Bangor Planning Board approves zone change for The Rock Church, code updates

[1:17] Jonathan Boucher: Good evening and welcome to the applicant staff, board members and members of the public. This is the February 17, 2026 meeting of the City of Bangor's Planning Board. It is seven o'clock. My name is Jonathan Boucher. I'm the chair of the board. board. Board members are volunteers from the Bangor community. Other members in attendance this evening are Ted Brush, Trisha Hayes, Greg Hobson, Ken Huynh, Vice Chair Janet Jonas, Russ Whitford, oh and Russ Whitford. City staff members in attendance this evening include Planning Officer Anya Collette, Assistant Solicitor Grace Innes, and Planning Analyst Matthew Altiero. We thank them for their help in preparation for this evening, this meeting this evening. First, we're going to start with old business. Which our first item on the list is the adoption of findings and decision for a map lot r10-010-a and B, Oddlin Road, as well as 57 Bangor Mall, Bangor Mall Boulevard. Let's see, do we have any, we have a motion for the adoption, of finance. Remember Brush, Mr. Chair, I move that we adopt the [2:37] Kenneth Huhn: findings and decisions for map lot r10-10a and b, Auto Mode, and 57 Bangor Mall Boulevard, and [2:47] Jonathan Boucher: remember the second. All right, a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Remember Hayes? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Member Huynh? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. And Chair votes yes. Our next item of old business is our review of the meeting minutes from February 3rd. Are there any modifications or comments to the meeting minutes from the 3rd? If not, I would look for a motion. Member Huynh? I'll second. And Member Hobson with the second. So we'll do a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Yes. Member Hayes? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Member Huynh? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. And the Chair votes yes. That brings us to new business. So the Planning Board has two main roles. First, we review amendments to the Land Development Code, which typically include either changes to zoning districts or changes to text within the Code. Our review of these amendments includes adherence to the Comprehensive Plan as well as considering the applicable concerns from the public. Our vote on these items is in the form of a recommendation to the City Council as to whether the item ought to pass or not to pass. The City Council makes the final decision on zoning and land development code changes. There are three items on the agenda for tonight. There's one zone change and two code amendments. Secondly, the Board serves as a regulatory authority for land development permits, commonly known as site plan review. There are no land development permit items on the agenda for tonight. And then further information on the city's codes and standards and the comprehensive plan may be found at the city's website. So item presentation for tonight for all items, the applicant or their representatives should come up, I should come forward to the podium and provide a brief introduction to the proposal, and then they should stay at the podium while we consider the questions from questions from the staff or other board members. For code amendments, staff may take the may make the presentations. Once an item has been presented to the to the applicant has been presented, the applicant may be seated and we will allow time for public comments. For public comments, the person should come to the podium, introduce themselves, state of their or Bangor resident and or in a butter to the property and indicate if they are for or against the proposal. It's also helpful if you present your thoughts based upon the city codes and standards and the comprehensive plan as these are the primary documents used by the board to make our decision. All comments and discussion should remain respectful and considerate to others. Once public comments are completed, we will close the item, the public comment, the board will then deliberate on the proposal using the applicable standards. Once a project you are interested in has been reviewed, you may leave the meeting but please be respectfully quiet so as not to disturb the review of other agenda items. And our first item of new business today is the zone change for Ohio Street, map lot R23-003-B, rural residents and agricultural district RR and A, so rezoning to government institutional service district G and ISD, and then the changes to amend the land development code by changing the parcel of land located on Ohio Street, map lot R2, R23-003B, from the rural resident and agricultural RNA to the government institutional service district G and ISD. Said area of land contains approximately six acres total and is more particularly indicated on the Map attached here too and made part hereof, and then we have the applicant owner, which is the Rock Church. Hello. [6:30] Randy Bragg: Randy Bragg from Carpenter Associates, and I'll be helping out the Rock Church this evening. They've asked me to speak on their behalf in their absence, so I apologize for their absence. So they are, they are looking for a zone change on a piece of property that abuts their