Portland Planning Board recommends rezoning 1220 Brighton Avenue to B4 zone

[0:00] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): Welcome to the remote hybrid Planning Board meeting for May 26, 2026. This meeting is being held in a hybrid fashion, both Zoom and in person. Or, again, I'd like to address some housekeeping issues regarding public comment. Any written comments received by this meeting were made available to the board for review. In order to provide public comment during the meeting, it must be provided verbally. Members of the public attending the meeting remotely via phone or computer do not have speaking privileges. When enjoying a meeting in order to provide public comment. Members of the public must indicate their interests in speaking at the appropriate time. If participating in the meeting with a computer, use the raise hand feature so that we may call on you properly. If listening to this meeting on a standard telephone or cell phone, you may indicate your interest by pressing star nine. In either case, after you're called on, please wait until the moderator asks you to unmute yourself. Once unmuted, state your name and address. We'll then have three minutes to provide your comment. At the end of the period, your microphone will be muted again. If you have experienced any problems during the meeting, you may email planning at portlandmain.gov. Staff will try to monitor this email and respond as appropriate. Andrew, may we have the role? Yes. Beverly Lending, here. Austin Smith, here. David Silk, here. Nicholas Casita, here. Done here, then apologies. Kelsey Robertson, here, and Joseph Zamboni. So we will be starting out with a hearing. In terms of workshops, we do not have any workshops this evening. Reports of decisions, the meeting held on May 12th, 221 Congress Street, nine Cedar Street, those reports are in our agenda. Any edits? It's objections? Not hearing any, we'll move on to the new business. I'm going to take these two items out of order unless I hear objection. Not hearing a 16 Puritan Way, Puritan Way and zero Dalton Street, we've discussed tabling those to June 23rd. I'll entertain a motion. [2:11] Speaker B (unidentified): Motion to table both the major site plan for 16 Parenting Way and the major site plan for zero Dalton Street to the June 23rd Planning Board meeting. Is there a second? A second. A second. [2:25] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): Any discussion? Questions? Not hearing any. Andrew, redo roll. Yes, definitely. Yes. Austin said yes. David Self. Yes. Nicholas Messina. Yes. Harrington. Yes. Kelsey Robertson. Yes. Joseph Zamboni. Yes. That leaves us with 1220 Brighton Avenue, Portland Hotels. Since the applicant planning board is going to hold a public hearing to consider a zoning map amendment to rezone properties 265A009002 and 265A001001, 265A008001, and 265A007001 from transit center zone TOD2 to commercial corridor B4. Project plan and summary are available for viewing on the city's css portal by referencing plan number cn zero three five two seven dash twenty six that's about the city thank you members of the board my name is [3:30] Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): ron mccallister and i'm providing the overview of the stony map amendment for 1220 right now the applicant is portland west reality inc the location gen 1220 right now the proposal in front of you is to rezone that parcel from the TOD2 to the B4 zone. As discussed in the previous workshop, the applicant has submitted the following proposal. The site is currently in the TOD2 zone, which extends to the southeastern side of Brighton Ave. The B4 zone and B2 zone extend along this side. The applicant has requested that the subject parcel be re-zoned to the case court. The current zoning of the TOD-2 is a result of an amendment from the City Council during the recode process, and it added TOD-2 to both sides of I-95 along the Brighton Ave corridor towards the south, and the intent was to provide greater density and height, particularly in alignment with the higher density Rock Row development that's occurring to the south. The purpose statement, just as a reminder, the B4 zone is to provide or to help cater to a larger regional market, maintain or create automobile access, but also pursue the overall goals of higher that's housing and pedestrian alternatives. As a note, the B4 zone also supports drive-throughs, which is, as you remember, the conceptual proposal, which would have to go through the full segment. As for the surrounding context, this site is located right on the Westport Portland and boundary and is bound by more auto-oriented development including a hotel and a commercial office medical office as well as I mentioned front row along bright map and other potential uses. The site is closely tied to the I-95 interchange and we see or step fields that there's a So a substantial barrier of around 300 feet is shown here that the highway overpass creates, separating the subject parcel from the. So due to the presence of this highway exit, staff consider Riverside Street to be a secondary border for this parcel. It connects this subject parcel with the transportation network associated with I-95 interstate and in this corridor before it is done and will that they continue to encourage other oriented development along this area again what that brings us to our staff proposal. Staff suggests that the board consider rezoning all parcels west of I-95 along right around the intersection of Riverside Street. So these parcels represent some of the original parcels that staff had done before during the recall co-profit process but recommend that parcels in the rear remain TD2 simply due to the ongoing development of rock route. So the proposed