daily trips. So the congestion of unreasonable amounts was not a concern with that regard. With regards to access, Tom provided it some additional information so that's the existing it's a it's a re repaving regrading of an existing curb cut that required an mdot entrance permit so for and that's going to be 22 feet wide the requirement for a commercial driveway of two-way entrances within our code is the 24 feet they're achieving that by an 18 foot paved driveway with three foot shoulders on each side they provided typical cross sections this hasn't yet been reviewed by the city engineer something that staff recommends doing for the final i would say it's definitely the description
[1:00:14] Kipa Jolly: isn't more than adequate for the first round but we want to have maddie have a look at it for
[1:00:20] Alexandra Sykes: I think in particular, just to make sure that doesn't require a waiver, depending on how she characterizes the paved versus total. Oh, yeah. There was one other item. So within the MDOT entrance permit, you notice that it was an MDOT entrance permit waiver that was awarded. and I was wondering if maybe you guys could speak a little bit to the reason for the waiver sure if that was is
[1:01:14] Tom Fowler: a driveway spacing waiver and they have an ideal distance between any two driveways along busy road like this one I think is called a mobility arterial which is their designation for one of the busier roads that's not an interstate highway obviously route one and three in belfast is going to meet that criteria so driveway spacing i can't quote what the number it's supposed to be is they can they can wave that down if you're limited obviously this section of Route 1 has a number of existing entrances along it. They are authorized to wave that down, like when I say that authorized, that's in comparison to site distance, for instance, which has a lot to do with safety. Like when you are looking left and looking right, either coming off the driveway onto Route 1 or turning into it, you need to be able to look quite a ways ahead because it's a busy road and this one
[1:02:30] Speaker K (unidentified): happens to be straight which is good and level
[1:02:32] Tom Fowler: so it's great visibility but they don't waive sight distance because it's very important to new access safety they do allow driveway spacing, DOT would prefer that there were no driveways on this road
[1:02:51] Speaker D (unidentified): so it's not going to fly
[1:02:53] Tom Fowler: So they're allowed to do that. They look at the site specific conditions, and when they, when they do that, they issue this waiver. I'm just flipping through it to see if they said what it should be. When was it, when was this issue with the program? August of 26 of 2026. So this is recent. We're saying 175, right? Yeah, it's less than that. To each of the driveways on either side, and that includes the ones across the street. So you know, they issued that, and basically that bundle of paperwork that we submitted document in the driveway says we're good for the new entrance and that we're good for the way so
[1:03:51] Alexandra Sykes: We will have the city engineer review the provided typical cross sections and then also the mdot out permit and provide some additional information for the final on that
[1:04:07] Unidentified Board Member: Just it's probably going to require some waivers from the board for driveway separation distances in the city code as well as if the width needs to get a waiver as well. So good to hear all the background about why they needed to do what they did, because it's, is it 50 mile an hour there is it but the curb cuts already there right there is one there you wouldn't necessarily see
[1:04:40] Tom Fowler: it, but it is, it's all grass over there, 's a culvert there now, there 's, they used to be a loop drive to that house, it came from the rice and noodle driveway went up to the house and then back down where we're having to put it. In
[1:05:05] Alexandra Sykes: here, which is number six, which is the sewage waste disposal. In here, noting that the board found the site is served by City Sewer, and the applicant noted the proposed project will be connected to an existing 12-inch main via a manhole interior drop. There was a letter found from the Belfast Water Wastewater Treatment Plant providing and indicating capacity is available. With how we slightly calculated it differently, we counted, we viewed it through the lens of what the seating for the restaurant just in case there were customers coming just for that use versus the golf simulator. We just wanted to make sure that with this site as it being, if it is as accessible as it could be, we just want to make sure that we can accommodate all uses, so it's a slight increase in what they proposed, and we're just waiting to hear back from travis on that and we'll make but we don't seem we don't believe it's going to be a concern we just wanted to verify the design flow there were also a comment there were also a couple comments from the city engineer one upon her review regarding clean outs versus manholes on the sewer lines and that maybe might be something applicants can speak a little bit too there was also another item about they mentioned that there is going to be a grease trap tank between the bar kitchen and the proposed sewer lines i just noted to see if the board wanted to hear maybe about the maintenance or the clean out frequency of those traps as well. I
[1:06:57] Kipa Jolly: don't think it will have a major impact, but it's a lot of fun cleaning them out, as a former restaurant owner.
[1:07:04] Unidentified Board Member: You just run really hot water through them.
[1:07:07] Kipa Jolly: Yeah, that works. I had the Department of Public Works stomp into my restaurant in Massachusetts, screaming at me, and I'm like, it's not me, I don't have a friolator. Look down the street, and it was the guys down the street just dumping. No,, because it solidifies and blocks everything out. So it always surprises me that states just don't require that you have a maintenance service come and do it twice a year
[1:07:34] Alexandra Sykes: Would the board like to hear from the applicant about Maybe a response to Mandy's comments. They have been provided with those regarding the line size and the manholes frequency
[1:07:55] Kipa Jolly: or just yeah I think the grease traps probably fine I you know unless Mandy has an issue with it from a sewage point of view but certainly they should respond to Mandy's comments around the overall structure before the
[1:08:18] Tom Fowler: final we're on the board with the six inch line and also i agree with what mandy said sewer cleanup minimal cleanups are far superior to little sweep cleanups to the surface so we have two of those because there's a great there's a big great change and it's just a better way to handle that than having these little cleanups so there's gonna be two of those And yeah, so we're on board with their suggestions and we can, when we do our final one, we'll just make sure of that.
[1:08:53] Unidentified Board Member: And that whole site's just going downhill.
[1:08:56] Jonathan Byron: It's all downhill. It's all going one way.
[1:09:00] Kipa Jolly: I didn't realize it was that steep back there, but I guess I just never looked.
[1:09:03] Tom Fowler: It's just that, yeah, that little bit coming right off the road is steeper. Then it gets to a nice flat section. And this zone in here is pretty gradually sloped, a little bit steeper here, and then yeah, it definitely has some more slope to it, but it's pretty gradual up here. Most of the great change is really happening just in this zone right here. Well, if you look at our grading plan, there's a whole bunch of contours packed right in here, and then it gets a lot more great, right? And with the storage building, you, it's basically it's a garage door all around four sides, so you've got really gradual grading right up to the, to the doors, all four sides of that. What's the width of the paving on the side, 30 feet driveways? It's 30 feet, yeah. And then the back 40 and 40 on the back, yeah, just to give the fire truck a little extra room. And if somebody does happen to be park there when the fire truck wants to come around like back here, they can, they can swing right around. There's, there's room for all of them, you know, the travel lane can be as narrow as nine feet, and highway travel lanes are more like 12. So we've got plenty of space in there
[1:10:30] Speaker K (unidentified): for navigation. There's actually no exterior garage doors on the back side of there, so
[1:10:37] Tom Fowler: So the next
[1:10:49] Alexandra Sykes: one we have is seven, municipal solid waste and sewage waste disposal. And there's a later finding, number 18, solid waste management. I have some additional details in that one, and I think we could kind of discuss that then. For number eight, aesthetic, cultural, and natural values, JUST NOTING HERE THAT THE BOARD FOUND THE APPLICANT INDICATED BASED ON THE BEGINNING WITH HABITAT MAP AND THE NATURAL WETLANDS INVENTORY MAP, THE PROJECT SITE IS NOT LOCATED IN ANY SIGNIFICANT WILDLIFE HABITAT NOR WILL IT IMPACT FRESHWATER WETLANDS. IN ADDITION, THE APPLICANT NOTED THE PROPERTY IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH ANY KNOWN HISTORIC OR CULTURAL RESOURCES. NUMBER 9, WE HAVE CONFORMITY WITH CITY ORDINANCES AND PLANS NOTING THAT THE PROPOSED PROJECT IS AN ALLOWED COMMERCIAL USE IN A DESIGNATED COMMERCIAL ZONING DISTRICT. NUMBER 10 WE HAVE FINANCIAL AND TECHNICAL ABILITY NOTING THAT THE APPLICANT BRIAN FIELD PROVIDED A LETTER OF FINANCIAL CAPACITY AS A PART OF HIS APPLICATION AND THEN ALSO RETAINS SITE ENGINEERING SERVICES FROM TERRA FIRMA FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS PROJECT. THE NEXT HANDFUL HERE 11 THROUGH 15 ARE NOTING JUST DIFFERENT CONDITIONS ON THE SITE AND Most of these are not applicable because we're not in a flood zone for this site. There's no streams or rivers or wetlands in proximity. So those are not of concern for this project. That brings us to number 16, stormwater. So as Tom indicated in the beginning, a portion of the stormwater study was provided for this site specifically regards to the 24-inch culvert along Searsport Avenue, and then kind of as flagged by Mandy noting that we just need a more full stormwater report for the entirety of the site, and they were some documents were sent just this morning, and we can maybe have the applicants speak a little bit to those documents that were created and will be a part of the final to address Mandy's concerns.