current location, the Rock Church. If you know where the intersection of Ohio and Finston Road is, this property is about six acres. It's just to the north of this property and abuts it, and it was probably part of this original lot. Originally was split at some point, given by its designation. The intent of the property, once if they are successful with the zone change, is to create a location for their central headquarters, if you will, or central offices, and some small warehousing space for materials for all of their satellite locations. I'd be happy to answer any questions, but that's a pretty much the intent. Thank. [7:32] Jonathan Boucher: You. Any comments from staff? Any questions for the applicant or the representative? I think that's everything, Randy. Thank you. So we'd like to open it up for a public comment. It looks like we're gonna close public comment, seeing as there's none. Any final deliberation with the planning board members? Anyone want to have any discussion about this item? Well, if not, then we'll put it up to a motion. Remember, Brush here. [8:19] Kenneth Huhn: I move that we recommend the city council should approve a zone change for Ohio Street, map blot 23 deaths 003b, from rural residents and agricultural district to government and institutional service district. Thank you. Do we have a second? [8:41] Jonathan Boucher: And just for clarity, we're saying this is ought to pass. So yeah, I know, just to be a stickler. All right, well, thank you. With that in mind, we'll go to a roll call vote, and we have member Brush, yes. Member Hayes, yes. Burr Hobson, yes. Jonas, yes. Number Whitford, yes. And the chair votes yes. With that, this will go to planning. This will go in front of the city council next meeting, I think, for final review and approval. Thank you. Our next two items are amendments to the Land Development Code. The first one of these is to amend the Land Development Code Section 165-73, Parking Area Location and Screening, to remove the buffer requirements for parking lots adjacent to properties Zone G and ISD, except where the adjacent property contains a residential cemetery or school use. Planning Officer Collette? Yep. [9:44] Unidentified staff member: So we workshopped this with you previously, so I won't rehash everything, but we did take into account your feedback that you did want a buffer between properties that do have the residential, cemetery, school use. So we made that change. We did take this to the parking committee for any parcels that would be affected downtown, and they were okay with that change as well. So that's all I have. Open any questions, any [10:15] Jonathan Boucher: questions from the planning board members? So we'd still want to open this up for public comment. So I'm opening it to public comment. Do we have any Zoom participants or anything? Okay, then we will close public comment and any additional discussion on this item. Does anyone have any questions about what it's doing? All right, then we'll look for a motion on the first amendment for Jonas. Chair, I [10:53] Unidentified staff member: move that we recommend to council ought to pass to amend the land development code section 165-73 parking area location and screening to remove the buffer requirement for parking lots adjacent to properties zoned GNISD except where the adjacent property contains a residential, cemetery, or school [11:11] Jonathan Boucher: use. Thank you, and do we have a second? Remember Hayes, and then we'll go for a roll call vote. Remember Brush, yes. Remember Hayes, yes. Number Hobson, yes. Number Hewn, yes. For Jonas, yes. For Whitford, yes. And the chair votes yes. So at that one, we'll also be expecting to go in front of city council next meeting. Our third item of new business is to amend the land development in code section 165-13 definitions to remove State Street from the minor arterial street definition. [11:46] Unidentified staff member: Planning officer Colette? Yep, so this is just a change from last time. Council did want us to bring back this just to fix the clerical error in the definitions with State Street, so that's what this is doing. Thank [12:01] Jonathan Boucher: you. Any questions for staff? We'll open it to public the comment, and I'll close public comment and any final discussion among the planning board. I look for a motion. Remember Hewn? Sure, I recommend that we say ought to pass for [12:22] Speaker E (unidentified): to amend the land development code section 165-13 definitions to remove State Streets and [12:29] Jonathan Boucher: The minor material street definition, thank you. In a second, one second. Okay, Member Hobson, thank you. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Member Hayes? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Member Heughan? