Mount Desert Comp Plan Committee Settles on Four Growth Areas

[0:00] Speaker A (unidentified): I'm boarding in progress. [0:04] Speaker B (unidentified): Seeing no public, we can move along to project look ahead. Yes. [0:11] Committee chair/presiding officer: Wanted to spend a little bit of time looking ahead toward the eventual end of this lovely journey that we've all been on together. And we are still shooting for town meeting this coming year. So I just sent Claire an email today just to confirm like what some of the deadlines are prior to that. But I think our big part of our process really needs to be done by January at the latest because that gives us time and even earlier ideally. But I would say earlier, we want to actually have some input from the board and then send a draft to the state and give them some time to review it while things are sorting out for the for the town meeting. [1:04] Speaker D (unidentified): Christmas and New Year's Eve are on Thursday, so we're available plenty of time. [1:10] Committee chair/presiding officer: The next big step, so what we're going to be going through tonight is sort of building on the future land use discussion that we had at the last meeting. We've done quite a bit of stuff on that, just to go over tonight in terms of like growth areas and whatnot. And then looking ahead toward November to have a public meeting and we have the neighborhood House is available on November 5th or 12th. So we're just gonna like pick a day unless either of those days seem totally, you can sit here, totally if there's [1:45] Speaker E (unidentified): something going on either November 5th or 12th. The 5th I think will be a day or two after the election so it might be a tough time to get a lot of people out. [1:52] Committee chair/presiding officer: Yeah let's just try to settle on the 12th and then we're gonna be working on you know the format of that event but we have a lot to go over so it could be a combination of some presentation style stuff and then more like a kind of kind of like a science fair e to kind of think where you know you're all gonna have to help make sure that you're hoping to describe and explain some of the things that we've we've talked to so we've got to work on the format of that a little bit and then maybe we do some sort of other presentation as it relates to future land use and whatnot this is for that by the way if you get confused so i get confused got it don't use that for that okay anyways so we're gonna work on that so pencil in the 12th and then we're actually currently already going back through all the inventory chapters that we went through, and making sure that those are all corrected, and starting some of the formatting for the final product. And we've connected with the Climate to Thrive, and they've worked on updating. They've been working on summarizing this vulnerability assessment that GMRI did for US Gulf of Maine Research Institute, did for the town, I don't know, over a year ago, a little over a year ago, I think. Are you guys familiar with that? Yeah, it's really long. Yeah, we may have it linked somewhere, and I think the town does too, but it's like nine, it's like a hundred pages. And so Climate tries been doing a good job of just like trying to be succinct in their summary of what that 100 pages says. So what we're doing is taking some of what they've done and trying to figure out how that applies to particularly the goals [3:44] Speaker F (unidentified): and strategies in the comp plan, so we're working on that. Are they going to be able to, someone from [3:50] Speaker G (unidentified): that group going to be able to come to the meeting on the 12th, the presence? Yeah, also, yeah, we've [3:56] Committee chair/presiding officer: actually been talking with them for a while about like how do we figure out how to do stuff together so that everybody's not trying to do comp plan or public meetings at the same time, so yeah, because that would be helpful. Yeah, but we'll, what we're going to do is take that, their stuff though, and integrate it in a, in the comp plan, our lands if you like them, the formatting, so that's where that's at. Yep, we're going back through and make sure that we made all the edits to the goals and strategy sections, so as we're finishing this up, we got a wrap, we got to go, we're going to go back through, not to the same degree that we did before, but just to make sure we're all on the same page. And then I think there's some time to be spent on implementation, which is a, usually where compliance, we spent this whole time together and now we have to talk about how we're actually going to do it, what's the strategy we're actually like following through. So yeah, so tonight what we're going to do is dig back into the future land use plan. I think Suzanne's point some stuff up for that, and I think it's really just sort of digging into the stuff that we, so it's just be a good opportunity how a portion of that plan is going to look in the way that we talked about last time, and then to really talk about each of these, we'll call them growth areas for now, although that probably isn't all of them, and then we'll go from there. That work? Yep, great, want me to keep, should we talk about bears, can we talk some more about bears? I'm kind of used up on that talking about bears. [5:51] Speaker H (unidentified): Their breath area? Oh, we are there. It's wherever they want. Yes. Where are they? [5:59] Shoshana: Did in the tenement dessert? I know in Bergherberg, everywhere, all over Norway, drive that area. Yeah. [6:06] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, they've found one particular spot that they've decided they really like. [6:10] Speaker F (unidentified): Oh, which dumpster? Which dumpster? The town garage, the biggest one. Yes. Yeah. [6:21] Speaker D (unidentified): What's that? They haven't gotten them in southwestern. I don't care. I've never heard [6:24] Committee chair/presiding officer: of them making it over that way. It's their problem. I mean, but yeah, it's so weird too, because that's like the prettiest landfill slash transfer station around. It's like so adjacent to such a large area [6:35] Speaker F (unidentified): of undevelopment. Yeah, it's a matter of time, and it's all out in the open, I guess. Do you want [6:42] Speaker E (unidentified): to get certainly open? They don't know. Yeah, whatever we're hearing. So my theory is that the dumpsters, because they're very sort of out in the open, right? They don't need to be out in the open. Yeah. If the dumpsters were up against the woods, they'd be happier. Yeah. [7:00] Speaker D (unidentified): Everybody see this? [7:01] Shoshana: Can I share my screen with Shoshana? Shoshana, I just emailed you something, too, that I'm going to pass out to everybody. And I don't know what you can see in terms of the room. [7:19] Speaker D (unidentified): I can't see the display behind you, really, practically, if that's what you're asking. [7:25] Shoshana: Yeah. I'm wondering if I share drive sharing permission. Great. Okay. Let me attempt to share this. So, we're really looking at two things this evening. One is this map, which I'm going to bring up on the screen as well. Which really hasn't changed since we looked at it last and kind of went over this idea. And then another is a document, and so there's 10 copies. There, so the future land use section, as, you know. And it's an overview of what future land use. Planning is in the comprehensive plan context. And then it outlines like, here's what a future land use plan is and is not. It provides a description of that the state asks you to include like a critical natural resources area map and then your future land use map. And then it's really kind of up to you about how you describe what these different areas mean. Meeting so we went ahead and looked at all of the conversations we've had about sort of this idea, and I know this map doesn't include the current plans existing boundaries, but I can draw them more or less on here while we talk about it. So we looked at all of the discussion we had at the very beginning when we started very first started talking about policies. We went through an exercise where we were like let's go village by village and think about the characteristics, you know, what are the opportunities, and we made a list together as a group. So we looked at that, we looked at the report that we made for the village planning workshop that took place quite a while ago now, three years ago, four years ago, because they were we did Sale Harbor, Solmesville, and Otter Creek, and there is great material in there as well from the participants kind of talking about similar things, you know, like what are your big concerns, what are your hopes for the future, and yeah, so we kind of put that all together into this document as a way to try and illustrate and organize these thoughts in a kind of a consistent manner. So what we're hoping to do tonight is more or less bless at this stage this map, and if it's not done it's not done, you know, we'll keep thinkering with it, but really get to a point where you feel good about having what the map is, and that's not to say that this is set in stone. It's like that's what we're going to discuss, and then look at this document together and think about you know, are we describing these areas correctly, are we capturing what some of the highest priority issues are, and then I have a couple other more sort of like nuance questions when we get into it. Does that make sense? Is what we hope to do? Okay, I think maybe we start with the map or start with the document, and you know, ideally we would have sent this, you know, last week. Yeah, I feel like start with [11:21] Speaker H (unidentified): the map because then we can get the visual and as we go through the document [11:24] Shoshana: them, yeah, okay, so the map, you know, we went over this at our last meeting what we attempted to do, the I'm gonna do like very crude, are you okay with me drawing on this also, our plotter ink is like messed up because these this is sort of meant to be an orange, yeah, oh great, okay, and this is meant to be orange here, let me pop that up just for visual. So I think when we last looked at it we were looking at like a trace paper version, but the blue lines on this are coming from the current existing plan And so, you know, we talked about like, let's get rid of Caroline Pryor's house. This area doesn't make sense anymore to be called out as like a growth area, and then I'm just gonna put this down. I think what we explained last time is that we kind of almost like shrunk the growth areas a little bit to say like, these places in red are meant to be that there's not currently like an explanation of the differences in color beyond the idea of like growth. We were using the phrase limited growth, and then the yellow area I think is like low growth or something like that. 