[1:13:22] Speaker K (unidentified): showing
[1:13:27] Tom Fowler: pre and post watershed if we can have both at the ready, but I think the way for starters above if you don't mind a thousand is that gives the whole big picture of where things drain, and then we'll go to 200 because it shows the site in a little bit more detail. We can turn that on its side. We've got it side by side here. The background of this plan is a USGS quadrangle, so that's a 1 to 2,000. actually if you just pan to the left I appreciate that [Speaker D (unidentified): this is before] this is the before picture and there's three little watersheds shown there A which is the blue one on the left side that's draining to a culvert that goes by the front yard of Rice and Noodle, the Thai food shop right just west of this development. Then B is a little green one. That's a small drainage area that's kind of the front of the Viking property and it's draining underneath the existing curb cut. Jan was asking if there's a curb cut there now. There is. That's the area that's going to that little color. And C, which is the magenta one, the pink one, goes back, it's about two miles actually,
[1:15:24] Speaker K (unidentified): if you zoomed all the way back.
[1:15:26] Tom Fowler: It goes most of the way back towards Back Sears Port Road. It's a big watershed. The total area is somewhere in the range of 80, 81 plus acres. and about 9,000 feet of drainage way making its way down. So the point of this exhibit is to show that we are model this thing before and after and that the vast majority of the drainage area going to that drainage area C is going to the culvert on viking's first driveway basically if you're if you're pulling into viking from coming from this side of town it's the first driveway there and that's the next piece of publicly owned infrastructure right there so we got these three little watersheds and what we modeled was before and after situations. So here's before, if you can pan to the right, here's after. And you notice the difference is that there are two little rectangles in there, and that area A got smaller, and area B grew.
[1:16:54] Unidentified Board Member: What's making the break between those two, the natural break?
[1:16:58] Tom Fowler: Well, the natural break is just a little bit of a subtle ridgeline in topography. And we're making, the reason that there's now a switch from A being bigger to B being bigger is the grading that we're proposing on the site because...
[1:17:15] Unidentified Board Member: So the back of the site is still the same because you're not doing any grading there? Not doing any grading there. So the change is only where the building...
[1:17:22] Tom Fowler: Basically there's a ditch line along the west side of the... self-storage building and in the golf simulator building and the natural flow of stormwater out of that ditch line would be go down to the southwest maybe this would be a good time about to show the other two there's a 200 scale okay so this is the proposed condition post development condition actually there we go side by side that's great okay so a little bit more zoom in and it's enough so you can see what's going on in the site but so you're sending water to what was the little green one yeah is what's happening reason being that there's going to be a little concentrated flow collected on the west side so you picture that these driveways they have little drainage ditches next to them and those are going to be places where water storm water is going to concentrate There's a new roof that wasn't there before and some new paved driveway. So that falls off the driveway and the roof and goes to the, on that plan on the right, it goes to the left-hand ditch. Natural topography, if we just stopped that ditch where it was, then it would go down through a corner of the Viking front lot, then a corner of the Rice and Noodle property, and then also in front of, there's like a Quonset hut building, I'm not really sure what's going on there.
[1:19:06] Speaker D (unidentified): It would cut through three other properties.
[1:19:09] Tom Fowler: And what we chose to do for the design was just keep that on our own property and then down the right-of-way that we control that would the most direct route would be to go that way and I don't think it would be a huge increase but there would be a little bit because it's a change from being woods to development so rather than take the easy kind of dump and run approach we're looking to bring it down along that particular part of the drainage area is going to go down the west side ditch of the drive of the new driveway, then anything collecting along the right side of the buildings and the driveway is going to be heading down the east side of that driveway, and they're contained within that ditch down to the goal here is to bring this down to the public infrastructure, which is the ditch of route one, and then the culverts that go under route one, under the driveways, and then ultimately cross it and head down to Belfast Bay. So I'm going to quote some figures for you. Don't have any these in your package because the thing we provided was just a simple model of that huge 80 something acre watershed is actually even bigger because the cross culvert for what goes under route one has an even larger area attached to it. So this is getting a little more fine-grained. We're getting into the weeds on stormwater, but I'm going there anyway.
[1:20:48] Unidentified Board Member: Is any of the land in this watershed developed?
[1:20:53] Tom Fowler: Quite a bit of it is, sure. A lot of that is on Vikings. Yeah, Jan, the one you're looking at is the one we submitted to DOT. tea and the you know these lots are like these big long skinny things. Yeah, okay, yeah, it's a ways back there, way up by back Sears Port Road. The end of this watershed is a the edge of a gravel pit, and which you get to by the back Sears Port Road, so the whole thing kind of closes in on itself at the at the top edge of a gravel pit, and then everything else comes down this way, so that's why it's this big, long, skinny thing like that. So the ordinance calls for modeling the pre-development and post-development in the two-year, 25-year, and 50-year storm events. So we did that. And for Watershed A, which is the blue on the left, you can see that it gets significant smaller from pre-development to post-development because, like I said, we're collecting some water from the developed area and sending that down our own driveway, which we control and have, you know, we can build a stable drainageway and all that stuff. So the result there is that pre-development, the two-year, and we did send these to Alexander and Bub, so you guys are going to have access to them. We did it this morning or this afternoon. Two-year pre-development peak flow is one CFS, that's a cubic foot per second, that's a standard thing, a standard measurement for stormwater. Post is 0.3 cubic feet per second, and that intuitively, if your drainage area shrinks by that large amount, then your peak flow should shrink as well, so it did. Commensurately, 25 years starts at 2.8, goes down to 0.8. Then the 50-year storm starts at 3.8 and goes down to one CFS. So all those watershed A is shrinking for peak flows, and that's, that means that there's a reduction going to the culvert under Rice and Noodles driveway way. Watershed B, which starts as that little green one on the road in the existing condition and grows and basically absorbs most of watershed A and now includes some developed area. So things have changed. That starts at 0.5 CFS for a two-year storm and goes to 1.85. So there's a small increase there. This is a two-year, a 25-year storm goes from 1.3 CFS to 4.5 CFS, so again another increase. A 50-year storm goes from 1.5 CFS pre-development to 5.3 CFS post development, so again I think I think that stands to reason you're taking and increasing the size of the development, the watershed, and putting some new
[1:24:25] Unidentified Board Member: pavement on there, so did you happen to look at hundred year for the green area
[1:24:31] Tom Fowler: I looked at, we looked at 100 year for watershed C, which I'm about to get to, because that one is a collection of B and C together. Don't think we modeled, I didn't actually put the calculation out for 100 year. The DOT asks for that, but the city usually doesn't. I'm going to call your figure on 100 in just a second, Jam. So watershed C is the collection point for now all of B and all of C, and C as we know goes back about 9,000 feet, a good portion away, and contains a fair amount of Vikings yard. It's not everything, but if you've been in there in a rainstorm, there's there's water running down the two sides and occasionally crossing over. So for a two-year storm, this is combined B and C together, because that's what happened when you were modeling C, because B is also going to going to land in that same spot. Two-year storm pre-development is 8.5 CFS, post-development 8.7 CFS. That's a 2.4 percent increase. For a 25-year storm, it starts at 22 CFS pre-development, goes to 22.4 CFS post-development. That's a 1.6% increase. A 50-year is 26.3% pre-development and 26.8% post-development. That's a 1.7% increase. And then we did go to the 100-year for that one just to see, because we also wanted to compare that with the bigger picture with the DOT culvert. Out of curiosity, I couldn't help myself. The pre-development was 30.7 CFS in a 100-year storm and 31.2 CFS in post-development. That, again, is a 1.7 percent increase. That was a whole slew of numbers. Sorry. I hope we didn't write them all down. We do have a little chart here. The bottom line is these are some extremely modest increases to the next culvert, which is adequately sized to handle that. Then we've previously modeled the culvert beyond that, which belongs to the main DOT and crosses underneath Route 1, and also found that actually in the big picture there, when you combine it with an even larger watershed, there's a small decrease post development. And for the hundred-year storm event, our conclusion after doing these models is that there is a very modest increase that the system is adequately sized for already. We're putting in a new culvert. There's a 15-inch corrugated metal culvert under the existing driveway, but we're replacing that with an 18 inch high density polyethylene, which is a smooth interior culvert to improve that flow. The next ones down are- Has there been overflow with the 15? I've not observed it, but frankly, I've not been observing this ditch for more than a few weeks or a couple months. Never seen it, but I don't, based on these watersheds, I'd be shocked if there was ever an overflow of that 15, because it was taken on such a small amount. Most of the water was actually going towards Rice and Noodles driveway in the in the previous condition, and we're changing that a little bit. And so basically by making that change, we're making accommodation for it so that we know it can handle that. We applied for a stormwater permit by rule, as we said, and we got that today. Main DOT on site, I mean, sorry, DEP, that's the Department of Environmental Protection. Sites of this size, they don't have you study the pre and post stormwater because in for the last about 20 years, they've been more focused on safe conveyance, which is basically that you're not going to cause an erosion issue. So the things they looked at for us is to make sure that we are sizing, we're providing a detailed erosion and sedimentation control plan, which we did. And that's now going to be part of the construction plan when Brian's site where contractors get going. One, and then sizing things like culverts, like ditch riprap, erosion control blanket where the ditches are flatter, and making sure that you have controls in place like check dams which slow water as it goes down, that those are their biggest concerns, and we met those standards and received our permit today. So that was a long-winded, number-heavy summary, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. I
[1:30:33] Kipa Jolly: think you've numbered us to that. That's good.