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. So that item will also go before the city council's next meeting. Other items that we had here, we had some draft changes to review on how best to comply with new state laws. Laws, and I presume Planning Officer Collette, you are going to walk us through this. Yes, let [13:08] Unidentified staff member: me get myself sorted here. So this is the first round of changes. I wanted to split it into two different rounds just because there's so much here to change, and we're still kind of trying to figure out how to apply these laws to the developing areas and rural areas, the uses in those zones. So we're going to work through that this week, hopefully, and we'll bring back another round. But this first round addresses edits in the more urban zones, like you already wanted to land development permit requirements and parking requirements, particularly for affordable housing, accessory drilling unit rules, and the affordable housing density bonus rules. So it changes for the affordable housing density bonus. It just, for clarity's sake, wanted to move the definitions that are just in that affordable housing density bonus section and move them to the general definition section, just because, like, the new state law allows you to increase the height or reduce the parking restrictions for what they call affordable housing developments, which means that it doesn't, a development doesn't necessarily have to be using the density bonus to get those extra things. But if it meets the definition of an affordable housing development, where it meets those income restrictions and they have a long-term affordability covenant, then they can get those additional height and parking allowances. So it just felt clearer to move those definitions to the main section. And so, in alignment again with those changes, we, you know, added to the affordable housing density bonus article those provisions about height and parking, working. We also added stipulations that were in the state law about providing verification of sewer and water capacity and things like that. When it comes to the ADU rules, not a lot changed. Well, kind of a bigger change was that we now have to allow ADUs on lots with one to three dwelling units. So if they have a single family home, duplex or triplex or however they arrange those three units also the minimum square footage and the I think it's the building code had been reduced from 190 to 160 square feet and per state law we have to follow that code so I reduced that in the language are there any questions on that piece before I [15:38] Speaker E (unidentified): go on yeah well I understand oh [15:45] Jonathan Boucher: members your mic is off your mic is turned off is it [15:51] Speaker E (unidentified): even though we're complying with the state law by doing this they still have to meet the requirements around impervious services and things like that yes definitely and I was going [16:01] Unidentified staff member: to cover that later because you know so much is changing with you already wanted to really all the zones by allowing having to allow four units on a 5000 square foot lot the key limiting factors now will be impervious surface area walk coverage floor area ratio all those different things so setbacks height you know so there's a lot of different controls on the actual building on the lot so yeah any other questions does [16:32] Jonathan Boucher: anyone have any could you give us a definition to understand maybe it's just me the long-term affordability covenant when we say that [16:39] Unidentified staff member: does that what does that mean that means they would have to execute a covenant with the city so it would have to pass through legal and it would have to be recorded at the registry of deeds so it would be tied to that property and it would say you know for the next 30 years this number at least half your units have to be affordable to low to moderate income people [17:02] Jonathan Boucher: all right yep okay [17:08] Unidentified staff member: so moving on so the biggest changes are the units per lot minimum and the minimum lot size and on our zones so for URD1 we would have to allow four units on a 5 000 square foot lot there's different caveats to that though the state basically made four different scenarios and it's a if you're inside our growth boundary and you're on public water and sewer B if you're outside our growth boundary but you're on public water and sewer we do have a few places like that in the city and then see if you're inside the growth boundary but not on water and sewer and we do have quite a bit of that too and then if you're outside the growth boundary and outside water and sewer for the first one if you're if you meet all the requirements in our growth boundary have public water and sewer you can have four units on a 5000 square foot lot and that includes ADUs so you could have three units and an ADU or just four regular units and you can't have we can still cap it at four units for URD1. If it's outside the growth boundary but has public water and sewer, the lot size, minimum lot size would be 5000 square feet for the first two units, and then an additional 5000 square feet per unit up to four total. So you would end up with, you could put four on a 15,000 square foot lot. If it's inside the growth boundary but does not have public sewer, then it has to meet the minimum lot size requirements for septic according to state law. So that's a minimum lot size of 20,000 square feet for the first unit, and then each additional unit up to four would have to meet, it's like a proportion of related to the minimum sewage disposal requirements. So we would just refer to the state law for people to calculate that. And then if it's outside the