's all those terms are like effort debate, right, but the idea is to say it doesn't really, what we heard you guys saying the meeting last sentence, it doesn't make sense to like necessarily lump in these areas, for example, into like the overall growth area, since they are a little bit more distinct, even though they're served by water and sewer, they're a little bit more distinct than the kind of core village area, and that's kind of like how we landed on it last time, but this is what this map looks like now. Again, like nothing is set in stone, it's up for debate. I think we would describe it as being fairly similar to the existing plans growth areas, if you will, with a little bit more of like a kind of contracting and concentrating on areas where it really makes more sense to designate them as growth. You want to add to that? No, I think [14:04] Committee chair/presiding officer: it's, yeah, we're, we're reflecting, you know, the old plan, but also distinguishing, you know, when the, like for here, for example, we spent some time talking about this, where the old plan is like this whole area is like a red, you know, kind of a growth area, but really trying to hone in on some of the actual distinctions between this and say over here, or really recognizing that, you know, Northeast Harbor, for example, is one big blob, but then there's some things that kind of [14:33] Shoshana: peel out of them, right, yeah, and so like starting up here, we thought, you know, before the old plan really called out this whole area as a growth area, but we felt like there's a difference from what we were hearing from our discussions between like this area north of Absent Creek and where Freshies is in this area here, so like in that page in the document it sort of talks about, describes those a little bit differently, like up here the idea is this could be a little bit more commercial, whereas like This is really meant to be more residential, and these are all like up for debate. We're just kind of explaining how we've outlined it here. So, and like in the old plan, it didn't include the town-owned piece of land, right? And so we put that in there as sort of all one kind of piece of that puzzle. Yep. [15:39] Committee chair/presiding officer: So I would only add that as we're going through the map, there's kind of like two questions, assumptions, assuming that this framework works for everybody, but, you know, the boundary, the shape, what's covered by a particular color needs to get thought about, and then as it relates to the thing that we just handed out, like we talked about last time, you know, we're going to spend some time, we're going to start to describe in words what things,, what the characteristics of these areas are, what planning considerations should be thought about in those areas, and that kind of stuff. So that's where this document and this relate. Yeah. And so again, recognizing that everybody's just getting this, I don't think tonight's objective is to really let's fine-tooth comb all the words, but there's certain things we need to make sure that we're capturing correctly, and then we can update it and send it back to everybody so we can like wrap it up next time and I think the nomenclature will [16:46] Speaker D (unidentified): be important because we have to respond to how the state's using those terms. So when we say lower growth area, we might actually not want to use that term. We might mean the same thing, but we might not want to use that term. They're going to trigger, yep, yes, yeah, statutory implications. [17:06] Committee chair/presiding officer: We actually talked about this a bunch in the office, thinking we may have to come up with different ways we describe these areas. I think it's useful to have a conversation with everyone here before we just go and decide what they're going to be. The other idea that we had was, as we're going through this, we might actually say, well, maybe we're just going to call this Somersville A for now. Now I just call it that and then we can just, we can designate potentially in that description that like for the purposes of the state growth management act, this is the town's growth area, or we can do something different. It just, I think it depends on the outcome of, you know, conversations. [17:53] Speaker F (unidentified): Does it matter if it's a growth for either strictly residential or mixed use? Not really. [17:59] Shoshana: Is that okay, not like according to the state, but in your plan, how you want to describe it, you know, matters. And so if we go to this page, for example, you know, we're not going to go word for word through it, but if you go to page four, it talks about that north of Bathison Creek Bridge, and maybe there's a better way to describe it. So until a, the idea there, right now the way it's like outlined, it says this is kind of envisioned as a growth area with mixed-use commercial and residential, the public infrastructure there is sewer, and then there's a couple of paragraphs about sort of the vision for that area, that you know, it is a place that is has commercial within the town, that regardless of what happens, like it should continue to be like improved from a of walkability perspective and safety, and then that each of these sections has like a distinct qualities part where it's like this is what kind of makes that place unique within the tone, that's worth noting, and then this particular one is divided into sort of high level strategies and opportunities and other potential actions. None of this language is like regulatory, right, these aren't the strategies in your policy section, they're just id another place to capture ideas, and they echo what is already in the policy section as well, and we give we talk about this [19:38] Speaker D (unidentified): area and say, well, you know what would happen if we got water, how is this area going to get water without the whole area, without the whole thing getting water? I mean, this is at the far end of town, there's no ponds between here [19:57] Shoshana: and yeah, I think this is sort of vision level thinking, in a sense of like, you don't have to know the answer to that question to ask the question, and I'm [20:12] Speaker D (unidentified): a little wary, I mean, we had this whole thing with the muslim for the phone board to do with asked to hear what they wanted to do, and they told us that they're they had a water well test that said 100 gallons a minute, they had a massive well or some phenomenal number, and then it turns out and we approve it, then it turns out oh they can't actually use that, they're going to have to draw all off the town. And we were, like, stuck at home. [20:44] Speaker E (unidentified): But they're not hooked into the desert water industry. But, okay. Okay. [20:53] Shoshana: I guess, like, this is a lot to digest. I think what we're trying to get a sense of from you all is, like, big picture, you know, what do you think about the way this is structured, first of all, where it's like kind of there's a page for each of these color block areas on the map. Do you think that makes sense? Yes. Do you think the, like, sections within the page makes sense? And then we can certainly debate the, like, terminology because it really does matter, right? So that's one part of it. And then, like, are there the map, I know we talked about this last time, but the, and the plotter ink is bad, so apologies for the colors. The idea was to create, like, fuzzy edges, right, and not put the parcels on it per se, because that's where I think you get into some trouble, and that if we go back to the very first page, just kidding, the third page, it says the future land use map is not a zoning map, right? Yeah. And so it's kind of like that first kind of pass at getting to that eventually, though the idea is to make it not look like a zoning map, and obviously zoning maps, you know, tend to follow parcel lines. There are people comparable with that, I mean. [Speaker F (unidentified): Fuzziness being intentional.] Yeah. The fuzziness being intentional. Yeah. It's really meant to be like, this is sort of like our, you know, big picture. Zeigestalt. Conceptual. Yeah. Exactly. I like the format. Okay. Great. [22:40] Speaker D (unidentified): Just to make a note, Hogwarts is a quieter residential neighborhood where people can know their neighbors and walk safely. I think every place in town ought to be a place where people can know their neighbors [22:49] Shoshana: and walk safely. Great. We can repeat that. [22:51] Speaker H (unidentified): I wouldn't necessarily say you can walk safely. Yeah. [22:54] Shoshana: I think that's under the provision for, like, what it is. That's the goal. That's the vision. [22:59] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah. I think it's just, it's changed the way every other street has changed. [23:05] Shoshana: I haven't really been back there. I've been to the campground to visit a friend who was camping there once. That's it. Like, what is it like to walk around there? It looks like a two-lane road that people probably drive too fast on. [23:19] Speaker H (unidentified): Yep. And there's more traffic, obviously. And then, you know, there's the turns and the bends and, you know. And the deer. Yeah, the stinking deer. The Hall-Corey deer are a special one. Do people walk? Yeah, I mean, Stephanie walks, I'll walk. But usually I'll head up to Grants Hill and then I'll just do all sorts of loops if I'm staying in Hall-Corey to walk. [23:42] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah. Okay. Yeah. [23:45] Shoshana: Yeah. But I mean, I think that there's no shoulders. Yeah. I think it's hard because it's striking this balance between what we'd love to see and what's realistic. And we don't ever want to get too in the what's realistic hole, because then we can't push ourselves maybe in a better direction. [24:03] Committee chair/presiding officer: So before we get all over the place, maybe I make a suggestion that we either just go around and think about this at the same time. Yeah. [24:14] Shoshana: Yeah, so that's where we start. Well, let's just start with the person that red blob. So that you know we made the decision to like differentiate instead of it all being orange like at first. I think we had it all orange because we were like, well, there's only two were there. But these places have water and sewer. But then we're like, it's really worth differentiating out that little section as having a different potential than say the kind of historic main street area [24:42] Speaker F (unidentified): area. So that's that one in this area. This red area would it include that potential residential area up above the street level? Yeah, so I mean full disclosure, like we've [24:57] Shoshana: just turned the look with the parcels underneath the blobs or whatever. But yeah, it's meant [25:02] Speaker F (unidentified): it's not just the main street area but to fund that is residential as well. But the idea [25:07] Shoshana: My idea, too, is that, like, let's say, you know, you're like, this is great. Eat the select board passes in and passes at the state and you T up zoning changes. It leaves you the flexibility, right? Because those parcels aren't on there to have that discussion in a different context zoning. [25:29] Speaker G (unidentified): Revision process. Okay. [25:33] Speaker D (unidentified): What's the rationale behind having areas around Northeast Harbor that have water and sewer, but get exempted from the expectation that there's going to be greater growth? [25:46] Shoshana: Yeah, that's a great question. I have a lot of, like in going through this, sort of firming up all these things. [25:54] Speaker F (unidentified): I think we know what this represents. [25:55] Shoshana: What do you guys think about the yellow? Like the whole course was yellow too. Do you think it makes sense to and I know we're not talking about so Harbor yet, but like to have those we separated out and, you know, if so, why, and if not, why? Because I know the water and sewer lines aren't on here, but like they're also they have public infrastructure. I guess part of my question is like as people who live here and know the feeling and sort of the, you know, way those places feel and operate, does it make sense to separate them out from the red or [26:40] Speaker D (unidentified): Do you think these should be red? I think we have to, we have to justify a policy that creates economic separation. That's what it is, it's, it's, it's wealth and economic separation. It's not based upon actual infrastructure, which is what the rest of it is. And so we have to be able to justify that as a public policy, and I have a hard time with that. Well, but most of those areas are [27:05] Speaker F (unidentified): also Shoreland, and they have different rules than other residential areas, and there's a lot of drop-offs to the water in a lot of these areas too, so it, they might not be right for development. [27:20] Speaker E (unidentified): I would tend to agree with that looking, especially on the northeast, yeah, Anseal Harbor. All of those are areas where it's a lot of slope. It would be a pretty tough place to really put too much, any of those spots. Certainly heading out Sargent Drive, that little section heading up towards the park, part of what you've got listed in there is actually a cemetery, so I didn't go in nowhere, and then yeah, definitely as you go to the opposite side of northeast, I mean, that's, that's pretty sheer drop off there, and then on the seal harbor side you're kind of outside of a town center, like that's, yeah, in terms of like these two, yeah, I mean, the one place where you could possibly argue is cooksey drive hill although again, that's all pure ledge up there, so. [28:15] Speaker D (unidentified): That only has seasonal water, I mean. What's that? [28:18] Speaker E (unidentified): That only has seasonal water. Seasonal water, you know, they can't get the water below ground, so. [28:21] Speaker F (unidentified): But that area, the yellow area to the left of the Seal Harbor Red, above the line, no, to the left, above the line, that area, why not include that as a potential? [28:33] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, I think that comes to, like, that's an area where you can, you're not gonna do anything because a number of people have stuff [28:40] Speaker J (unidentified): stuff they're going to sell it but yeah I guess like they might sacrifice again grandchildren [28:47] Speaker K (unidentified): you're saying that by defining the growth area you're making decisions on what people's land is worth effectively you're saying well you're you're a residential only I'm saying that what [29:00] Speaker D (unidentified): You're going to be potentially subjected in I grow in a red growth area, greater density by law, you know, zoning requirements and all that stuff is more, depends on how you look at it, could be giving you more economic opportunity, but it's also more challenging. And I then it is all the areas in yellow, orange that are also served by sewer and water, and yet they're going to be very gently developed. And I but if this is delineated this way and I other than the fact that it tends to be occupied by seasonal residences with great wealth as some of these toughers too, for sure. What's the justification for doing that? 