[1:30:37] Speaker D (unidentified): Great show. Bob.
[1:30:41] Unidentified Board Member: So like Tom had said, staff asked them to model these years because it's in the ordinance, and the city engineer did as well. So for the final we plan to have the city engineer just review this and make sure we're good and provide a response to the board so if there's if you're in over your head the height
[1:31:17] Alexandra Sykes: of the building and the setbacks on our property comply with the city requirements we're 18 solid waste management the board found the applicant will remove solid waste by a private waste haul waste disposal company from the dumpster located on the property the board found the applicant is proposing that the single dumpster will be utilized for both buildings on the property and at this time the applicant was asking to waive the requirements for the dumpster on the property however after kind of internally talking about this since it's not a technical standard that's something that I don't believe the board can waive because in the supplementary district regulations of chapter 102 screening is required if the dumpster is in public view so that was something I just flagged for further discussion.
[1:32:23] Unidentified Board Member: I mean, basically, they're required to screen the dumpster. And there's not really a waiver process to say you don't have to. Because the public's going to be visiting this restaurant slash golf simulator. I'm
[1:32:43] Speaker D (unidentified): concerned that the dumpster is so close to the propane tank. You know, the guys that back the trucks up those dumpsters sometimes aren't really accurate. It would be too hard to run in that propane tank. I would suggest even rotating it, putting bollards in, and the propane tank, if you
[1:33:08] Unidentified Board Member: realign the bollards in front of it,
[1:33:13] Speaker K (unidentified): a simple fix, or shift it a little bit. I'd
[1:33:23] Unidentified Board Member: just point out, there's rules about putting bollards up around propane tanks that are within a certain distance.
[1:33:28] Speaker D (unidentified): But still, those depths are pretty big. Sure.
[1:33:31] Unidentified Board Member: Sure. No, I'm just letting you know that the building code requires this basically anyways. So if it was, there are sites where you can't move the propane tank, right? So if they didn't move it, they'd have to put bollards in as part of the...
[1:33:47] Speaker D (unidentified): They'd have to put solid bollards. Yeah.
[1:33:54] Kipa Jolly: Someone who knows a business owner who recently lost a very expensive fence to a dumpster truck. Keep them separate. As much you keep the dumpster trucks away from anything, never mind the propane, for your own sake, but perhaps
[1:34:13] Alexandra Sykes: this is something that could be brought back for the final
[1:34:16] Kipa Jolly: review. The applicants are okay, and again, part of the conditions of approval will be it's, you know, it's got to be to code. Yeah, because they're going to build a building. So the
[1:34:32] Alexandra Sykes: next one we have is number 19, exterior lighting. The board found the applicant will be installing adequate light to meet the needs of the projects around the new structures in the parking area, the new structures in the parking area, that will avoid trespass beyond the parcel boundary. The part the board found the applicant identified a mixture of pole mounted and building mounted lights, and the applicant generated a photometric lighting plan. Something I did note in here, it does look like the within the narrative, some of the lights that are proposed are above that 3000 K typical requirement that we typically see, but it does look like they will be downward directed and full cut off, but maybe the applicant could speak to the temperature. Yep, we can switch
[1:35:23] Tom Fowler: those all to three thousand they're variable they have a three thousand to four thousand which is kind of their standard and five thousand so we can definitely and we can make a note for the final that 's that's how they're gonna be run the fixtures I took a look at the cut sheets today and they can be switched okay good that makes it easy
[1:35:45] Kipa Jolly: for everyone, guys.
[1:35:51] Unidentified Board Member: Ask one quick question for Tom in, you're still, the photometric plan still good with lighting if they're at 3,000 K? Don't actually know the
[1:36:04] Tom Fowler: answer that we could go back you want to ask him that brian would be great yeah i tend to think that the foot cams on the ground is probably going to go down a little bit which is okay i think this is there's going to be plenty of light the idea is to have the doorways the doorways lighted and the driveway so that the driveway is not a mystery and will this be lit [Unidentified Board Member: Is it 24-7?] The driveway probably will. I think the idea was some motion sensors, Brian.
[1:36:45] Unidentified Board Member: Because people can come up to the storage.
[1:36:47] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, there'll be motion sensors around. Yeah. And
[1:36:52] Kipa Jolly: cameras. So energy conscious and that they will be motion detected. So that makes sense.
[1:36:59] Unidentified Board Member: There's so much forest land around there. I'm just thinking about Waterloo.
[1:37:10] Alexandra Sykes: Don't blame you. Add that detail in if the board would like. Just noting.
[1:37:18] Kipa Jolly: Yeah, just maybe note that we'll review the final lighting plan at the final review. So
[1:37:28] Alexandra Sykes: the next one we have is 20, buffering of adjacent uses. And this just notes at a high level the property is surrounded by commercial property and all of its side, much of the surrounding land is currently owned by Viking. And much of the existing vegetation on the site will be able to accomplish the prescriptive buffering requirements that are identified in chapter 102. The majority of it will be of canopy trees and existing forage stood area. The next one we have is 21, noise, and just at a high level here, just noting the board found the applicant has indicated the Gulf simulator building will likely be open on average of a 10 hours a day, with shorter days midweek and longer days over the weekend. That noise isn't of concern considering it's an existing commercial area.