rezoning of these parcels identified here supports and acknowledges the auto oriented relationship between Riverside Street and the I-95 exit and acknowledges what's likely to continue to be commercial development nearby. So in zooming out and speaking about the comprehensive plan, which is of course one of the primary items that the board is considering during rezoning, we feel that both the TOD2 and the B4 That was in the workshop as well, but rezoning creates more consistent land use pattern, again, west of this I-95 corridor, and ties into the existing point of development a lot later on. The B4 zone acknowledges this larger regional commercial market in the area, and provides a larger range of commercial and residential services that are able to be implemented in property in that reason forward you can see here a couple of the bills extracted from the plan speaking about economic and job opportunities economic prosperity and so forth. So again in summary we consider both of these or both of the zones to be supported by different sections of the comprehensive plan but acknowledge that the rezoning or the proposed resort the zoning that 's before the lawn right now you know just the strong relationship to that highway network and the larger market that it supports as well as i guess in west robert just to wrap up here we need the applicant held the neighborhood meeting see your attendees on march 2nd and we proceed thank [9:25] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): you. Thank you, Brown. Appreciate your comments. What were the apps? Good afternoon. [9:31] Brennan Barry (Attorney for Applicant): Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Brennan Barry from Marcus Clegg, an attorney for the applicant. As Roland mentioned, we're here to propose the change from TOD 2 to Zone B4 for 1220 Brighton Avenue. Taking your input from the workshop that we had last time in April, focusing more on consistency of the plan, And I think it makes sense for 1220 right now to be zoned B4, because it really does part on the continuing economic prosperity of the city. This parcel is not economically developable for numerous reasons that I mentioned before. Before, just to summarize, I mean it's it's contaminated and we but it's a very small parcel as well, and to do the dimensional aspects with the original side of the parcel make it very difficult. Then also the biggest factor is likely the soil composition, which really prevents it from being developed into a multi-story building, which is required by TOG2. I know many of you mentioned before some financials for Ghetto 37. And roughly based on what we've been seeing in Westbrook that has similar soil compositions in Rockville right next door, there have been some 24,000 square foot properties that have been developed at 895 dollars square foot, which is substantially more than typical 250 to 275 square foot development of similar structures but on foundation that earth soil that would be able to support a regular foundation. So again the economics to make story building not make a lot sense for anybody to come and do that again. So go back to the plan, if we were to try to develop part of the property into that zone, it would not be economic, so it would make more economic sense, which does not help increase the tax base, it does not help increase the point of interest. Rezoning allows the property to be developed in an economically useful manner, which would promote and enhance the tax base and the employment base within the city. Another part about the plan, and it's kind of a subsection of the economics or supporting the economic prosperity of the city, is to say that sometimes you have to change with the trend, the trends that are going on in life. And so in context, the plan was adopted in 2017, which was prior to the pandemic, which changed everything in the commercial world, real estate, because that transformed all of our lives. We're on a hybrid zoom right now, which wasn't necessarily a thing before 2020, and a lot of work went remote. So the commercial office space market has diminished for us again. If we were to have to build a three-story building, because there is this economic excuse, environmental hazard on the property, we can't build it residential. There can't be homes or apartments there. So that means the second and third floor, you can really only be used for offices. No, second for retail, and there's not market, there's no market for the office space. And even still, with the number of numbers involved development, the rate for rents would be far above the part, right? So again, unlikely to find tenants. So being able to take that into consideration, shifting to the current market trends of seeing a lack of demand for commercial office space, allows, gives us the opportunity to say, okay, we can push this into Zone P4, which would allow for more broader adoption of different uses that are in demand right now. So I think it does make a lot of sense to the pre-zone of zone B4, and it still is very consistent to the plan. I think it's important to use zone B2, especially for the reasons that I'm saying now. I'll say also that, you know, another big part of the plan is to redevelop ground fields, and this parcel has hazardous materials in the soil, like the front pass, as the city sand pit, and again, whether it gets mediated or not, the main DEP will not allow for the units on the brownfield site. So again, that goes back to, we can remediate, keep a new TOE2, but then we still have to try to worry about structural foundation. We have to worry about putting tenants in the second and third floor spaces, which again is not feasible. I'll take that all that in consideration, it would make more economic sense to be