's all right [29:56] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah. I think it's geography, landmass, what's there. Some, but I guess I'd want to know [30:06] Speaker D (unidentified): more specifically about that before. And I know we're not going parcel by parcel, but. [30:12] Speaker G (unidentified): But some of those areas also, it's year-round water. Right now, they don't have year-round water. And yes, everybody could have year-round water. All you need to do is blast, right? Right? No, I mean, well, the water supply, they, don't. Some of those places don't have year round water, but I thought that they have. I thought that's what we're talking about that. They have water and so above ground. So, but it's not year round. Yeah. [30:38] Speaker D (unidentified): All right, if that's the case, that's fine. It freezes up so it doesn't make it much good. I think that's critical if we can't provide the basic infrastructure, then. [30:49] Speaker E (unidentified): just a big wealth area anyway so the exception being sunsville a because i do think it's going to be tough to get water there yeah about a flip side though from a lot of other perspectives it's [31:00] Committee chair/presiding officer: a good spot to pick so i don't know if water and sewer has to be the driver between you deciding that this is a really this is an important area for mixed-use commercial development. And, you know, there's going to be some self-limiting factors to that and to the density of that, for sure. But all of the other factors combined point to a certain potential. Similarly, I don't think you need to be driven by the fact that water, seasonal or non-seasonal, is available in some of these areas and make that something that it doesn't need to be. Perhaps also just this sort of brainstorming on what you're thinking or where you're headed, Gail, or your comment is, you know, again, we didn't select any of these areas. Like, these were already growth areas from the old plan, and I think it probably had to do with the fact that there was infrastructure there and, yeah, whatnot. But, you know, you know, particularly the, some the Seal Harbor village area, if that was a location where the potential for setting the market aside side to want to do more different kinds of development, or encourage different kinds of things, or different uses, or year-round activities, like that's already there. And so if we set that up in this plan, you can also specify like there needs to be policies in place that actually make that happen, as opposed to the outcome which I think you're getting at, which is like if we're going to call this a growth area and all of a sudden it's going to have 5,000 square foot lot sizes and every, you know, wealthy person on Cooksy Drive is just going to build a bunch of [32:38] Speaker D (unidentified): you know, units that may or may not happen. Well, you can still hover in those streets based upon my experience, our experience as a planning board, when somebody came before the planning board with an attempt to sell off a parcel of their land to someone else, and the neighborhood thought, people in the adjacent properties thought maybe that meant they were going to develop some properties, and they showed up on Moss. Yeah, so check to it, you're right, you're not necessarily going to get folks in that area who are keen on, yep, having more neighbors, having more and more, many, particularly since again there's a great transformation taking place there from year [33:17] Committee chair/presiding officer: around. Yeah, and I'm probably because comment's gonna actually contribute to the thing that you're trying to avoid him, but you could actually say through this process, like, describe that area and describe it in a way that you want it to be or that you don't want it to be, so like we don't want this to be an area that's dominated by, you know, well, right now short-term rentals and blah. [33:41] Shoshana: Blah, the vision language on that page for Seal Harbor says a close-knit year-round neighborhood that is more affordable to the average household income, right, fewer short-term rentals or year-round families, improve sidewalks, solar, traffic speeds through the village and along Jordan Pound Road, etc., and like that. It's historically been regarded as a strong and supportive community, close-knit, they place, raised children, blah, yeah. So one of the high level strategy ideas there is housing policies that minimize the conversion year-round homes to lodging. That creates opportunities for people living there, but also for potential customers. [34:28] Speaker D (unidentified): I think you have to say the lodging is season one of them. Because a lot of what's going on there is not just people buying it to rent it, 's people buying it to own it as a second, third or whatever property. That's my perception. One may correct me on that. [34:45] Speaker A (unidentified): Someone knows more but so [34:50] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay, if I may be getting two in the weeds here, but a number of these places now, some of those one certainly in here, we're talking about traffic calming a lot and I have no idea what that means in practical reality as someone that lives on one or two and [35:06] Shoshana: something. Well, I think Otter Creek is a really good example because we've had conversations with [35:11] Speaker D (unidentified): just want to state about that. So like Obama said that I chucked firewood into things [35:15] Shoshana: As you drive through Otter Creek, the only like indications that you should slow down are limit signs, yeah. But like if you make physical changes to like the design of the road, yeah, which sounds really extreme, but give me things like, yeah, if like there were the width for example ball and you had a median, you know, landscaped median with like a welcome to Otter Creek sign and then you have like bump out, you know, there is there are crosswalks there, if you have like a bump out, you know, there's just like design you can use that slows people down because [35:52] Speaker D (unidentified): they're like, whoa, I'm going to hit that. I don't think you'd want speed bumps. I don't think that's [35:56] Shoshana: good for emergency vehicles. Well, and I don't think people who plow roads, oh yeah, New England, are pro, even though it happens in other states. Any speed bump we would ever do would have to be [36:08] Speaker E (unidentified): removable for the winters. Yeah,, yeah. But that's not to say we haven't been actively considering them in certain spots, but that they come with that particular cost. [36:17] Shoshana: We've been pushing our DOT person to like, do like, you know, agencies like that have more, they're able to be more nimble when you do it as a pilot, right? Like, what are things that you can do they're not permanent but they kind of create those conditions and you can test some of those design ideas out before you actually like go in and pour [36:40] Speaker D (unidentified): Concrete i mean i'd like to know how the volume has changed since however i'd like to have them be able to tell us how that state road is being used because my anecdotal impression is it's only gotten much busier i don't know you live even physically closer to it than i do yeah [36:57] Committee chair/presiding officer: So cars all night and early in the morning back to the in the weeds out of the weeds the weeds need to get out of the weeds so but it's a good to recognize in the areas that you're talking about yeah traffic is a concern and we're recommending thinking about in these areas methods to help mitigate that or calm that we don't have to figure out what that is that's a totally a totally different project there's problem but it's some it's what it says is we would support or actively engage with the State in terms of how we figure that out and how do we have the [37:33] Shoshana: Right time and what's nice about this again like these aren't your policy strategy statements and those sections but it's a way to pin those ideas to a specific place within the town whereas like in the transportation section, I mean, maybe it falls out like Otter Creek, but they're more generalized recommendations. Whereas like here you can say like, this is something that's particularly acute in this area. [38:02] Committee chair/presiding officer: So can we get back to the yellow question a little bit, cause you're sort of struggling with how to think about that, how to think about the yellow. I mean, these are like really just extensions of residential areas. [38:16] Shoshana: Areas yeah part of my thinking or question is like should they even be on the map at all and so again like there's no one exact way to do this right you do have to like indicate growth areas but they're there because they were part of the existing plans growth area on the existing plans future land use map but when we look at them this way do you think they weren't being described those pages in this document are shorter i think there's always unintended [38:51] Speaker K (unidentified): consequences when things are categorized unnecessarily and that this document is used for zoning decisions then it implies that whole quarry is never going to be anything other than a wine Community you know it just worries me because there was a boneyard there is a boneyard there yes yeah and it's saying there was a story there and you're like well no other commercial you can't no but MCM Electric is fine you know because they've been there you know it's like in the campground and the hairdresser why would we want to circle that in the map and say this is only residential even though this isn't zoning but we're basically writing that it's a residential neighborhood yeah you're like team that's why even highlight it at all so what [39:43] Shoshana: i hear you saying is like maybe it's better to just not have it on the map or should we right now it's on the map and it says residential comma limited commercial arts of the waterfront is there a benefit to you keeping it on and keeping it flexible or just taking it off [40:02] Speaker K (unidentified): can we just take it off like i would take everything if we're only required to define growth areas and we can pretty logically define our growth areas by what's currently serviced and what land is currently reasonable we can always have more growth areas or more growth other places without having to define it right so it seems like we're required to define something let's define what makes sense my only concern is your like the difference between seal harbor and otter creek like they get less density even though they are more dense than seal harbor currently they don't get that benefit if it is if you could look at it as a benefit of being like oh well i can divide my land into four units or whatever seal harbor can do it but you can't [40:55] Shoshana: so i'm like they're both these are both identified as growth areas this one's just [41:00] Speaker K (unidentified): red because there's water and sewer is it defined as a growth there i don't see it [41:04] Speaker F (unidentified): lower growth is what they're called lower so lower growth is an area like a village that should be considered for greater activity and growth but does not have water and sewer yeah and again [41:18] Shoshana: Again, all of these terms are like up for debate, right? [41:21] Speaker K (unidentified): Right, so it's not a state-defined term. [41:24] Shoshana: No, we thought there was a little bit of a difference here just because of there's only sewer. Right. Maybe like red,, red,, orange. [41:35] Speaker F (unidentified): Does Hall Quarry have sewer? [41:39] Committee chair/presiding officer: I think the risks, what we're gonna end up having to do is there's like all this white on the plan, end there's like park and then there's all this other white area on this map and you have to actually say something about that area because this plan is the foundation for your zoning so what we can do well what I'm getting at is you could take you know we could call everything white but we're going to describe like the remaining part of town that's not in one of these other colors is this and These are the kinds of you