[1:38:32] Kipa Jolly: There might be my whoop of joy when I get a holy one in St. Andrews, but other than that, yeah,
[1:38:41] Alexandra Sykes: exactly. Number 22, storage of materials. There's not indicated there'll be any other exterior storage units or structures aside from the two structures on the property. Number 23, landscaping. Here noting that there's going to be a small grass area in front of the gulf simulator building to separate the front entrance from the building from the driveway, and there also will be a tree kind of on that edge of the driveway to parking area for visual separation. The next one, 24, roughing of residential uses. This isn't applicable. There aren't any residential uses. Number 25, here we have location of off-street parking. Here we have identified the board found the applicant was required to provide 15 parking spaces based on the sitting parking standards in Chapter 98. Based on the identified uses of self-storage and restaurant sit-down with 31 seats identified on the floor plans, the employee and 12 students, that's a an error on my part, so we'll take that out. And this, the board found the applicants providing 16 parking spaces with two accessible parking spaces, and they provided a proposed parking plan on the site plan there. They have enough spaces to
[1:40:18] Speaker G (unidentified): meet to meet the needs i
[1:40:22] Unidentified Board Member: assume that for the storage areas people will also be parking along
[1:40:26] Kipa Jolly: the edges right where they're using them yeah they don't spend enough time to load or unload number
[1:40:39] Alexandra Sykes: 26 we have hazardous waste and this doesn't apply to this property it doesn't intend to generate or store any hazard hazardous waste on site same with number 27 prevention intervention of or control of air pollution, not going to be generating any volume of air pollution that warrants a city needing to control. 28, we have public health and welfare, noting that it doesn't intend to cause any adverse effects to public health or welfare. The board found the applicant engaged in a conversation with fire chief Richards to ensure the site could accommodate emergency vehicles and a letter was provided and aside from the knox box that tom mentioned there weren't any other concerns from the fire chief and the last two 29 types of waste that was identified earlier in chapter 90 under 18 and then for number 30 This doesn't qualify as something that might affect the environment. So the next section we have is a compliance with Chapter 102 zoning requirements for the C.S. Port Avenue Commercial Zoning District. I could go through each of those, or I could also just kind of give a general summary of its compliance. So it is permitted uses. All uses proposed are permitted within this zoning district. The minimum lot size complies. Lot frontage doesn't apply to the property because it's a back lot. As far as front, side, and rear setbacks, all the developments in compliance, as well as the lot coverage, is well below the 65%. They're only doing about 21% of coverage, and the structure height is well below the 45-foot allowance within the district. The buildings will only be about 11 and 21 feet tall. The next section we have is the supplementary district regulations, and in Section 102-940, dumpsters, that's where it notates the requirement of the screening of the dumpster from public view. but all of the other areas within the supplementary district regulations were addressed prior and then chapter 90. So the next section we have in chapter 102, the performance standards, division four non-residential developmental standards. There are a handful in here I have highlighted and then I'll just kind of high level the others if that seems still okay with the board. All right, so the first section, 102 1243 through 1245, talks about minimum lot size, lot frontage, and setbacks, and that's been addressed in chapter 102 zoning standards. The next grouping we have, the next three, which is 102 1246, minimum front buffer yards through rear buffer yards. All of these prescriptive requirements for amount of buffer yards, and then also the prescriptive planting requirements, have been met as identified by the applicants, largely utilizing the existing vegetation on site. Three sides of the property are still heavily forested. There's not a concern there. The next section I have here flagged as 102 1250, this is the non-residential structure design requirement. So within this zoning district there are certain requirements with facades, windows, entry, kind of outlined within the code. There is an avenue to have a building be designated as a building of special merit, and that is what the applicant is asking to have this built, these buildings be considered, because they don't quite comply with certain areas in the code as set forth. So there has been renderings provided for the golf simulator building and then also the golf storage building i can have maybe the applicant speak a little bit to those specific areas that are kind of a little bit out of line with kind of what's required there's only a few areas but this is an allowable approach if the board is okay with
[1:45:54] Unidentified Board Member: designating that building. Yeah, Tom, have you got any? Sure, I think the things that were
[1:46:04] Tom Fowler: We're stretching the bounds of this section a little bit on our roof pitch and total length of the facade for the self-storage building. And I think one of the biggest considerations is that the building will not be visible from the road. And it is a self-storage building. And so in order to function as such, having those garage doors be available along one plane is it's pretty integral, but they're factoring in paint colors, natural tones, and between that and the siting in the building also behind the golf storage building of his golf simulator building, which has, I guess I call it a little more, a little more flair then the storage building does, kind of aid that, aid that request slightly left less roof pitch and facade sawed lengths over 100 feet, but we feel like Those are offset by location both within the property and relative to other properties, and also the setting that it's in, which is a commercial, heavily commercial district. The remainder of liking Lumber's parcel along there is warehouse use for their intended lumber yard business, and this certainly fits in with that, and I think, yeah. Any
[1:48:04] Kipa Jolly: thoughts or comments from the board? I think
[1:48:08] Unidentified Board Member: it's hard to make any comments that argue that this is a redeeming visual, but I think your initial comments that nobody's ever gonna see it are probably the important ones. Sure. Lou.
[1:48:20] Speaker D (unidentified): Do we need to have a motion that's acceptable to designate this as special merit? What does that mean?
[1:48:31] Alexandra Sykes: It's essentially just it's sort of a waiver it's a visual waiver right I would say that's like that's very good yeah making an exception yeah to have it yeah I mean we can read you the
[1:48:43] Unidentified Board Member: code section if you want to hear it just so you know what you're doing but there's no need to like vote on a waiver or anything like that but you would be considering it as the applicant has
[1:48:53] Speaker G (unidentified): asked as a building of special merit which is described in the code I think
[1:49:15] Kipa Jolly: Jan might be stuck where we typically think of special merit as having architectural or historical significance. So it's sort of the other way but this is what it really is that it's a special not merit. It's a storage building. How exciting can you make a storage building look?
[1:49:38] Unidentified Board Member: Thank you because a storage building just doesn't have the specials to be so special.
[1:49:42] Speaker D (unidentified): I like the merit.
[1:49:45] Alexandra Sykes: I think that's a pretty good characterization of what we're asking here.
[1:49:48] Kipa Jolly: You could have like invisible doors and you had to go say abracadabra to open them or something and then in which case you know I mean it's basically our way of saying we don't care yeah is that yeah I don't care yeah it's a storage building you know we can read that
[1:50:07] Speaker G (unidentified): are both buildings looking for the special merit waiver here or just the storage building is there
[1:50:15] Kipa Jolly: anything particular about the I mean just we only have this of the gulf the gulf sim building the
[1:50:22] Tom Fowler: roof pitch is slightly shallower it's a one and a half to twelve instead of a three to twelve
[1:50:27] Speaker G (unidentified): none of us are going to win architectural awards we know we're not going to win an
[1:50:31] Tom Fowler: architecture award no and that's not their intent their intent is to provide yeah, that said, I don't think, you know, these are going to be a scar on the landscape.
[1:50:46] Unidentified Board Member: I'm never going to see them.
[1:50:47] Tom Fowler: Right,, particularly this one. But it's right here.
[1:50:52] Unidentified Board Member: I mean, they have forklifts at Viking Land.
[1:50:55] Tom Fowler: They probably will. Yeah. Yeah, and I hope that they're not offended.
[1:51:00] Speaker K (unidentified): I hope they come and play. Right.
[1:51:03] Tom Fowler: Even better, I hope they come play golf.
[1:51:05] Unidentified Board Member: I was going to say they might.
[1:51:07] Tom Fowler: YEAH, THEY ARE RIGHT THERE TO PROVIDE MATERIALS AT THE RATE.
[1:51:12] Unidentified Board Member: SO IT SAYS HERE, IF I COULD, CITY RECOGNIZES AN APPLICANT MAY CHOOSE TO PROPOSE A BUILDING DESIGN THAT SATISFIES THE INTENT OF THE CITY REQUIREMENT FOR AN ATTRACTIVE BUILDING DESIGN BUT THAT DOES NOT SATISFY ONE OR MORE OF THE CRITERIA IN THE SECTION PLANNING BOARD SHALL HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO ALLOW AN ALTERNATIVE BUILDING DESIGN FOR A BUILDING OF SPECIAL merit that satisfies the intent of the standard in the findings of the planning board positively contributes to the character of the road corridor on which the structure is located and the city it
[1:51:46] Kipa Jolly: suits the purposes of that area and of the road. That's my sort of initial thought. What do you guys think? So maybe we just put in the, you know, that well, it's a commercial district. It's a commercial use, the social use for the golf simulator, no one will care what it looks like. They want to go in and play the golf course, the simulated golf course, so I think it suits this area just fine, it doesn't need anything special. Anyone disagree?
[1:52:22] Unidentified Board Member: No, I think my argument is more with the way the code is written.
[1:52:25] Kipa Jolly: Well, again, it was probably written more with the historic area in mind than Searsport Avenue.
[1:52:33] Speaker G (unidentified): So that's okay.
[1:52:35] Unidentified Board Member: I mean, this is specific to Searsport Ave. Commercial, Searsport Ave. Waterfront, and Route 1 South. That's not the historic district. So it sounds like everyone's good with this.
[1:52:50] Kipa Jolly: Why didn't we write that ordinance that way then? I didn't write it. Probably we might want to go back and revise that.
[1:52:57] Unidentified Board Member: We might want to make a note we ought to rethink that sometime.
[1:53:02] Tom Fowler: I could offer lots of suggestions on that sort of stuff. Be careful. Have a workshop on that. I don't think that's a good idea.
[1:53:23] Kipa Jolly: Have what you need to wordsmith that.