growth boundary and not served by public water and sewer, we don't really have any URD1 that is, that meets those, because URD1 is typically in our growth boundary, but it's kind of like a just in case sort of thing. We have, we can set our minimum lot size at whatever we want, we want it to be. So I just took what we have for our RNA, which is one and a half acres, and then if it is in that area, you can cap it at three units with one ADU allowed. So in that rural area, the cap would be three units. Then URD2, the same thing, we have to allow four units on the 5000 square foot lot. Just to differentiate it from URD1, we did change the cap on units to six units. Currently the cap is four units right now on URD2. And then the other key difference between URD2 and URD1 is that URD2 allows the affordable housing density bonus to be used. Are there any questions on any of that before I go on? [20:07] Jonathan Boucher: I have one. So any of these four-unit builds, they wouldn't have to come before the planning board at all because they're under that threshold. The six-unit ones in the URD-2 would, though, if they were going to do a six or five even, anything over four. So just wanted to clarify, I was putting two and two together there, right? Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. [20:36] Unidentified staff member: So M and SD and NSD, there's no major changes there because they already allow, they already basically meet the changes. But I just wanted to add clarification on the types of dwellings allowed because currently we just say, I think, detached dwellings in MNST. So it can be attached or detached dwellings. And then also just changing that minimum lot size again to 5,000 square feet. I did want to touch on this briefly though, because after I submitted this for the packet, it came up that potentially we might want to look at a smaller minimum lot size for tiny homes just because they are so small and a 5,000 square foot lot would be really large for a tiny home and we have a lot of non-conforming lots that are much smaller already than the 5,000 square feet and if somebody wanted to say do like a tiny home subdivision but maybe not like a tiny home park it would kind of let them have that smaller lot size but not have to do like the whole tiny home park thing so I just wanted to float that we could do, we could limit that to certain zones like maybe only allow that in MNSD or MNSD you already one, you already two, or we could do it everywhere in the growth boundary so I kind of just wanted to put that out there for [21:51] Speaker E (unidentified): thoughts. You're just, you're talking about, you're not talking about ADUs, you're just talking about the tiny homes. Yeah, other units like a standalone. Yeah, tiny home. An ADU has to be 50 percent or [22:05] Unidentified staff member: right, thousand feet, I'd be pretty small. Tiny home. Yeah, so a tiny home is limited, it has a maximum and I think it's 400 square feet, it can't be larger than that. So yeah, any [22:19] Jonathan Boucher: thoughts on that? You have any proposed language around it? Sounds like a tricky thing to, would you just use your [22:26] Unidentified staff member: definition of tiny home and yeah build off of that yeah we have that defined so like in the dimensional table did i include the dimensional table in your packets i think i did in the dimensional table that's where we set the minimum law area so we would just have like a note on that and the note would say if you're a tiny home if it meets the definition of tiny home it would have a minimum 2500 square foot lot area and [22:57] Jonathan Boucher: you were talking about confining at the certain [22:59] Unidentified staff member: zone types potentially, if you want to, or we could just confine it to any zone in the growth [23:04] Jonathan Boucher: boundary, any residential zone. What do we currently have as our tiny home park zones? Tiny home [23:11] Unidentified staff member: Parks are allowed in LDR, RRNA as long as they're in the growth boundary, and I think they're, I could be wrong, I think they're limited to the growth boundary in LDR. I know they are in RRNA, and then also in HDR we don't allow them in, I don't think, URD1 and 2 because it didn't really make sense based on the zones all the time so. [23:41] Jonathan Boucher: I would say the LLDR one makes sense and the RRNA makes sense. The URD2 might even possibly make sense, but the URD1 seems like it would, there's no applicable, well, I don't know so. [23:55] Unidentified staff member: Just to be clear, it would let somebody have like a smaller lot, like you know a 3,000 square foot lot. They couldn't put a regular home, but they could do it just a [24:05] Jonathan Boucher: tiny home on that so does that make sense? Oh, this is as little as just one. I see what you're saying. I think you meant like string the other four or five of them. No, just one on a lot. Yeah, oh sure, that would be a good use of those small lots I guess. Okay, anyone have any thoughts on that, like certain zone considerations for the tiny house discussion? Okay. [24:38] Unidentified staff member: So I might, I'll bring that back in the official language then if you all think that's a good idea. Okay, yes would [24:47] Kenneth Huhn: you do it but there