know could be a very broad description you know we anticipate primarily residential, but mixed zoning with commercial, blah,, blah. And it fits in with a variety of different lot sizes and whatever, but that's going to be the description of those areas. And Halkhori, I would say you're running the risk. That is an area where it seems to me is a more defined place. And if the description that we have in this draft doesn't meet what we're thinking about, [42:43] Shoshana: That's the whole reason we're supposed to be going through it I think it's it's really interesting to debate because like there is there are smaller lots there right in that sense and there's some limited commercial so it is a little bit distinct from you know pretty marsh for example or other areas yeah so you could argue we're still in hall quarry sorry yeah but I got around hall quarry [43:07] Speaker D (unidentified): Slash the yellows but we can have an inventory in the plan that talks about the different regions like selmsville and hawk quarry and whatever but not define them as a form of some form of hybrid growth or pretend you just define them and then we could talk about what their distinct characteristics are what's this distinct characteristic of the bartlett's landing area what's the distinct characteristic of you know the long pond section but that doesn't imply that we're going to do anything Unless we want to say the town ought to figure out how to put water [43:50] Shoshana: Through this yeah the reason to like put it on the map and define it in this chapter is to potentially tee up some kind of future zoning change or to justify it even if it's not in the [44:05] Speaker D (unidentified): Works right now but I don't think we need it on this map in order to do that or to maintain the [44:11] Committee chair/presiding officer: Zoning that's already there too. Well, you mean like VR1, VO2? Yeah, I mean, you know, like Beach Hill. Yeah, it's a large lot area. You know, we have a description of that. We already worked on that together, so that's our partially stuff that's going to be in the plan, but that's so sort of it's to help like think through. Yes, why is that a five acre lot area? [44:36] Speaker A (unidentified): Which is this before mostly the village residential? No, well, it's R1. There's leftovers, there's some R1, but there's R3s. Yeah, maybe try to come at this from a [44:48] Speaker E (unidentified): different angle. So when I look at this and we talk growth areas, I'm seeing sort of two key colors, call it, and then other colors that maybe we shouldn't really spend too much time on, like Sonesville Bee, Hall Quarry, the yellow areas in Northeast and Seal Harbor. Okay, that yellow, we all kind of know they're never really going to be great growth areas. We all know that there's a lot of limitations there. So maybe can we focus our energy on, and I think we're all pretty much in agreement, okay, Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor are red, period, full stop, right, there's no much debate there. Where I'm finding my brain going is Somesville A and Otter Creek, because we've got Somesville A in red even though it doesn't have water, and then we've got Otter Creek is orange because it doesn't have water even though it hits a lot of the characteristics of a growth area. So I'd love it if we talked about if we want to redefine why we're making those different colors or make them the same. Yeah, to me that's really because I feel like that sums up when Otter Creek are really where the rubber is going to hit the road here. We really look at the future of this town, it's not going to be that Hulk Quarry transforms into something completely different, but Otter Creek sounds valet, those are two areas, especially Otter Creek to be honest, I could see it looking very different in 20 years than it does today for [46:20] Shoshana: better or worse. So are you suggesting change this to red or change that to orange or one or the other or have that discussion one way or the other? You could have like, let's just pretend like we take away all the yellow and then this becomes red and then the only other color on the map is that the area that's orange because it is like a village but it's not like a commercial mixed-use. [46:48] Committee chair/presiding officer: Spillage in the same way, so to get to what Alex was asking too, is can maybe it's worth just putting on the flip chart what do we, what are the characteristics of the red, and then you can look at each of those areas. So the boundary seems to work, we can fudge around a little bit, but like what if, how did we, did how do we think about the red areas? Well certainly also of course, well yeah. [47:15] Speaker A (unidentified): They don't want to be the same though. [47:19] Shoshana: You can have them be similar colors, but describe them differently. [47:24] Committee chair/presiding officer: That's only that area. I think I come at it very similar to where I think you're heading, which is water and sewer, it's there or it isn't. But there's a lot of other things that go into this area. And then there's a lot of other things that are going to go into this area that make it potentially more viable as a village, or you have to, you're gonna have to go in and really think about those areas as how they develop as a village, because they're in locations that are going to drive that kind of change, and water and sewer are factors in that, but they're not the only factors, they don't. [48:05] Speaker D (unidentified): They're not the driver necessarily. I think, I think having a supply of water is a driver, period. But I mean, how do you not, how do you not have that be an essential component? But beyond all of that, in some spell a, what are we actually talking about in terms of available developable land? Do we have much between there and the, and the town line? I think there's like a handful of lots. [48:31] Speaker A (unidentified): You know, it doesn't have to be massive. Yes, it's a bunch of big lots back across. [48:36] Speaker E (unidentified): The street and some undeveloped potential commercial. Yes, currently a. [48:43] Speaker D (unidentified): Village commercial district. Yeah, then does that go the, just the fear go all the way, or village commercial go all the way to the town line? No, it. [48:52] Committee chair/presiding officer: Goes like, you know, it's just it's a blob in a bigger, it goes back farther. Yeah, that's another thing. If you were doing like a village plan, you might end up saying, well, we know that there's some protected resources on the other side of the one stop, we know that there's a one stop, you know, there's an intersection, we know there's some land that goes kind of up and back from there, but you don't, but maybe like at the end of the day that zoning shrinks down to be closer to the road, and then things. Develop around it in a different way, but that's it, that's a future village plan, this level of specificity. But I guess what I'm getting at is, to try to answer the question, like, so we can agree on this being red. We can agree on this being red, but do we need to make, so do we need to define what makes these red and see if they're all consistent? [49:47] Shoshana: I don't know that it has to be the same, though. [49:50] Committee chair/presiding officer: Oh, great. I guess what I'm getting at is, why wouldn't you? [49:52] Speaker D (unidentified): Think they maybe should be orange with the caveat that there are unmet infrastructure needs that have to be figured out, but that maybe is where the energy goes, the primary energy goes, as like you said at some meeting, like this is a, this is a roadmap for where the town should be looking to [50:08] Speaker K (unidentified): spend infrastructure research, so if it's the investment zone, say we're going to put effort and thought into these areas because they are already on main artery roads, they've got one of two services to them. [50:25] Speaker F (unidentified): Probably two of three. Power. [50:28] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, it's kind of down to your power, right? Right. Private, so. Yeah. But as far as what we're responsible for, sewer and water. [50:38] Speaker G (unidentified): Interesting, both of those communities have cell phone towers. Just putting it out there. [50:42] Speaker A (unidentified): Lots of cell phone towers. [50:47] Shoshana: I don't even notice the one in Otter Creek books, just notice it when it works, my phone works, so [50:54] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, that to me, I really want to keep coming back to why are we categorizing Somesville A and Otter Creek differently? [51:04] Shoshana: Yeah, I don't think you have to. No, I think that Otter Creek could be red. Well, [51:12] Speaker A (unidentified): you could also do that and watch them go to war with each other on that doesn't mean that they way they could [51:17] Speaker F (unidentified): potentially change and be identical. No, at all. I mean, I think they've got to be, I think, I think [51:23] Speaker D (unidentified): they've got to be, I don't get half of the colors, but I think they've got to be orange because there's some hopefully trending to red if the town puts some, put some resources into them and gets the infrastructure that's needed to make them be able to accomplish what you say you'd like [51:38] Speaker K (unidentified): to accomplish. So this is future land use, so we could say future, we want that to be a growth area. [51:44] Speaker H (unidentified): So yeah, market right now. Yeah, that's what it, that's what the map is, it's like future. Yeah. [51:50] Speaker K (unidentified): That's the one. In that case, it makes sense to say, well, yeah, Otter Creek and Salonsville A should remain growth areas and hopefully that changes zoning and infrastructure investment, basically [52:05] Shoshana: basically allows you to go through a process to make zoning changes in those areas to set the table for that potential. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, and if we, so no, you were [52:17] Speaker K (unidentified): Saying if the rest of the map was just white, yep, the potential for rezoning either for more density or less density could happen. And so it would be beneficial to define the neighborhoods that are already dense so that it never gets zoned for five acre lots. Like would that be a thing that could happen? I gotta be all lots are now non-conforming, you know, your grandfather's [52:49] Committee chair/presiding officer: I think that's just the sale, that's the more likely scenario is what we, you know, what we're seeing. You know, I'll use Beach Hill Road again, but like that area is supposed to be more the way we've described it, 's supposed to be more of a rural feel, more farming, more open. And somebody could come in and say I want to do a really dense subdivision and I'm going to somehow, they've miraculously figured out how to get, you know, the engineering to work so that the sewer and water is completely supporting of all that and there's nothing in the comp plan that says here's what that area really should be. And then you're going to get into a, you know, so I think it's worth like at least having something in these white areas that sort of describe the range of things, but I haven't quite figured that out. But I don't know if there's any reason, I think the focal point, you know, for like what Suzanne and we're talking about is like, yeah, adding those [53:50] Speaker D (unidentified): yellow areas like may not add that much value to what we're talking about. I think they're there [53:55] Shoshana: because we were like the starting point was the existing, yeah. But does it make sense, do we, maybe it's a cleaner, easier thing at the end of the day to have two colors instead of three? Okay [54:10] Speaker D (unidentified): but I, but I'm still going to make a pitch for the practicality of putting sounds delay and assumption will be as growth areas or maybe want to be growth areas unless, I mean, I think maybe in the next comprehensive plan I want to get the other stuff done first. Yeah, I don't even think [54:28] Committee chair/presiding officer: we need to get hung up on the term growth, so that's why I wanted to go through the description of each of these areas because that word we can change. But you could even, if we're going down the path of saying we're getting rid of yellow, yeah, you could have growth area, transitional area, and that's it, or limited, or limited growth, or whatever we want to call it. Well, what I'm going [54:48] Speaker D (unidentified): to do is define what's there now, and you're only calling it a growth area because it's already a bunch of houses. I don't, I don't kind of get that. I don't understand why. I mean, I would soon argue that a growth area ought to be pretty