[1:53:25] Alexandra Sykes: Yeah, I can. All right, thank you. Let's zoom along. So the next two sections, 12 51 and 52, talk about parking areas and then also the landscape requirements for the parking areas, and this just notes at a high level that the impact of headlight and glare or the from the parking area will be utilized by using the side site buffer yards of plantings along each property line and the additional addition of a tree within the parking to kind of create separation from the drive aisle and the parking lot. 102-1253 curb cuts and site access. This largely speaks to what we discussed earlier in chapter 90 regarding the highway and access. So we're kind of at this moment just waiting for mandy to review the mdot and then also the typical sections and we'll have more information for the final for that. Yeah,, for preliminary purposes we're in good shape.
[1:54:31] Kipa Jolly: Sounds like verbally we all know what we need to do and so pending mandy's review and everything else we should be in good shape for final. The
[1:54:43] Alexandra Sykes: next item here 1254 internal site circulation. THE BOARD FOUND THE APPLICANTS PLANNED FOR PEDESTRIAN SIDEWALKS IN FRONT OF BOTH PARKING AREAS TO FACILITATE SAFE MOVEMENT WITHIN THE SITE, AND THE APPLICANT HAS ALSO PROVIDED SPACE FOR LARGER MANEUVERING AND DESIGNATED AREAS FOR DELIVERIES AND TRACK PICKUP OUTSIDE OF THE CORE PARKING, CUSTOMER PARKING AREA, KIND OF OFF TO THE SIDE NEAR THE DUMPSTERS. So that shouldn't have to be interrupted by customer use, right? 102-1255 utilities. This is just noting that the proposed development will utilize public water sewer connections and all new utilities will run underground along the driveway within the 50-foot deeded easement. In the application package the deeded easement and the language saying access and utilities has been provided within that and then I believe I heard in the applicant presentation that the electrical was also underground. I just had a note
[1:55:57] Speaker K (unidentified): note there. Is that correct? Yeah. So it is going to come across the street where the service is now to a pole. Yeah. Good.
[1:56:11] Alexandra Sykes: The next areas we have noise, dust, odor, and say all the way up to 1263. Those items have been addressed previously in chapter 90. Noting that those are areas of a concern brings us to 12 102 1263 soils and this notes that the board found based on the information submitted by the applicant on-site slows are adequate for the construction of the building and accompanying infrastructure. All the next ones we have with the soil erosion solid waste explosive materials hazardous waste those have all been previously identified in chapter 90 with further details so they just reference back to the chapter 90 site plan criteria. 102 1268 construction of off-site improvements. The applicants not proposing any off-site.
[1:57:26] Unidentified Board Member: Is that, in fact, true, since they're putting a road and curb cut in on property that's not theirs? I think it's considered part of the site, actually, for your review. I mean, you're approving everything in that area on private. It's for public improvements that may be required for development. Oh, elsewhere. Oh, okay. Like putting a stoplight somewhere or whatever.
[1:57:51] Tom Fowler: Yeah, or like extending a sidewalk along a public roadway, that kind of stuff. I
[1:57:59] Alexandra Sykes: can clarify that saying something about no public improvements, yeah. 102 1269, impact on municipal facilities and services here just notice notes the ability to serve documentations from the water district and the wastewater treatment plant, and then by the next review we'll have that revised clarification from the wastewater treatment about the capacity. Yeah, the next one we have is 102 to 1270, which is performance guarantees for required improvements. The board found the applicant is requesting a waiver of the performance guarantee requirements with the exception of the creation of an escrow account, escrow account covering the work within a public right-of-way. I believe in the application documents it was noted that it would be an escrow with the city, but this would be an escrow with MDOT since it's outside the urban compact area. This is, in general, it would just be a performance guarantee for that work with MDOT, but not having any additional performance guarantees for the work.
[1:59:23] Kipa Jolly: Yeah. Board? Seem okay? Seem naughty? Okay, that's fine.
[1:59:29] Alexandra Sykes: Did you guys want to...
[1:59:30] Kipa Jolly: It's a sell. You sold to MDOT this time.
[1:59:32] Alexandra Sykes: Did you guys want to take a vote, make a motion for that waiver now, or we can do that at the final as well?
[1:59:39] Kipa Jolly: Yeah, might as well do it now while we're on. So can I hear a motion? I'll give a motion. Okay. For the waiver, any seconds? I'm sorry? Dave seconds. Any discussion or thoughts on that? Anyone? All right. All those in favor of granting the waiver? It looks like it's going to end.
[2:00:04] Alexandra Sykes: In the next section, we have 102-1271, determination of project ownership, notating that the property will be owned by Brian Fields, and there has been a provided deed with the property dated as of July 29th that's been filed. 1272, handicaps accessibility. The board found that based on the applicants proposed uses for the site development and the requirement of 15 parking spaces, that plan is required to provide one handicap accessible space, and the board found the applicant is providing two accessible parking spaces AND EACH OF THE BUILDINGS WILL HAVE ACCESSIBLE ENTRYWAYS AT FRONT ENTRANCES AS WELL. And the remaining items in this 102 are not applicable. There's no, sorry, aside from the loading and off-loading areas, notating that it's to the side of the customer parking space. But there's no drive throughs or canopies. So that brings us to the end. And the last items within the decision, I just have red dates that will be changed to final. End of the findings. If anyone had any questions, comments.
[2:01:33] Kipa Jolly: Let's move on to conditions.
[2:01:36] Alexandra Sykes: So the conditions, many of these are very typical, especially for undeveloped sites. But I'll I have a couple that are highlighted to go through but kind of just note the general purpose of each of them if that's okay so number one description of the project it's just identifying the scope which we've talked about at the beginning number two description of zoning is identifying the size of the property the zone and the uses that are allowed number three the plan approval this is talking about the permit that's being awarded for this site the dates in the preliminary will change To final after the corresponding reviews this is typically a condition where if the board would like to add any flexibility for additional structures or additions we typically do here. Is that something the board would like to consider for this property?
[2:02:42] Kipa Jolly: What do you guys think? Typically, letting you guys know, we might say if you wanted to have a storage shed for tools or anything like that, but you may have adequate storage within the self-storage facility. As opposed to like, I need a permit for an 8x12 shed.
[2:03:02] Unidentified Board Member: I would say given the way this site is laid out, the developed area is so tight that we probably want to see something if they were making an
[2:03:11] Speaker G (unidentified): Addition in some way yeah but they also have a whole storage they have a whole
[2:03:15] Kipa Jolly: Storage area they can yeah they can utilize if they needed to so I don't think they necessarily need that anything else anyone can think of anything the applicant you wouldn't want to come back to the planning board you just check in with the code enforcement officer everything yeah anything would be fine no we have very exciting meetings i know we attend a lot
[2:03:50] Alexandra Sykes: Okay, all right, so yeah, I think we're fine with that for now. Yeah, the next one we have for change in applicant, this just identifies that the permit is awarded to Brian Field and any changes to this applicant would need to come back to the board. Number five, other permits, this just outlines the other permits that may be applicable to the project upon completion. This is just outlining some of them, not exclude exhaustive, but mentions the PBR sign, electrical, building, fire marshals that might be required. I
[2:04:31] Kipa Jolly: don't know if you want to add DOT and then maybe that's a restaurant. Yeah, absolutely, it's always and up and
[2:04:39] Alexandra Sykes: other permits, but yeah, those are good additions that particular to the use of [Kipa Jolly: this site. Yeah.] Number six, public sewer, just noting that it is going to be service by public sewer and maintained in good working condition. The same goes for number seven, which is public water, notating that the site is served by public water supply and it shall be maintained in good working condition. Utility service number eight, just notates that the utilities will be installed in accordance with the site plan within the 50 foot deeded easement. Number nine, solid waste, and this is where it notates the screening requirement for the dumpster. Number 10, we have stormwater management, and this just notates the maintenance and the compliance with the PBR permit. We have number 11, which is erosion and sediment control. Just noting that the applicant shall institute the best management practices as identified on the site plan during project construction. Number 12, we have site lighting, and this just identifies that the site lighting will be provided as identified on the plans,, not causing glare on abutting properties and shall be that 3,000K downward directed full cutoff. Number 13 is landscaping and notates the applicant shall retain existing forested vegetation and plant new vegetation as identified on the provided site plans.