vacant and not make the economic prospering continuance. And so then it would be a vacant ground, which are two very inconsistent uses of the property when compared to copy it. And I think this planning board did mention that, or plan to have this zone before for the recode, and the recode that this was changed to TOD2 as a floor amendment in the last public hearing as the council. And there wasn't a whole lot of rationale out given, but at the time there was a few statements made, and they wanted to make, I think it was Counselor Sites who mentioned that they wanted this property to be more consistent with Westbrook, their next neighboring next door Rock Road development. Different discussion about whether it makes sense that we should be comparing between the two cities, but still, to make it more consistent with Westbrook, that Phase 1 in Westbrook Rock Road development, the zoning is a contract zone, but it is more akin to Zone B4 than it is to T&B. Right next door, there's a Starbucks with a drive-thru. There's Chick-fil-A with a double ladder. They are all single-story buildings, and they're all residential, or they're all resale, I should say. They're not residential in that side of the Brooklyn as Rowan alluded to as well. I mean the 1220 Brighton Avenue is at the perfect intersection of Riverside and Main Street, which then turns right after, and those are two very large arteries of traffic flow into the city. So that's people coming from Westbrook and Sandish Forum come down through Main Street and Westbrook get into their jobs in the city, as well as from other people who might be traveling the interstate to get into the city, whether work or vacation or what happened. If they were to do that, they're going to be traveling right past all right after, and it kind of leads the gateway to the city, which allows for people to say hey there's these great spots right off the interstate Portland instead. If it's if it's kept as TOD2, they won't be able to have that opportunity to have a nice clean easy spot to go to off the highway or in the on their way into the city in Portland. They would have to go to that much so I think it makes for all these reasons it makes a lot of sense to have this and much more sense to have TOD2 excuse me 1220 Brighton Avenue rezoned TOD2 Zone B thank [18:13] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): you Kelsey preliminary questions from board we can open it up for public comments we'll start in the room thanks [18:34] Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): For being here, I wanted to share Dreamy 99 9 Feb Street. Thank you, Chair and Board. I think it's sort of sad that we're changing, considering changing, and the staff is recommending changing this zone. And I think the City Council had a vision about what this area can be. Not what it is, not what people driving off the highway today can access, but what it should be and will be if our vision is realized. And I hope the planning board will consider the council's policy decision that this area should be a Todd zone, that it should be mixed use, and that we shouldn't just continue the same auto-centric development pattern, Chick-fil-A, Panera across the street, etc., Starbucks, with drive-thrus. You can have all those uses on the first floor and something else about it and I think it's I hope that it's not sort of the beginning of the end of the top two because I feel like this is just going to be the first of many requests I can't think of many urban sites that don't have environmental issues that always require a little more to develop and we have to rise to the occasion and make that development happen we have to stay final delegation so I hope that you'll decide otherwise general Staff recommendation thank you [19:57] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): Thank you for being here if you don't see anybody else in the room if somebody else around the corner they're welcome in anybody online just that raise hand feature at the bottom of your screen you are on the phone and you would like to speak you would need to press star 9 and also identify yourself just leave it open for one more minute this is last chance to speak of the public portion and I will close the public portion so open for board members to ask [20:40] Speaker E (unidentified): Questions I guess I have a question for that I know Eric and I have asked the applicant for more a deeper explanation of the development cost and you sort of said at the moment that really doesn't factor into our decision making is that correct that's correct okay I just yeah [21:00] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): Thank you and then stack suggestion to rezone those four parcels three of them are owned by that same voter that he was on before? And does that happen? Like, how does that play out? [21:29] Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): I mean, we follow the noticing procedure to notice all four. We are not aware of any comments from that last owner or any ownership structure. So let's say the procedure has been followed, but we don't know. All right. [21:49] Speaker E (unidentified): I have another question, too. The applicant mentioned that when the city made this decision to amend the rezone document, wasn't that a public process? I know there were questions asked from the public in the workshop that the WECO notified public legal ads and workshops and public hearings and notifications. What was the process like with the city council? council was there the ability for applicants to make their argument or yeah I'd love to so [22:28] Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): yeah you don't know about notes but there are answers it was a public meeting with public law that