much because there's a lot of unused land there. I mean, I don't [55:04] Shoshana: understand the concept of you put that on your map and then say we are have a, you know, capital improvement plan that's going to extend infrastructure to Pretty Marsh, and we're going to have a big, you know, subdivision there. Like, that is something that towns [55:23] Speaker D (unidentified): do in this process. So if we want to do something that's doable, that may be doable in the next comprehensive plan cycle, why not just say we got two new targets here, if people in those communities agree to that, Somesville A and Otto Creek, and not say we'd like to do it here and here and here? Because you set yourself up for failure, you set yourself up for not actually being able to accomplish what you think you want to do if you've got too big, too many things on your [55:56] Speaker E (unidentified): like it would offer up though, that geography is not our friend in terms of expanding water and sewer in this island. I mean, oh yeah, it's, it's not, there's not a good answer for this. The places that have water have water because they happen to have water sources nearby, but adding on to that is [56:21] Speaker A (unidentified): tough because Park suggested the Sums Pond is not, it's too murky, is too [56:32] Speaker E (unidentified): shallow or something. Yeah, there's actually surprisingly a little water in [56:36] Speaker A (unidentified): that. I don't [56:39] Committee chair/presiding officer: I think that we're getting hung up on the word, and I think it's important to really think about this is an area, I think, because people resonate, it makes, I mean, it seems like it, and I could be wrong, misreading the room here, but like that area, just area, if you looked at, when you look at this blob, there's a lot of things going through your mind about what white, how that area is and what it could be in the future without us even looking at anything, right, when you even when you think about some of this, and again, we're sort of building on the old plan, but that doesn't mean that all of the brown is a growth area. It could just mean that this is a area where there's a historic corridor and the village already exists, it's on a busy road, there's also already being residential expansion happening in this area and infrastructure happening in this area, right, didn't they bring out like a sewer line to the housing, so there's stuff happening here, there's historically been many things happening here. Which we want to describe and you know how quarry when you're in it and around it and you can think about and the reason why the yellow is even on there is because you know you're on Cooksy Drive with all that because you know it's there that we don't need to include that but I think that you're it doesn't mean that this is growth it just means you I think we need to describe that area and what is what is happening there and what do we think what are the characteristics and considerations that Should be in our minds in the future when somebody comes in and says hey we really ought to make this you know something that it's never [58:36] Speaker D (unidentified): Never going to be and I think we should find all the other areas in the town in one way or another I mean we should probably block why if we're just doing that if that's all it is an exercise then let's Define the area around Long Palm let's Define pretty much let's Define the area I mean [58:55] Shoshana: Typically we would have done another plans is like it's almost a little more binary where it's like the growth area and then it's like you know either rural residential or conserved and the areas outside of the growth are somewhat more uniformly similar in that way. [59:11] Speaker D (unidentified): So you can kind of do it, [59:13] Shoshana: It's like a catch-all description without outlining every non blank space blob. [59:21] Speaker D (unidentified): I mean, one thing about all the growth areas that you're looking at is basically you want more commercial activity mixed in with them. [59:28] Shoshana: They have the potential to accommodate that. Yeah. Yeah. [59:33] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah. You want them to be sort of the commercial pubs of, well, Sealth Harbour is not, well, Sealth Harbour does have a little main street, but. And Otter Creek. We had a letter from somebody at one point saying, hey, how come you're not setting things up so that Otter Creek can develop more types of businesses? [59:54] Shoshana: So I've written down, we should change this to red and maybe get rid of the yellows. [1:00:00] Speaker E (unidentified): Yes. That's the question I'm trying to pull us back through here. So let's, can I please, because this one's really big deal for me right now. Somersville A we've got as red right now. Otter Creek we've got as orange. Somersville A does not have water, but we've made it red. Otter Creek does not have water, but we've made it orange. I've heard it repeatedly said Otter Creek is orange because it doesn't have water. Right, so that's why I'm really struggling here, because I feel like I'm hearing two different things at the same time. I'm also a proponent of making Otter Creek red, but I just want to make sure we're all saying the same things here. Maybe make Otter Creek get to red. [1:00:45] Speaker H (unidentified): Well, I think that was part of part of that discussion was, you know, you can identify that some have water and sewer, they have sewer, but there's potential they have sewer, but there's [1:00:56] Speaker G (unidentified): potential, and so as Vince brought up, that to the town line, does sewer go in some spot [1:01:04] Speaker A (unidentified): in some zone? Yeah, he sounds like I wish I knew better. Yeah. [1:01:15] Speaker E (unidentified): I think I also don't think it'll be that hard to keep going though [1:01:19] Speaker D (unidentified): from where they are, right? It's just that little station that's right there by the [1:01:22] Speaker E (unidentified): that's the pump station is right there, but that pump station is actually taking sewer, oddly enough, from the other side of the bridge, because historically there's a lot of sewer on the other side of the bridge, believe it or not. So that's that's what's that's what that thing's really doing the work for. I guess I just keep coming back to when we really talk about this, looking forward, moving into the future, it's going to be all about the red areas, like that's going to be where the action is, and essentially that's what we're saying, right? We're not going to be talking about these other areas into the future, right? I don't see that as what's going to occur, so that's why I really want to focus in on like those areas, right? And that's why I'm [1:02:09] Speaker D (unidentified): saying we can take the colors off the other areas, we can we can describe them all we want in the in [1:02:14] Speaker E (unidentified): the plan. I guess I'm saying I don't think we should waste a lot of time on the other areas, but we're spending a lot of time on the other areas, right? Well, let's not do that, so take the [1:02:24] Shoshana: yellow off, including Paul Corey. I'm [1:02:32] Speaker A (unidentified): saying I don't care. Yeah, well, I'm just concerned [1:02:35] Speaker D (unidentified): about it for state purposes, right? That's that's it, all come to me, it all comes back to what are the zoning implications under state law, and we don't want to do anything inadvertent there, but [1:02:47] Speaker E (unidentified): is yellow going to do anything one way or the other? I don't know, it depends on how the state [1:02:51] Speaker H (unidentified): This is, I mean, if this is a future map for us and you do soon to lay Northeast, Seal Harbor, Otter Creek as red, which means you have water, sewer potential, some combination of those. If you keep like so, for example, a hall, yeah, get rid of your yellow, but like a hall quarry and anywhere else you might seem and have a yellow, which means potential, but that potential is something very different than your red potential. It's, you know, it's a zoning potential. Do you start changing the zoning there? So yes. There can be more housing, but granted they have to put in their own cell well and septic. Just a thought, maybe stick with two colors so you've got your growth areas that we've defined by red, but [1:03:43] Speaker E (unidentified): yeah, because to me, I guess it's the areas of reds are the areas that are really going to affect zoning maps. The areas that aren't red are probably not going to really affect zoning, particularly sort of what I was getting at. Yeah, I [1:03:55] Shoshana: think yes, and the way to think about it is like, are there zoning changes in those other areas that you need to tee up somehow? And if so, let's create a blob on a map and describe it, you know. But if not, if you, it's we sometimes think about it as like where there's potential for more change and where there's probably not really a lot of change going to happen. So like the growth areas are where there's potential, not guaranteed, but like for change to happen and [1:04:27] Speaker D (unidentified): I keep going back to the fact, yes, but we also have to say status. We need to make sure we're not doing inadvertent things with at this point in time, right, in terms of how they define growth and how they're going to tell you how you have to subdivide properties and tiny little pieces. It maybe you don't intend for that to happen in those areas. Yeah, so okay, [1:04:51] Shoshana: what if Otter Creek is red, the yellows are gone, and some will be as described somehow as like residential village or something that has no, like doesn't signify anything in terms of state [1:05:05] Speaker D (unidentified): statute, but it's a way to describe it as if you want it. That's fine. I just think I don't understand why you're not just describing all the parts of the town somehow, if that's what you think is important to do. It's pretty obvious it's a residential village, so [1:05:19] Committee chair/presiding officer: Yeah, I'm kind of, I don't think it's that obvious for people that are sitting around to think it is obvious. But there's, I just sometimes I think it's important in some way in a comp plan to describe those areas that you want to keep the way that they are, or that's what we're talking about in some of these areas. There's somebody in the future is going to look at Songsville and be like, hey, you know what, that would be great for this, and it's either going to be exactly what we think it should be or it's going to be completely the opposite. But in, I do, we've already experienced this a few times, like the comp plan is an important tool to help you justify certain things in your in your code, and we have to, we just have to be careful, that's all I'm saying. Okay, all right, so you can't just ignore it, but I don't think we need to over complicate it. [1:06:11] Speaker G (unidentified): Is Main Street Sonesville, you know, that strip, is that the only area in the town that has a natural historic district? Good question. I mean, that's it, that's important, right? [1:06:26] Speaker D (unidentified): You know, I used to be right in front of my house until I built mine. [1:06:33] Committee chair/presiding officer: But I don't think we need to over-climbing it, but. Agreed. [1:06:39] Speaker F (unidentified): Okay, so we're only going to have red areas. There's going to be four of them. Tholmesville A, Otter Creek, and the two existing northeast in Seal Harbor? [1:06:50] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah. Well, let's see what people in Otter Creek know. Yes. [1:06:58] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, I think whether Otter Creek is red or orange is really a super important question. [1:07:02] Committee chair/presiding officer: I think we just decided it's red. [1:07:06] Speaker A (unidentified): It's already written down. [1:07:09] Speaker E (unidentified): That one's going to come back on us. We're going to be answering questions about that one. [1:07:13] Speaker K (unidentified): I want to just revisit, if we have nothing else defined on this map, what's our forest story zoning debacle that we get into in the future? [1:07:29] Committee chair/presiding officer: The question could be, well, we didn't say something about this area, like there is village commercial, or we didn't say anything about this area being potential for housing, and you're asking for another zone change to change this land that the town wants to put for affordable housing to something that it's not. It's in conservation now, and we want to put it in residential too, or whatever, just thinking, I don't know, just coming up [1:07:54] Speaker D (unidentified): with scenarios. So I just want to point out that we have two