[2:06:44] Unidentified Board Member: Is that one poor little tree? Yeah. [Alexandra Sykes: And the grass.] I mean you might want to consider if you're trying to actually create a visual separation that maybe do a little bit with a one tree, but just a thought number
[2:07:09] Alexandra Sykes: 14. We have signs, and this is something that I have identified in, because the property does not have frontage on Searsport Avenue and is considered a backlot, applicant isn't allowed to place any signage on Searsport Avenue unless it's authorized through Maine D.O.T. as an official business direction sign. This is, I just learned this, OBDs, so those blue, yeah, off-premise signs identifying
[2:07:42] Speaker D (unidentified): locations. I just would like to note that though, sometimes they're so far from where you actually have to turn, it becomes quite difficult to figure out where you have to turn exactly. Well, I think
[2:07:54] Kipa Jolly: there you could probably put it on the turn, or maybe it's kind of deal with Rice and Noodle.
[2:07:59] Speaker K (unidentified): It's kind of like Young Lobster too, they have theirs right there. It is, yeah. And the
[2:08:10] Alexandra Sykes: next one we have here is 15, site access, and this is identifying the MDOT permit and then also the deeded easement for site access. Number 16, parking, just notates that the parking shall be constructed as identified on the site plans. Number 17, building appearance, notating that they should comply substantially with the building plan elevations that were provided, and if it doesn't get substantially complied, they should come back to the board. The number 18, site maintenance during construction, just notates some construction guidelines for any disturbance on Sears Port Avenue with regards to dust or waste generated as a part of construction, and then number 20, 21, and 22 speak specifically to the recording protocol with the city, with the assessing office, with the as-built for the code enforcement officer, and then and then the recording of the plan with the Waldo County Registry of Deeds. That is the last I have.
[2:09:40] Kipa Jolly: That's the exciting conclusion. All right, we're now ready for some motions, some seconds, and some votes on findings of fact, conditions of approval, and then preliminary.
[2:09:52] Unidentified Board Member: Sorry, so generally at this for a two-part, we basically just have the board take a motion to approve the preliminary plan and move to the final plan because we'll take the votes on the findings, conditions, and permit at
[2:10:06] Kipa Jolly: the final plan. So we only have one that we need to do. Sorry. Okay.
[2:10:11] Unidentified Board Member: So I move that we approve the preliminary plan review, site plan use, site plan use permit, or just the preliminary plan review? Preliminary plan review. Just the plan review. Yeah. Okay. Second?
[2:10:25] Kipa Jolly: Sure. David's going to second. All right. Any final words? All right, all those in favor of approving the preliminary plan review and moving on to final review? Looks like it's unanimous. I don't need to ask for any nays. All right, there you go. First big step, I think you kind of
[2:10:48] Tom Fowler: went down everything you need, I think. Yeah, we've got a little to-do list of a few items. I have one question for clarification on the dumpster fencing. Why isn't it waivable?
[2:11:06] Unidentified Board Member: There's no mechanism in the code to waive the performance standards or the site plan criteria. It's not a technical standard. Those can be waived. Those can be waived, and then there's some other particular that have particular waiveable things in them.
[2:11:26] Tom Fowler: So performance standards in general aren't waiveable?
[2:11:29] Unidentified Board Member: That's right. There's no process outlined in the code for waiving them. Okay.
[2:11:38] Speaker K (unidentified): Not related to that, I think it was over the last year, the E911 address, I think somebody said that you guys had talked to somebody in the assessor's office and she said they were going to do a Searsport Avenue address. My question to you guys is, given that we're, you know, the easement alone is 300 feet and then it's beyond that, do you think that it would be easier for 911 to find the location if it had a specific name? You're at the corner of Route 1, and rather than saying you're at 160-something... Oh, you mean a street name? Yeah,, for the driveway. I don't know if that's something you guys handle, but I just wanted to mention it as a...
[2:12:25] Unidentified Board Member: So there's an E911 addressing officer that has to follow the protocols of E911 addressing, so I would ask them that, yeah, because it's very prescriptive about, yeah.
[2:12:38] Speaker D (unidentified): Sure. All right, thank you. comment about screening of the dumpsters. It makes not necessarily our project, just in general. It makes a big difference whether it's a rear-loading truck or a front-loading truck. Now, a front-loading truck can pull a dumpster right up out of there. If you get a rear-loading truck, you have to have a very wide because a rear-loading truck is 14 feet wide. So you haven't got to have a 14-foot wide plass room for the truck. Set your dumpster in for the truck to get to with that stuff so that's something people think about how do you deal with that you really want a 15 foot wide stockade fancy closure for a dumpster that's only you know six feet wide
[2:13:25] Tom Fowler: Whatever it is, no is the answer. Lewis raises a great point and yeah, I feel like this is a pet peeve of mine that has located and resulted in dozens of little funky looking fences all around Belfast serving a limited purpose, but we'll get to that in another meeting. Just a follow up.
[2:13:52] Kipa Jolly: Ordinance amendment, unfortunately we wish we did have the mechanism to waive it, but we don't, so we will. Alright, thanks folks. [Speaker K (unidentified): I didn't] realize we couldn't waive it, but that's it's good to know. Yeah, put that on our to-do list. All right, we're now ready to move on to an ordinance. Speaking of ordinance amendments, this thing adult use and medical cannabis proposed ordinance amendments. Yes, we're back, we're back.
[2:14:36] Unidentified Board Member: A bad day playing codes director here, Bub Fournier, just in case anyone at home is listening to this, just want to make sure folks know who I am. So I have a brief memo, I'm just going to roll through this so people know why we're here and what we're doing here, and then we have these proposed amendments that you've seen before four multiple times. So as folks may, I think we discussed this at the last meeting on September 15th, the second reading, the city council asked the planning board to cap medical cannabis retail stores and implement licensure for the stores, but decided to not move forward with any adult use stores at this time. And so the process that the board did started last April when the board recommended the package to the council. The council did a first reading on June 2nd and then the council said hey, we want to put a cap on it. So then on August 4th they did a first reading with a cap. They scheduled a second reading to clarify some of the language on the cap. At the second reading, which I just mentioned, they directed the board to cover adult use retail stores continuing to be prohibited in Belfast. Then medical cannabis caregiver retail stores, they want the board to look at capping at the current number and then refining and implementing the updates in licensing portions of the proposal. And does that current number include whom we just approved? It's the current number when they adopt the ordinance. Okay, that particular applicant just for the record and for everybody's information, they had that application in a long time before the second reading even occurred and they'd been working on different applications in different locations for quite some time, but it's taking over space, it's taking over, it was one. Yeah, that was not A store actually that was not a caregiver retail store, that was just a smoke pipe shop or something. There was no cannabis for sale there. Oh, okay, that's what we did there. No, it was just a retail store that went in there, and it was a pipe store, basically glass. Where, as far as I know, I remember doing the permitting when I was the code enforcement officer back in April of, oh, sorry, here, the one you just approved. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm confused because there's so many different locations. Yes, you did just approve that because this was one for one, that one was already counted as one, and there's no net gain. But okay, it's also until we adopt this ordinance, there's no cap on medical stores right now. So in order to get this accomplished, we have what's in your packet, chapter 14 business, which is how we get the licensure, because if we don't have licensure, if folks remember, then we don't even know what we have, because we've approved like somewhere around 15 total stores since we approved any, and we have six or seven right now. Yeah, so we really need that cap. But if we don't know one of those others, if we don't have a license, one of those stores that we approved five years ago could just reopen with the planning board process that we have now. So if we have a license, it basically says in chapter 14 that you have to have a license every year, you've got to have the license, and you have to renew it, and if you don't, then you're not, you're not. Yeah, I think that
[2:18:56] Kipa Jolly: was a mission that for the first round, so because it's a business, it should be licensed.