I believe it was ahead of time yeah I think you should jump in on that yeah my [22:46] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): understanding is yes that it was it was discussed ahead of time that the proposal was received in advance of the actual meeting itself but it did complete the process sponsored by the state council for a number of things during the thank you other questions comments or memories and [23:17] Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): noticing that the personal behind the four parts that you're It's essentially unusable. [23:27] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): Is there a reason you would just change it [23:30] Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): to have everything on that side of the interstate all match? I can say that one. I think the intention was to select all the persons on that side of the door. And simply kind of add the access notification because of that, the presence of the portal and stuff. And we also acknowledge that the rock row project to the south that's I think there's a map in your report as well identifies the campus proposal to the south that's a little bit more, but [24:11] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): I think there's a line that because of the questions, David did you want to ask anything. I [24:29] Speaker F (unidentified): don't have any, I don't have any questions. No. Any [24:35] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): further questions? If not, then we could start with a motion. Well, [24:49] Speaker F (unidentified): I'll put on the table just for purposes of a motion that [25:12] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): David's very good at building suspense. [25:17] Speaker F (unidentified): Well, I guess, well, I don't want to usurp anyone else's responsibility here in reading this. What I was going to say is that just for discussion purposes, I think this is difficult because the city council in its wisdom less than two years ago rejected what was proposed as a recode zone and did something different. And, you know, it's just hard to say that what they did was inconsistent with a comprehensive plan and just essentially say they made a mistake. I mean, I tend to agree with the staff recommendation in terms of what's out there on the face of the earth. But there is an element of recode, which was trying to steer the ship in a certain direction. And that does take time. It's a very big ship. And I don't know. I'm glad that this will go back to the city council no matter what we do. And they look at it anew and they can decide whether they acted in haste, made a bad choice, or whether they want to stick with what they decided to do less than two years ago. So I'm kind of indifferent about it. I mean, but I [26:53] Speaker B (unidentified): agree with that, David. Yeah, kind of along those lines, I will say I feel like it's possible for the zoning of a parcel for multiple zones to be aligned with the comprehensive plan. There's a lot of goals in the comprehensive plan, so I don't, I appreciate the applicant in providing that additional document outline thinking how this change to a different zone, that zone does still advance some other goals of the comprehensive plan. So yeah, I don't know that we're saying that city council was wrong. I guess we're questioning their choice to change it, but I don't think we're saying that, you know, it doesn't meet the TOD2 comprehensive plan goals. It just also does meet the, potentially meet the goals of the V4, and the applicant has shown, I [27:51] Speaker E (unidentified): guess, if I understood you correct, correctly, David, it's ultimately the call of the city council, but I also respect the process of recode that we had nationally recognized consultants, we have a planning staff of professionals, they made this choice, and they did it in a very public way with notifications and workshops, and that was the product they came up with, and the city council elected to overrule them, which they can do in spite of our vote here tonight. But I agree with that previous process that we relied on professionals, we relied on the process, and that was the result. And if I were an applicant and my parcel had been changed as with the stroke of a pen by the city council, I would probably be in their same situation as well. [Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): So] I do support the recommendation of the staff when [28:55] Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): the city council made that change, did they have the knowledge about the soils underneath the land and maybe an inability, there's a, there's a philosophical view and then there's a pragmatic view, and if they weren't aware of the pragmatic issues, I agree with their philosophical view. [29:18] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): I think my understanding is they were looking at it back, so looking holistically at that entire stretch of Brighton Avenue and seeing an opportunity to have some, you know, synergy energy between what was happening at Rock Row, you know, carry on 18. I don't think they were. I think if we're looking at both before and the 2d2 as meeting the company, then what is the reason to result? It is that it's economically unpeaceful to develop a duty too, but if we're not, if we're supposed to accept like, you know, separate in our brains the economic feasibility from the rezone and like bidding it under only the rezone, it's like, yes, no, you shouldn't use that. So like, but then if we bring in the economic and feasibility and soil stuff like that, then how much more time to favor the rezone? But you know, if that's not our role, then [30:17] Speaker B (unidentified): do