different maps here. We have of, because we have yet Paul Quarry is on the map, the map is yellow, and Sumsville A and B is orange, as well as Otter Creek is, and so people aware that I'm paying attention. [1:08:11] Shoshana: To this color over that color, yeah. This plot, the plotter ink was all messed up. No, but it's like this is actually what you're proposing. That's the same as what's right here that [1:08:20] Speaker F (unidentified): we've been debating, so that would change, right? Yeah, and what you're saying is Sumsville B is different than Hull-Poirie on the map that we have in our hand. [1:08:31] Speaker D (unidentified): I'm asking, yeah, I'm asking, is that intentional? [1:08:33] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah. Yes. [1:08:35] Shoshana: This should be yellow, but it came out like brown. [1:08:39] Committee chair/presiding officer: I know, but it was intentional. Yes. [1:08:41] Speaker D (unidentified): So Solmesville, what does it mean? [1:08:44] Speaker F (unidentified): On this map, yes, Solmesville B and Otter Creek are the same. But we're now changing Otter Creek to match Solmesville A. [1:08:53] Shoshana: Yeah, I think it was because originally like, you know, we talked about all quarry had some distinct characteristics, development patterns. And so and so B has sewer and is more of a dense residential village area. [1:09:16] Speaker F (unidentified): But why is that a future growth area? I mean, if that's what we're shooting for, then we want Somersville A as a teacher growth area, not necessarily Somersville B. [1:09:26] Shoshana: I think in here, again, like all up for debate, right? In here, it was like the desired pattern is residential, gentle density. Like if there were additional development there, it would be sort of residential infill type things like an adu or you know maybe there's a well there is five acre lot and you know there is an area [1:09:58] Speaker F (unidentified): along oak hill road north of oakville road that had been subdivided, yeah. And I mean, that could be an area that could be extended. It's not commercial, it's residential. But you mean the praise meadow subdivision? No,. Before you get to Selms Pond, out Oak Hill Road, before you get to Selms Pond, on the right-hand side, there is an area there that has been subdivided. And I know people who are building in there now. But I think that there's more potential for more homes to go in there. I think it's still, you know, single-family residential. Right. But I mean, that, if you're talking about selmsville residential not main street as more growth but that is an area in selmsville that could be a bigger growth area i don't know that it has commercial or residential [1:10:53] Shoshana: Residential, that's why, that's the way it is now. Yeah, which is why it's orange. Yeah, so like page five, it just says lower growth, right? And maybe we don't even use that, right? I was saying to call it like residential village. That's the role it plays, and that any development going in there would be gentle density, which is like planner lingo, and it would just be infill, like, you know, not large subdivisions, although they're, they are taking larger relative right in here for IHT. The idea is like if there was change occurring there, it would just be like a few more houses where appropriate. Would you repeat that residential, will you say that phrase that you're proposing as a possibility? I don't know, sometimes places like that are turned differently in these plans, but I think you could call it something that wouldn't trigger like maybe something from the state statute, yes, but no matter what the state's like, you know, if you have a as one of the utilities, like I think it's a 20,000 square foot minimum lot size, which I believe is already the case there, so what's allowed, it's not like a dramatic change, I guess, just sort of describing that area like if change occurred there which is not inappropriate, like it would be residential. [1:12:27] Speaker D (unidentified): Where does do we can you tell me where the sewer goes and Main Street and some other than mainstream? [1:12:32] Shoshana: Yeah, I have, it goes up past, hard to see, Gale, because it's this line, but it goes up here to this property or these properties right up here. So here's the bridge. [1:12:46] Speaker E (unidentified): They're quite all the way to the top, but awfully close. [1:12:49] Shoshana: Yeah, I mean, assuming these lines are accurate. [1:12:51] Speaker D (unidentified): So it goes down to the center of Sonsville and then does it go up? [1:12:54] Speaker K (unidentified): Up Oak Hill Road? [1:12:56] Speaker G (unidentified): A long time. [1:12:58] Shoshana: Yeah, and now it's obviously been extended down. [1:13:01] Speaker F (unidentified): It goes to a degree up Oak Hill Road. [1:13:04] Speaker H (unidentified): It has to go up Parker Farm Road. [1:13:09] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah, well, maybe on some sides, not on our side. [1:13:12] Speaker F (unidentified): We're on the downside of the sewage treatment plant in Denningsbrook. [1:13:17] Speaker G (unidentified): Does it go to Denningsbrook? [1:13:19] Shoshana: Yeah, it comes down to Denningsbrook. Out here. They don't have similar like these people are [1:13:26] Speaker A (unidentified): not in Patterson Hill does either. No, that's all well on subject. [1:13:34] Speaker D (unidentified): And beach one beach crop beach Hill Crossroad [1:13:38] Committee chair/presiding officer: doesn't know. Was there a question like related to that? [1:13:44] Speaker D (unidentified): Well, yeah. Again, if we're talking about greater density, we, I think, I mean, I guess the point I'm trying to make is what is happening now. People are reporting that there's building, there's housing being built in these areas. It's already happening, right? So to have to think about designated as something that might change in the future or might, I mean, it's like, it's already happening. So why do we think about planning for something to be different? I guess, and I wanna know, I mean, again, and again, if you had sewer running up to those areas, you would obviously have the potential for smaller lot size under the state laws, and then you go back to water. That's all I'm asking. I just want to know where it actually went other than right down the strip on its way to the treatment plant down at the farm. [1:14:55] Committee chair/presiding officer: Does it make sense just to have a map that's just red? Yeah. And then would it make sense to have a map that's just basically like wherever Durland's neighborhood map was? It just sort of talks about the neighborhoods that we've, the villages. Yeah. Yeah. [1:15:14] Shoshana: But we're taking some of the off. Is that what you're saying? [1:15:19] Committee chair/presiding officer: I don't know. I mean, it seems like we're just getting hung up on the minutiae of like [1:15:22] Speaker E (unidentified): why. Yeah. We're spending a lot of time on yellow and orange and I'm not really sure [1:15:27] Speaker D (unidentified): why I'm not sure how to well then get us off what's that don't make them yellow and orange or make or designate the whole say something about all the sections of the town right I think [1:15:40] Speaker K (unidentified): we don't want to do that so we're just going to wipe it all white except for our growth areas [1:15:44] Speaker D (unidentified): that we have to define I mean we can have something in the document that talks about [1:15:49] Speaker K (unidentified): these areas right we have the village map separate as a separate document. And then we can all join the zoning committee to solve the problems we've created. Come on down! [1:16:05] Committee chair/presiding officer: I don't think that there's a lot of zoning problems. It's, you're putting something in a document that's the baseline, the foundation for your zones. Right. So we, [1:16:16] Speaker J (unidentified): it's... So we could define something there. I don't know how to... Define the rest of the town as ready for future changes I don't know I mean that's does everybody else feel that way [1:16:29] Speaker E (unidentified): No, I do not. I think we're spending way too much time talking about the yellow and orange. I think we could leave it alone. It wouldn't affect anything. I think we need to focus our attention on the red. I don't think the yellow and orange, whether they're on here or not, will make much of a difference for anything moving forward. However, excluding them quite simply will look kind of weird. So I think if we were to leave them in, it would have no discussion whatsoever moving forward, nor would it affect much of anything. I do think that the red areas are a big deal. That's going to be where all the action is going to be occurring. Yeah, I think that [1:17:08] Shoshana: makes sense. I'm leaning towards, I don't, I because I can't figure out another way to describe it, but like it makes sense to me just in having looked at so many different communities' future land use plans, that you would keep some soul in here, but like removing the yellows makes sense. [1:17:29] Committee chair/presiding officer: Can we go over the reds tonight? Great. Just make sure that we have started to think about them in the right way, and again, keep in mind we just put something on paper. I think this is what you [1:17:46] Shoshana: asked us to do. Yeah, and I mean it's not just a fully out of the blue, it comes from the discussion [1:17:50] Speaker F (unidentified): that we've had for like months and months and months. Yeah, so looking at Selmsville and let's [1:17:55] Shoshana: do it. Okay, right now it says growth area mixed use commercial and residential public infrastructure sewer. There's a couple blurbs about vision that there's, you know, potential there to support future economic growth. Acknowledging that there's already some traffic challenges there, traffic volume. [1:18:26] Speaker F (unidentified): I think that we should add in that you travel over 102, not only for Southwest Harbor and Fremont, but also for Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor. Yes. And Otter Creek. Everybody goes there. It's the hub. The center of the universe. [1:18:45] Speaker D (unidentified): Robert to give us Town Hill so we can work on that and make it our front door. Go for it. [1:18:55] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, be careful what you ask for. Well, they don't take care of it, you [1:19:03] Shoshana: should annex that. There's a lot of planning theorists talking about annexing. Yeah, I'm looking at that. It's very [1:19:12] Speaker K (unidentified): challenging. I'm joking but not joking. What makes sense that's both Otter Creek? We should have the [1:19:19] Shoshana: I don't know if there's a program about editing or you have a game or a note that you can use [1:19:26] Speaker F (unidentified): to back or back. So let's see you. I don't know if I have back or back on that one. [1:19:30] Shoshana: Are you going to take notes? Yep. Great. Okay. Yeah. So I don't know, I don't know that it's 6:30. I don't know if we want to like wordsmith this to death or whatever, but like we could go over some of the high level, like certainly read this. At home high level strategies and opportunities here, it's like review the existing zoning ordinance, ensure the village commercial and surrounding village residential zoning is located in appropriate areas. Basically just saying like this is putting this on the future land use map, we're saying suggesting that there be some kind of like code review there. Currently in the village commercial zone does extend back from 102. I just asked some questions, you know, do you want to change this, what's appropriate, their potential actions, you know, safe and efficient pedestrian connections to the retail bank, the post office area, the community school, is it what's the name of that building where the vet's office is and where factors things stuff? Yeah, okay, you know, and then what happens if you bring water? We can take that out. It's just so these are notes, you know, from our conversations, what improvements and safety measures need to be considered at this intersection? I know the bridge was just rebuilt, but I'm already like imagining all kinds of improvements you could make that should have been part of that project. [1:21:02] Speaker E (unidentified): Crosswalks just south of there came up earlier today actually, and some of the difficulties with them, and the fact that there's some spots, and this gets down and more into Somesville, but it's sort of a spider leg of this, which is yes, if Somesville A becomes possibly more of a commercial area, you'll definitely want to work on better pedestrian access, and what we call Somesville D, but it's all interrelated, that's going to