[2:19:05] Unidentified Board Member: So then we have chapter 82, which is basically just a companion use table, because the things are in the shoreland, then they have to have uses in the shoreland as well. Then we have chapter 102, article 8, supplementary district regulations regarding adult use cannabis and medical cannabis, basically the nitty-gritty of cannabis uses in Belfast and how we apply those standards. And then we have chapter 102 use tables and footnotes for the different areas. I also included the license application, and then a zoning map and where the uses are currently allowed, which the board had always said where they're allowed now, they should be allowed moving forward, and council didn't have anything to say about that as far as locations, like they're generally the medical stores are generally allowed in commercial areas where other retail is not. is allowed they're also as you just reviewed there's a 500 foot setback from schools so what we have just I'm going to run through these fairly quick because we've been through them a bunch but please feel free to stop if you have a question about something but generally I just stripped out any of the stuff that had to do with the cap after we had added it there's some updates in this all the marijuana's changed to cannabis and new state laws are referenced and things like that so chapter 14 business is just for licensure and all stores need to be licensed okay so that does not affect that has nothing about the cap right that has nothing about the cap but it does mention that it's the license cap there's a license cap highlighted on page two yeah it doesn't say what the cap is it just says it's capped right for purposes now section 14413
[2:21:24] Kipa Jolly: caregiver retail store do we need that because there isn't going to be any
[2:21:33] Unidentified Board Member: the medical cannabis caregiver retail store is the medical right but then 413 other applicable
[2:21:41] Kipa Jolly: codes any medical cannabis caregiver oh never mind yeah sorry that's the only one left that's the only one left that's a lot i used to say adult use and yeah that's what i thought i saw but
[2:21:53] Unidentified Board Member: yeah i have been known to miss something so if you think you see something please speak up i missed the cannabis marijuana after how many versions
[2:22:04] Kipa Jolly: of this, so. It was always one you were gonna miss.
[2:22:07] Speaker G (unidentified): It was like 500.
[2:22:09] Unidentified Board Member: But there's a process here for initial and renewal licenses and they get issued by the city council, basically similar to how other licenses get issued like victualers in the city. Are there limits on anything else? Pardon? are there caps on anything else there are no caps on anything else in the city i didn't think so good
[2:22:36] Speaker D (unidentified): question as you know we spent we spent a lot of time on this issue for the city council and the city council basically didn't do anything do anything so it appears to me that this is more of a political issue than there's a planning issue so why can the city council do this why
[2:22:54] Unidentified Board Member: We spend any time on it really. So my, I hear and feel your frustration, Louis. Sometimes it's, it's like you got to go up and down the river to realize what's on the river. And I don't want to go up and down this river. I hear you know exactly where it is, yeah. And but from my perspective, the board is really like you're doing the reviews of these and you're doing the city council is doing works that we're doing. Well I think that you're probably the expert board on how ordinances are generated for land use. And so like you know I think I would not want the city council, you know, to just start generating this amount of code on their own without the planning board who's going to have to basically implement it and make sure and knows what the potential pitfalls are of different land use ordinances might be. If this looks like an unworkable process, that's what I ask folks to try and look at just so that we don't get an applicant here and we're trying to do permit and going through the findings and conditions and it just doesn't even work or doesn't make sense or violates laws or things like that you folks are much more fluent in? I don't think we're fluent in it at all.
[2:24:24] Speaker D (unidentified): Just my thoughts. Sure. You get no argument here. And after November, they may think about this altogether differently. Everything we do now may be a waste of time. They may change their mind and say, well, it's fine. We don't want any caps. Depends on who sits on that council. Council yeah.
[2:24:47] Unidentified Board Member: I mean I don't have really much to say about that except you know I think in my understanding the planning board has generated proposals in the past that ultimately when they got to council didn't pass or got tweaked or morphed. And I know it could be frustrating with the amount of volunteer work that you folks are doing and I appreciate all the work. But I think that this is going to fly. This is exactly what they asked for and I think next time we start down this hopefully we can get better direction from the beginning. That might be part of a mistake I made, but I think we're at the end of this process once we get back to the council who's going to have to review all this again.
[2:25:37] Kipa Jolly: So yeah I didn't see anything in here again. How do you deal with the cap so
[2:25:45] Unidentified Board Member: we've, we've built in later on when we get to that chapter 102 where it's actually built in. I'll point that out and point out the language for that the
[2:25:57] Kipa Jolly: I don't think we'll ever have to worry about that, but that's my personal...
[2:26:01] Unidentified Board Member: The Chapter 14 is just for licensure. Chapter 82 is basically just for, you know, where in the shoreland zone this is allowed. So different uses of cannabis are allowed in different areas. You can't put cannabis uses in, you know, limited residential or cannabis stores or anything like that. But really the only thing we need to focus on is 102. 102. Chapter 102, Article 8 is the nuts and bolts of this. And on page 4, at the bottom, that's the cap. It says, beginning on the date, the city has capped. So that'll be added when they make the approval. And then it says, the total number of medical cannabis retail stores shall be limited to the number of existing stores on the date of adoption of this ordinance. And then we will insert the date and number of stores, the date and numbers to be decided. So I'm just curious because I think people have what? 90 days from the time they get approval. Sure. Right? So does that mean if you have gotten your approval, but you haven't quite opened your store yet, you don't longer count or are you an existing store at that point, or you need to be an active store? And it's a little unclear. Yeah, so we're going to identify what the number of stores we believe are and city council can say that's the number we're going to go for at that date is the plan. But what if somebody has come here, they've been approved, we'll count that. You'll count that. Yeah. Okay. Yes.
[2:27:41] Kipa Jolly: I think the big challenge right now is confirming that the ones that we've already approved are they open or are they closed, because as Bub said, he and I stood there and I came up with 11, you came up with 13. Yeah, we think officially it's like 15 that have been approved, but if you go look at what's in place, you're driving around, less, it's like six. Right. Yeah.
[2:28:02] Unidentified Board Member: But it's most of them are obvious. There was one recently that got a permit and never opened. Another one had, so after that 90 days, after the 90 days, they're dead in the water. They're dead in the water because they didn't get a license in their, the number, but that would create an opening if there was, if they were included from the beginning, right? Yeah, but I think it just needs
[2:28:29] Kipa Jolly: To be clear again, there are so many other requirements they have to jump through, all kinds of state requirements, and our ordinance sort of says that you have to get your state approvals and your state ducks lined up before you even come to us. So by the time we give them approval, it's just going down, you know, it's just putting in a regular business license like anything else. It's just one of those checklist things, so shouldn't be a big deal, but we'll see.
[2:28:59] Unidentified Board Member: Yeah, the licensure comes after everything else, right, in the city. So you get a permit from the planning board, some people have to build their building, or no one's done that yet, but they might have a construction project, and then they get a certificate of occupancy. That certificate of occupancy is what they are bringing you, they are bringing to the city council and saying, hey, I got my certificate of occupancy from the code enforcement officer, I had a permit from the planning board, I need my license, right, but is it the C of O, is it the 90 days to the C of O, the 90 days is for existing stores, so they've already got their C of O and they've already got their planning board permit, they just need to have a license going forward. So we'll send them a note, and if they don't, if they went out of business and they don't get their license, then they won't be counted as a legal store, and they and they won't count towards the cap. So that's the gist of this section. There's a whole bunch of minor little things that were added previously that we don't necessarily need to talk about, changing state laws, not allowing drive-through marijuana stores and things like that we address. So what's the first-come, first-served basis, which is determined by the planning and codes staff? That's not us. That's just you guys. So if somebody submits an application, we have six stores already, and that's what the cap was. Therefore, there's no openings. Staff does that. If we start this licensing and four of the six stores identified as the cap don't even get licensed because they went out of business in the meantime or something like that, there would be two openings, and then if somebody submits an application, we go, yeah, you've got a complete application, you can go to the planning board, there's an opening. So that was the system that the city attorney had identified could work if we didn't want to get into the whole lottery thing, which is another whole issue, is two businesses
[2:31:25] Kipa Jolly: submit on the same day and you only have one opening, how do you determine, so they
[2:31:30] Unidentified Board Member: Have to have a complete application. We do that now, actually, for all planning board reviews, so we're screening reviews. They have to have a complete application, so we have to be able to review it. They have to pay the fee, all that sort of thing. So it's, it's not really possible to have assignment simultaneously. Determination of one that was complete. So once this goes for the second reading to city council, what's the time frame from then to when it goes into effect? I'm hoping immediately. I mean, the date that is TBD on this is up to them. They could give it, you know, the date that they sign, they could, when we write that date in the code, it will be that date. So it could be right. Away. I'm just thinking you don't want to be right away. Oh my goodness, we have extra more days to get. All this in and yeah, increase the number of the cap. And I also think that with the drop of not going down the adult use road, I mean, I think we heard from the business community that medicals like not exactly gangbusters. So the idea that there could be like a, race to get your foot in the door for medical, it's probably not going to happen. Yeah, especially now that adult is not.
[2:32:51] Kipa Jolly: Happening. Yeah, right. At this time, it's not even clear to me that adult recreational use would have been gangbusters. Yeah, so.