you guess what I'm saying? It's like, yeah, I think it could be considered under the economic because they're one of the goals of the talk, sure, is economic prosperity. Is there for that would lead to that, not just in a couple of. [30:30] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's the, if you're trying to, among the different aspects of the comp plan is going to promote economic prosperity, purge the productive use of land. And so we kind of get there indirectly. I mean, if you have a piece of land that's been empty for 20 years and been offered for sale under these zoning and it's not working, I mean, arguably, you could say it isn't promoting the economic prosperity because it's not attracting any development, especially when you have it in a zone which is intended to be developed, not a resource protection zone or something like that. The question I had real quickly, when this lot was conveyed after the recode was adopted, but was there a subdivision that approved? I mean, there was one owner of the three, what are now three parcels, and they carved off and did one development, reserved an existing development, then created the, this is kind of the remainder parcel that was burdened more with the brownfield situation than the other parcels. which so I was just kind of curious on the timing of when the third, what I call this parcel, the parcel at issue, when was it created [31:58] Brennan Barry (Attorney for Applicant): Yeah, I believe, excuse me, I believe the parcel in theory was always created separately because this is where the venue was all those years ago, so it was under single ownership, but it was still somewhat separated from the remaining parcels. It wasn't conveyed out to its current owner and entity until, I believe, it was January of 24, but it was owned by the same owner through one or more entities. [32:29] Speaker F (unidentified): So did this not go through subdivision review because the conveyances were, because of the five-year period, you had a split and waited five years, whatever that timeframe is, and then did another subparcel, even though there was a broader development plan in the air, so to speak, but the actual parcel divisions didn't trigger subdivision review? [32:55] Brennan Barry (Attorney for Applicant): I wasn't with this parcel for as long as Cam has been, so he should be able to tell a little bit more about that history. [33:05] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): Cam, you can consider that a question before. Board so [33:10] Unidentified speaker (Applicant Representative): The original parcel that we are talking, it was a larger Portland Hotel on both side of it was a regular common parcel, and what's sitting on this was the Denny's, it was a Denny's lease that was sitting on, and that property line existed since day one that we bought this parcel. So when the opportunity came to, you know, keep everything separate, because that's what my intent was to keep the Asperdental separate, the hotel separate, and this parcel separate. Separate, so it was, you're correct, it was that we didn't win anywhere because it was allowed under the city owners to draw the line and separate out that parcel, okay. [34:09] Unidentified speaker (Staff Planner): Thank [34:11] Speaker F (unidentified): you, thank you. [34:17] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): Just in general, I feel like the TV zone is important and was supposed to for some housing development. I think this is not something that's so focused on, but I feel like if there's a way, and I don't understand the process here really, but like if there's a way to have, you know, say we support staff's recommendation because of those four parcels, kick it back to City Council, I would like that to come with like some recommendation to look at the Red Road in right loop and maybe rezone the like that. intersection to follow the rest of the tod districts where it's a whole intersection with all quarters of the intersection versus just southern half of right now all these instances because i think i hear the point of not wanting to set a precedent of rezoning from tod to b4 to make it easier to develop them to make it not to make it easier or less expensive to develop, but I feel like it should be paired with maybe just trying to make that, if we're going to focus on that area, and that's part of the state council, make an opportunity in the real place. I do want to acknowledge there is a handout, but the public portion came and went, so not ignoring you, but we'll close the public portion. Do [35:56] Speaker B (unidentified): we want to try a motion? Okay. I will make a motion on the basis of materials submitted by the applicant, the City of Portland Land Use Code, Portland's Comprehensive Plan, public comment, and the information provided in the public hearing on May 26, 2026 for the application CN-003527-2026 and or other findings. The Planning Board finds that the proposed zoning amendment is consistent with the comprehensive plan for the City of Portland. Therefore, the Planning Board recommends City Council adoption of the zoning map amendment as shown in the map below to rezone parcels 265A009002, which is 1220 Brighton Ave, 265A001001, which is 1210 Brighton Ave, 265A-008-001-1200 Brighton Ave and 265A-007-001-1188 Brighton Ave to the B4 zone. [36:59] Unidentified speaker (Chair/Presiding Officer): Motion? Is there a second? A second. A motion and a second and I'll just point out the written version. it's supposed to be 12 so yeah further discussion with your role yes austin smith yes david silk yes nicholas messina yes eric pin yes dulcie robertson yes and joseph yes thanks everybody that is the end of our business this. Thank you, councillor. Thank you very much.