need to change it, but I do, I struggle with the what happens if we bring water to this area, knowing the immense challenges that it would present, and where, I don't honestly know how we pull that off. Like it's not a, okay, there's a way, but we just haven't done it. I just truly don't know what it would be. I mean, that's my struggle there, and [1:21:56] Speaker D (unidentified): that's why, I mean, that little lot that's been for sale there across some freshness for a while, I mean, Kim told me at some point that somebody was fishing around to build a car wash there. [1:22:03] Speaker B (unidentified): I'm like, how's that gonna happen? That was several years ago. So in this plan do we need [1:22:11] Committee chair/presiding officer: to resolve the fact that we don't know exactly how water would get there, or do we just need to pose the question? [1:22:21] Speaker K (unidentified): Should we have questions? I mean, it could go either way. It's really [1:22:25] Shoshana: like this is going to be something that everyone's going to have open on their desk all the time as they're, you know, working and living their lives in the future, right? So it's really a reference document for you. So if you think that's worth putting in there for posterity, then I think [1:22:42] Speaker K (unidentified): it's a valid question. It just, it felt out of place in this. Yeah, like to have a question, right? Questioning your reader, should we bring water here? Yeah, other potential actions to consider [1:22:53] Speaker D (unidentified): supplying water, right? And more than the affirmative is interesting. Yeah, that's, yeah, this [1:22:59] Shoshana: just a stylistic change. [1:23:01] Speaker E (unidentified): I guess where I was struggling with it a little bit is by posing the question, it implies that it's reasonably possible to get water there. I think- And I'm not sure that it is. [1:23:14] Shoshana: Yeah, my advice to you is that this is high level and you never know what's possible or not possible. And it's worth just, you can rephrase it in a way, Okay, but it doesn't promise anything. I promise you that it does not promise anything that like the town is saying they're going [1:23:37] Committee chair/presiding officer: to. It would just be feasibility of bringing water to that area. Right. [1:23:42] Speaker K (unidentified): Right. We can consider feasibility and we can conclude not feasible. It's not feasible. [1:23:47] Shoshana: Or whatever it is. No, it's not. You never know how technology will change. [1:23:52] Committee chair/presiding officer: In years, maybe not. Yeah. [1:23:56] Speaker K (unidentified): Since desalination plants. Right. Exactly. [1:23:59] Shoshana: Yeah, so the community school needs to. [1:24:04] Speaker E (unidentified): It's not easy down in the Portland area. The Portland Water District is a giant lake that you can just keep extending. Right. [1:24:12] Speaker D (unidentified): One thing in the district quality, Sumsville Small Commercial District provides the community with the central area of amenities, such as emergency services. It sounds like everything else you're describing is stuff that's actually there, and there are no emergency services in that section. [1:24:27] Shoshana: Right, it's further down the other end of the street. I think originally all this text was, it was like all of a sudden one page and yeah. [1:24:41] Speaker F (unidentified): The community school is also not in the area of A. [1:24:46] Shoshana: It's nearby though. Yeah, adjacent. [1:24:50] Speaker G (unidentified): Do you want to name businesses or do you want to give it like a convenience store? [1:24:55] Speaker D (unidentified): store yeah I think you're right gas station if for no other reason then this is a different name [1:25:03] Speaker E (unidentified): somebody go past furnace I don't know if there was exactly was there prior to a furnace I don't [1:25:12] Speaker A (unidentified): know yes it was quite Richard's Garage yeah there you go you got me okay I am old [1:25:23] Shoshana: Okay. Anything else? We'll scoot down to another red. Let's talk about northeast. [Speaker F (unidentified): Page seven. This] area is appropriate for a higher level of activity, wider mixture of uses, higher density of residential, commercial, and institutional uses in comparison to areas outside the village. Policy should emphasize creating a safe, walkable core village, accommodating parking and creative ways that balance needs of residents, visitors, shoppers, workers. Memberships are important to create year-round homes and economic opportunities, address resilience goals, more about parking, increasing efforts to support year-round housing. [1:26:26] Speaker E (unidentified): And how do members of the work committee feel about the last bullet point? [1:26:30] Shoshana: Oh yeah, that [1:26:35] Speaker F (unidentified): might be too provocative because it is. Yeah, I was saying we do this will all [1:26:40] Speaker E (unidentified): pass down by, but okay. [Speaker K (unidentified): It'll] just feel dated by the time we do this, so okay. [1:26:54] Speaker J (unidentified): In [1:26:57] Speaker D (unidentified): terms of the future growth of the town has, I mean, I asked at an earlier meeting where the actual growth in population has happened, in year-round population has happened in the last 10, 20 years, and it probably isn't necessarily in Northeast Harbor. Is it just geographically? And maybe we're just stuck with the geography we have. Is it, 's sort of like an appendix down there and it's sort of, is that really, this may contradict everything I've just said here tonight, but is that really where we're gonna see future growth in Northeast Harbor? Just because of the realities? [1:27:37] Speaker A (unidentified): I'm working on it. You're working on it? [1:27:40] Speaker G (unidentified): I mean, if you think about it, Island Housing Trust has done so much with Farnham's Way and how many year-round families have moved in there, so that has had more year-round [1:27:51] Speaker D (unidentified): families move in. Correct. Correct. I guess that's what I'm... [1:27:56] Speaker E (unidentified): I think the answer is it's where it should happen. Will it happen? I don't know. There's economic forces fighting against it, but it is. It's got the water. It's got the sewer. It's got the street layout. It's got the density. City, it's boom,, boom,, boom,, boom,. [1:28:10] Shoshana: I think I've heard you guys say before, like, we have a lot of houses. They're just not used. They're being used in a certain way, right? And so this doesn't have to imply that there's new development, necessarily. Seems true still. Yeah,, yeah. OK. Anything else on that page? And this doesn't have to be the last time we look at it. [1:28:36] Speaker D (unidentified): But as long as the voters who are going to be voting on this understand what it means to be labeled a growth area that has sewer and water for zoning purposes, it's appropriate for growth. Yeah. But with the state, how the state law is that we're going to have to enact is going to change what can and can't happen on their properties and their neighbors' properties. I mean, as long as they understand that when they're considering whether or not they're signing off to this challenge is [1:29:11] Speaker F (unidentified): that information going to be detailed in our comp plan I would [1:29:16] Shoshana: not foresee there being this like section about I mean we could refer to it I think in public outreach we would certainly talk about it but like I don't I mean I'm coming off of co-chairing the legislative policy committee the state has just like you know it's like a fire hose of legislation around housing the last several years and so like and that will keep happening he wrote a letter being like pump the brakes you know like challenges trying to like just figure this out and we need to see how this plays out but my point is like if this is a 10-year plan at a minimum I don't know if talking about this I don't I don't know if it's like makes sense to go into great detail in the plan document as much as like we would do a lot of describing it in our outreach [1:30:09] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah one way or the other I don't think it needs to actually be in the plan. Yeah but people just some people are so what they're yeah what they're going to be approving about [1:30:18] Shoshana: Let's talk about Seal Harbor I think we it looks through some of this language earlier but I feel like there's something about this place I can't remember do you live there Vince. Yeah there's something about this place the way it is so like tucked in between the park and the ocean like and the way that neighborhood is designed that like it has those qualities of like a close-knit you know not isolated but like it's like a nook and [1:31:03] Speaker F (unidentified): The last in the last bunch of years there have been fewer or I should say there have been more and more seasonal residents. Yeah the vision of what I'm saying scares me because it's not true [1:31:15] Speaker A (unidentified): But that's what we envision prices coming down. Yeah what I was gonna say is like what my [1:31:23] Shoshana: Impression is that you feel that change really acutely because you are so like so much of the a nook you know together in there. So yeah, somebody I know who lives there was saying there's some old home was just torn down and a big house, a new house is going up that's going to have like 20 space for 20 plus vacationers. It's such a it's such a dream. Like it's like when you talk about percent changes, right, and so like it's a big change. It feels like a big change when even one or two of those things happen, which is addiction something about this place because I don't know how to describe it that like there's and the development, the existing development pattern of like smaller Lots and smaller homes, like it is what was historically built for working people and it's like appropriate. So you know it's appropriate to envision that. I don't know if I'm describing it correctly. Does that make sense? Yeah, so something about like I feel like there's opportunity for potential housing policy changes or whatever it is that like you know really get supplemented to make a big difference there. Well isn't that we've talked [1:32:47] Speaker G (unidentified): about this a long time ago in land use zoning of having not max, not minimum lot sizes, but maximum lot sizes, and this is where that would come in, right? Yep, essentially. [1:33:01] Shoshana: Or if you had this magical housing trust fund ability to incentivize year-round rentals somehow. I don't know, the fabric is there for a great community neighborhood again. [1:33:19] Speaker F (unidentified): Well, I think, get back to, let's define what residential means. Are you a resident or are you not a resident? Are you visiting for a weekend, months, or are you really a resident? You vote here. [1:33:36] Speaker D (unidentified): To me, that's a resident. [1:33:38] Speaker F (unidentified): Mm-hmm. I know. [1:33:43] Shoshana: Anything else that's missing in this section? [1:33:48] Speaker E (unidentified): No. I think the improvements to pedestrian safety and slowing traffic on Main Street is increasingly huge from there. [1:33:54] Shoshana: Great. Are there still issues at Dade Mountain? I know that's not immediately part of this area. Area that was something we heard in our village planning workshops with the parking area there was probably that's how they moved I'm going to take that was going on a curve yeah so [1:34:15] Speaker G (unidentified): is it I think it's important to acknowledge that Seal Harbor has its own workforce housing development the whole day Mountain thing they were ahead of the curve yeah and establishing that [1:34:32] Speaker F (unidentified): is it day road a mountain a street okay [1:34:39] Speaker J (unidentified): great [1:34:43] Speaker K (unidentified): and then just a high level strategy that last line there playground at the beach has been improved done great we'll take it out don't need [1:34:53] Speaker G (unidentified): it anything [1:35:03] Shoshana: else you want to include wish list items like your wish list All right, let's go to our other red area in a good way. [1:35:19] Speaker F (unidentified): Before we go on to that last point, when we talked earlier about home businesses, and there used to be more, and could there be more, and is Seal Harbor a good place to allow for home businesses you know what are the issues around that it has a small commercial street everything else is well actually there are other what's the builders over there [1:35:47] Speaker K (unidentified): yeah and there's the school the camp yeah there's the oil depot [1:35:55] Speaker D (unidentified): i mean the i think one of the