[2:33:01] Unidentified Board Member: The last few things here in this package after the chapter 102 supplementary district regulations are the tables and the footnotes, and those are pretty self-explanatory. We took out adult uses stores and modified the footnotes to reflect that as well for each of the four groupings of districts. If folks are okay with this, we could have a public hearing on October 28th, at which time you could recommend this for council adoption or not, and it would be out of your hands for onto the back to that. Portion of the process. Yeah.
[2:33:45] Kipa Jolly: Did anybody see anything? I didn't. No. What would happen if we didn't recommend it? I'm just curious.
[2:33:55] Unidentified Board Member: I'm not suggesting we would do that. I'm just curious. I could take the fact that you don't recommend the city council adopt this to the city council, and then they could review that under that. Do what they wanted. Yeah. Yeah. So are folks okay with having a public hearing on this on October 28th? Because I've got to publish it.
[2:34:19] Kipa Jolly: Yeah, I was going to say, can we get that noticed?
[2:34:21] Unidentified Board Member: Tomorrow is my deadline. Yeah.
[2:34:25] Kipa Jolly: Do we need to take four? Oh, we already have that scheduled. Yeah, it's a scheduled meeting. Yeah, you don't need to take.
[2:34:32] Unidentified Board Member: A vote, you'll, you'll be taking a vote at the, on the 28th for a recommendation. Sure, again, this is all stuff that was built into the language that you have already reviewed, and there's no, I didn't sneak anything in here and like that, but you're, if you have a question between now and the public hearing meeting, feel free to reach out. We're going to post this on the city website as what's on the table for the public hearing, and we'll be posting an ad in the newspaper. Could we get a clean copy of just what's being proposed instead of all the strikeouts and everything just to read so we can read it? You want a blacked out, just delete the crossouts and
[2:35:19] Speaker G (unidentified): And, yeah, I said, I mean, just, I don't, maybe nobody else would like that, but I just
[2:35:27] Unidentified Board Member: thought it might be helpful just to, I have to do that. I have to do that at the end all the time for when we send it off. But yeah, I can, whatever you'd like, I think would be helpful. Okay.
[2:35:50] Kipa Jolly: So I think we're ready for the 28th and that exciting thing. Any other business?
[2:35:56] Unidentified Board Member: Anyone? Anyone? All right.
[2:36:00] Kipa Jolly: Planning and codes department report.
[2:36:08] Unidentified Board Member: So upcoming meetings, as we just mentioned, we have October 28th and then we had discussed November 18th. We're starting to get a few more development reviews. Yeah, we said we'd only have one in November. Right. That's the only available date really, so that's why I think we've got a couple pending applications for the 28th of development reviews plus this public hearing and most likely one, a couple more waiting in the wings, so once we tell them there's only one meeting in November we'll probably have development reviews for that, and then what about December? What do we [Speaker D (unidentified): do December?] i haven't looked at yet but we're not having a meeting on christmas right now yeah i just have the one for the november on the 18th and if folks remember i also had asked on the is the eight i want to make sure i have my schedules right the 18th is a Wednesday right yeah so 17th I had asked if folks could attend at 6 o'clock a joint meeting with City Council about the LD stuff that's in that giant binder that we worked on a bunch before we go into the public informational stage of that process So that would be an hour-long meeting at most because they have a meeting at 7 that night, and it would be a joint meeting with the City Council to talk about the LD stuff and what you folks have come up with for that. Obviously it's gonna be kind of a high-level one because there's a lot in there. May be some questions that dig in a little bit, but we can't dig into that. So those are some dates. Things are not crazy busy permit-wise in the office. I think we're, we are, there's not a lot of construction in the world right now, especially in Belfast anyways. You know, I travel a fair amount and see projects, but even the projects that I've seen, I was in Bethel this weekend, they got like a giant housing condo project that's been going on for seven years in the middle of town, but you know interest rates are high, we're about to have a big election, so I think a lot of times construction kind of eases up a little bit at that time. Well the cost of
[2:39:08] Kipa Jolly: construction and the cost is crazy. I want to just go get wood to build a
[2:39:14] Unidentified Board Member: little simple bookshelf and I just about fell off the floor. Yeah hopefully that changes. But there have been some projects that are coming through. We have the shipyard is continuing work on their project to pave all the gravel areas that were, that was approved by city engineering code enforcement in line with their contract rezoning agreement. They have a DEP permit for that as well. You probably noticed when you got here tonight that council approved the one-way for this section of Church Street. There's some restriping that's like, you know, marked out to do that as well. That came as from a recommendation from the planning or excuse me the Pedestrian Transportation and Accessibility Committee. That was one of their recommendations in their planning document that the consultant on. We're still waiting on the proposal for the expansion at Matthews Brothers. That should be coming soon. We've talked about that as a fairly large parking expansion there. Obviously you folks approved the subdivision site plan amendment for the rsu building at the school at the pchc campus. This project across the street at the historical society is just about finished, but not great, looks great. Yeah work at the 243 high street subdivision, they've got their base code of pavement down but not, haven't heard much on that one for a couple months. That's an eight lot subdivision there, intended to have the city take over the road when it's complete. It's a lot sold, none Nothing has sold so last time I looked they were on the market. Some solar projects have been going on one out on Waterville Road just before you start getting out of the city, inner city part. City council's been directing a working group on the pickleball noise issue at city park. Those folks continue to meet and look at different solutions. I think last city council meeting they were talking about PCHC thinks it's a great idea to have pickleball at their giant parking lot, and so that's great idea. I think that was the direction that folks were headed in for a potential medium term solution. Staff, so is that something we would see? Not necessarily, you know, it's all basically pavement and parking already, and I don't, I don't, it's a temporary thing that they're talking about. It's really like a restriping and people, you know, and so I don't think we necessarily, there's not much to look at for the board, you know, if they were going to build a building with it and you know section it off and charge admission or you know, I don't know what they'll do, but it seems like it's just a temporary thing. If the city were going to add pickleball courts, one of the other solutions was talking about adding PICKABLE CARTS TO WALSH FIELD WHICH IS THE DOG PARKING, YEAH, AND THAT MIGHT COME TO THE PLANNING BOARD. I MEAN IT MIGHT NOT AS WELL, LIKE THERE'S A, THERE'S A PROCESS FOR THE CITY COUNCIL TO NOT HAVE NECESSARILY REVIEWED BY THE PLANNING BOARD, BUT THEY HAVE TO HAVE A PUBLIC HEARING, IT'S VERY SPECIFIC, SO YEAH STAFF'S BEEN WORKING ON NEW PERMITTING SOFTWARE and the assessing staff has been working on the new parcel viewer, tuning that up a little bit. Bradbury Manor is expected to be, the contractor has been selected and demolition is expected to begin on October 26th I believe, so that's coming right up. And part of the contract that went out requires them to be done by, I'll just say Memorial Day, you know, so that they're not impacting the summer season, so they have like a small window to work right now, and if they don't finish they could complete it in the spring before real summer hits. As far as the Little River subdivision, that work is continuing on phase two as well for building roads. City engineer has been down there with inspectors checking different things on the roads, but we're expecting for lots to be available for development on that hopefully in the next construction season sometime. 333 High Street, which is the place that's kind of kitty corner from Belfast Variety on High Street, was deemed to be a dangerous building by the council at the last council meeting that process allows the city to lean any costs associated with abatement as a special tax so basically you know we can lean costs associated with property maintenance issues but it's a regular lien like a mechanics lien and if it there's a short sale we don't get paid back but this process allows us to go to the top of the list just like if they didn't pay their taxes in it 's guaranteed to get paid back so staff and the city attorney have been working to get that process in place for this. We have a court order that they have to deal with the stuff the city has ordered them to do. Things there are fines involved, and none of that has persuaded the property owner to do what they need to do to get the building into compliance. So there's really time is running out for them to have an opportunity to get their own building into compliance. And if they don't, then we can go in and demolish that building and lean the property and make sure that the taxpayers don't have to pay for it. So hopefully that is coming to an end soon. I'm going to leave it at that. Happy to answer any questions. There's another council meeting coming up next week. We'll be again here the 28th, but there's not a ton of big developments on the future, but we still haven't heard from a lot of these undeveloped lots that folks have asked about
[2:47:37] Speaker G (unidentified): in the past. So thank you. All right. Thanks, everybody. Meeting is adjourned.