problems with that gets into defining what kind of home businesses you're gonna allow you're gonna allow somebody to repair cars in the yard you're gonna have a problem you're gonna have oil ending up on them but people do it anyways right [1:36:09] Speaker B (unidentified): i mean well yeah that's that's fine you know go through otter creek there's a lot of cars [1:36:15] Speaker K (unidentified): in yards being taken apart so why wouldn't we allow it and then they'd actually [1:36:21] Speaker B (unidentified): do it as a facility because it's like because it's actually from an environmental point of [1:36:27] Speaker D (unidentified): you it's it's a majority but it's a dirty business it's it's a polluting business and you have to have many more many more expectations than if you had somebody being a cpa in the house or [1:36:40] Speaker K (unidentified): hairdresser or something like that right but if it's done and not permitted then they just dump the oil but if it's permitted and it's a garage then they have the facilities for so i feel like, it's actually more prudent to allow more things because then they're actually done appropriately and there's review. I guess. [1:37:01] Speaker D (unidentified): I mean, I would choose to build a home next to a garage or we'll live in a home that [1:37:07] Committee chair/presiding officer: we're in next to a garage. We need to think about it as a larger strategy rather than like a specific thing. I think your question, and maybe we don't need to do this right tonight, but like should we add a high-level strategy that is something to do with home-based businesses or small [1:37:22] Speaker D (unidentified): is consistent with a residential neighborhood yeah exactly that would be fine furniture refinishing [1:37:27] Shoshana: sewing we'll go back and check the economic section too because i feel like we did talk [1:37:32] Speaker A (unidentified): about this it's not location specific just because i don't know i also added [1:37:41] Speaker J (unidentified): okay i think that i would like it both still higher than otter creek [1:37:48] Speaker D (unidentified): opportunity well let's get to our rather than just monetizing let's talk about rentals [1:37:53] Speaker F (unidentified): That is your favorite community on the whole island. It's a new level. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. [1:37:58] Speaker E (unidentified): All right. [Shoshana: I'd] like that the traffic calming is right up on those, although we sort of repeated on the first two bullet points a little bit. Yeah, let's not. That I mind it being what we don't really have in here is encouraging businesses along the strip. Yeah. [1:38:31] Speaker A (unidentified): Well, there's no business district, not yet. Well, this is what I'm getting at, right, these are the [1:38:37] Speaker E (unidentified): areas where the river hits the road, and this is the kind of stuff that could actually change the zone, which is why we want to focus on stuff like this. There are little stores of fish because, yes, if we make this red and if we go there, we are in fact saying, yes, we think that this should be pushing in that particular direction of mixed use village commercial, right. Which I don't think, I don't think Otter Creek's sort of in flux in some ways. Like, you've got half the town is like, no. The other half is saying, yeah, so. [1:39:15] Shoshana: Well, there are businesses there. Yeah. It's not like totally out of the blue. [1:39:20] Speaker D (unidentified): Maybe we should, maybe we should see that development of mixed use in residential commercial specifically as a means to encourage year-round residency rather than monetizing the property for short term lives, monetizing it that way, that we should see it as a tool to help enhance the possibility that people can use, can live there and earn a living, and rather than buying something and [1:39:50] Speaker G (unidentified): turning it into a shift on my talk i don't understand this sentence otto creek is home is home to naturally occurring affordable housing yeah i don't i don't understand it [1:40:03] Speaker A (unidentified): it's kind of a funny way to put it 's actually a term in natural doing policy [1:40:09] Shoshana: See if NOAA is the acronym, because planners love acronyms, and that's like essentially a, you know, mobile home park. It's just like the market, okay. It's not like subsidized intentionally built affordable housing development. It's not, it's called naturally occurring [1:40:28] Speaker G (unidentified): affordable. So the trailer park is naturally occurring. That's the type of thing I don't [1:40:31] Speaker H (unidentified): know. I think in general from tiny websites, because I think, you know, what pops to mind is, yeah, not one of our kids can buy a home and, right, a creek. Yeah, so those for sale. No, but I'm just saying, I mean, it's the same. Yeah, well, you might know that more there now, but I mean, there [1:40:50] Speaker G (unidentified): is a trailer right now for sale that keeps going on and off the market, the base, and you have to [1:40:55] Speaker F (unidentified): run the space, right. But yeah, but is it like well below twenty nine thousand five hundred? Yeah, so. [1:41:03] Shoshana: So that is a term I think it's generally not very habitable. Yeah, that's the problem. But like that ideas of those types that type of housing is plays a really vital role. Yes no question assuming it's decent and you know safe and all that okay advertise our [1:41:23] Speaker B (unidentified): town home started 29 500. Well if what you're saying is true is any of this accurate a quiet [1:41:35] Speaker D (unidentified): BMI community with homes affordable to the average household income that's a vision okay sorry [1:41:50] Shoshana: Well, not the quiet part. I mean, you're going to have parts that are less still relative, [1:41:55] Speaker F (unidentified): less quiet stuff, you know, affordable to the average homeowners to go across the town. [1:42:01] Shoshana: Yeah. I want to have a mixture of options. You do. Well, I think if you're talking about [1:42:05] Speaker D (unidentified): making this a growth area, you're going to be challenging bumping up against quiet. You're going to be bumping up against the vision of that being a whitehead year round to me. [1:42:16] Shoshana: Yeah. Well, and I think it was outlined here was lower growth. So if we're changing it to the sort of red on the map, we can take that out. And I don't think that's a bad thing. It's still going to be like, it would still be quiet compared to many places. I mean, it's not like, I don't know what you're comparing next door to the thirsty whale in and whatever or the music black music drama you know you could get into that [Speaker A (unidentified): okay anything] else i have i'm just going to make the road what do we mean by economic [1:42:56] Speaker D (unidentified): development and that is just what do we mean by that do we mean upon the liquor license [1:43:03] Speaker G (unidentified): do we mean that you had a restaurant you have one now it was really awesome [1:43:09] Speaker E (unidentified): You didn't say it. Otter Creek is right next to Jackson Lab and that's the biggest employer [1:43:16] Speaker G (unidentified): in the county. Bingo. [1:43:19] Speaker A (unidentified): It's just right next door. I don't understand why it's not just... You're singing to the choir. [1:43:25] Shoshana: But I think that if we had those people here right now, they would be like, shh. Yes. But you're right. And you have this, I mean, that kind of place setting appeals to you. you're not a far drive from the grocery store and blah right yeah i actually wrote down [1:43:42] Committee chair/presiding officer: that we should include something under the qualities about their proximity to bar harbor is [1:43:48] Speaker F (unidentified): important yeah we're going to change the role from lower growth to growth yeah and they would [1:43:55] Speaker E (unidentified): yeah okay i truly think if we were able to see end of the future and go forward 20 years is the town's the place that's going to look the most different in this town 20 years from now is [1:44:07] Speaker D (unidentified): going to be otter creek is that because you sense that there are people actually moving to [1:44:14] Speaker E (unidentified): Do that. I don't think it's necessarily, yeah, I think it's the town where it's the village where you're going to see the most houses quite frankly torn down and rebuilt with better houses, even though it's in a very dense neighborhood, and how that neighborhood actually changes or not. I don't know if we could encourage it to be around, that would be great, but I simply walking around the trailer park and watching the interesting mix there where you have some trailers that are sort of what you might expect and some where you're like, okay, now I think if you go five years into the future there, it's going to be mostly whoa, okay, nows, and just I can see that conversion coming, and I think we should plan for it. That's what I'm getting at, so that to me is a really [1:45:05] Committee chair/presiding officer: important thing to think about as a community, because if you did that 15 years ago or 20 years ago in Northeast Harbor, then there was time to actually do something potentially, and you can see [1:45:17] Speaker D (unidentified): the trend movement. So let's see, I don't know how we're going to be down to something about third-term apples, yeah, I don't know how we're going to rent, we're just coming out [1:45:28] Speaker E (unidentified): well, yeah, and that's that's what we ought to watch out for on repeat could become [1:45:33] Shoshana: another very short-term rental place. Well, there are many will be, because they're calling it a growth area and all that jazz, like no go start buying it up right now, new units. [1:45:47] Speaker D (unidentified): Somehow we need to weaponize ourselves to be focused on economic development that does not, that discourages that form of development being primarily short-term rentals. [1:45:59] Speaker E (unidentified): Because I agree that it should be a growth area, but yes, you're absolutely correct. That is the possible unintended consequence. [1:46:07] Speaker F (unidentified): I wish you could just draw a line now and say nothing that is year-round now is going to convert to seasonal use or short-term rentals. [1:46:16] Speaker K (unidentified): Is that legal? Michael, I wrote all sorts of stuff on my thing, and I'm going to hand it in at the end of class. [1:46:26] Speaker D (unidentified): There will be a quiz. [1:46:29] Shoshana: It's just about 7. I think we got so much done. [Speaker F (unidentified): Good job, everybody.] Did people feel good about the direction this continues to go? And can you start to visualize to, like, we, you know, eventually there's going to be a very long document with all these pieces together, but this is really the heart of it in a lot of ways, the [1:46:52] Speaker E (unidentified): future plan. Yeah, I would say that we are starting to get tight on time now. Yeah, yep, so let's just [1:47:00] Speaker A (unidentified): all keep that in mind as we go. Yes, oh yeah, well, I just also think we've made some significant [1:47:07] Speaker D (unidentified): Decisions about a bunch of people who live in a part of town, but aren't here. [1:47:11] Speaker F (unidentified): Well, Michael. Yes, that's why I was saying heads up [1:47:15] Speaker A (unidentified): everyone. We just did a big thing. [1:47:19] Speaker F (unidentified): Michael Olsen was representing Otter Creek the first meeting we had. Yes. [1:47:23] Speaker K (unidentified): And then dropped out. Well, then they took the water line, but they asked to kill him. Didn't they? Yeah, and that was the evening. It was like out until 8 p.m. every day. [1:47:36] Committee chair/presiding officer: We have another meeting on the calendar. I think we do. It probably would have been the 15th, right? I thought we did already have two meetings. [1:47:50] Speaker F (unidentified): We might have it. Yeah, the 15th. Yeah, we can't plan. [1:48:00] Committee chair/presiding officer: Just making sure it's in everybody's calendar, the 15th. [1:48:06] Speaker E (unidentified): If there is a possibility I will not be able to attend that, but I'm not sure yet. Okay, we also have a joint meeting group of police sports that night, but I'm not sure it's actually going to happen. Okay. [1:48:24] Shoshana: Great, thank you. Do a great job, everybody. Thank you. To adjourn. So moved. Second. Good. [1:48:39] Speaker K (unidentified): All in favor? Aye. Biggest job. I'm going to stop this. Is that yours? I was just using it because it was on the table. Oh, I have no idea. [1:48:51] Speaker E (unidentified): Depends on this town hall. They're just sort of around.