was a mixed use for example I guess where there was a 5,000 square foot lot that the owner wanted to put three regular dwelling units on it in a, in a, in a tiny home, could you, would the lot size maintain for that kind of a mix of uses if they wanted to put [25:18] Unidentified staff member: regular homes on it, they'd stop to meet the 5,000 square foot lot minimum. That makes sense, okay. [25:26] Jonathan Boucher: Follow up on that, but if they did tiny homes, they would still just be counted as if they were ADUs, like they wouldn't be considered somehow special just because there are tiny homes being added on behind another property. Sorry. [25:42] Unidentified staff member: I'm not falling so a tiny home so we're talking about like a [25:46] Jonathan Boucher: special consideration for tiny homes so that we can get them on to you know lots that might be small or but might not be that would run into coverage areas or minimum lot size areas and that would be special compared to how ad use might be treated if they were just tiny homes or a couple of them even but if you have a you know a duplex and you want to put a tiny an ad you or a tiny home behind sort of irrelevant what the square footage of the ad you is you still have to meet the minimum requirement of the lot coverage, like the, that's the word I'm looking for, the [26:27] Unidentified staff member: Impermeable requirement, yeah. And if you had a duplex on the lot, if you wanted to put a duplex on a lot again, you would have to meet the 5,000 square foot lot area requirement. But the follow [26:38] Jonathan Boucher: additional unit would be treated as any other adu no matter if it was a 400 square foot or a 600 square foot yeah but it basically a little tricky on this like you can get into the weed so i don't envy you trying to parse the language but yeah i'd like the spirit of where you're going and i understand we just have to comply with the state law too so yeah this would [27:04] Unidentified staff member: just make an extra cut out, you know, an extra allowance for those small lots when they couldn't place any other kind of unit on except for a very small home. If they want to do that, then they can use it. Okay, we're going to run this by the by council tomorrow too, so we'll get their thoughts as well. And then USD, urban service district, the key change there was that we moved mixed commercial residential from conditional to permitted by right, primarily because the language says in the draft rule making that you can't be more restrictive for housing and commercial zones, then I can't remember the exact wording, but it was like you have to meet all the requirements that they set out in the language for minimum lot size 80 US, etc. So basically like you have to follow the same rules. When you're looking at residential and commercial zones. So, to me that meant we need to allow residential by right in the commercial zones. So that's why I moved mixed commercial residential up to permitted by right. And then we also say in USD that if somebody adds residential to a commercial lot, the current minimum lot area is 10,000 square feet and you have to have additional lot area for each residential unit you add on. So I changed that to be you just need a minimum 5,000 square foot lot for the residential units and then they can use the affordable housing density bonus and [28:42] Speaker E (unidentified): everything. Does that make sense? Yeah. Am I correct that part of these changes is that you can put it residential inside of a commercial unit? Yeah, and restriction on that right. So you could turn a mall into a residential place without changing the zoning. Yeah, but you can already do that. [29:07] Unidentified staff member: Because we already allow multi-family residential in SNPS, which is the mall zone, so they could already do that. Yeah, okay, so that's it for the zones then. For the land development permit requirements, we have two provisions in there that are basically like when you're creating three or more structures or putting three or more units in a dwelling or building, sorry, basically it has to go to the planning board because we were, we were basically in a way referring to subdivision state subdivision law. So we just scratch all that and we just refer to this actual state statute in case that changes again. It just makes things simpler, and plus in the state law there's all kinds of exemptions and things like that, so it just makes it cleaner. And so now because we can't have, we can't require planning board approval for the creation of four or fewer units, that will change that, and the draft rule making also says we have to apply the same review process for single family homes or as we do to single. Family homes to duplexes, triplexes, or quadplexes, so a building permit. However, we can still require review for parking and buffers and things like that. So we're proposing requiring minor site plan revision, which is basically staff review, for creating parking lots between five and 20 spaces, because currently we only require planning board approval for creation of parking lots that are 20 or more spaces, or expansion of a parking lot, that's 20 or more spaces. So, you know, if somebody created a four unit, and they only needed a four space parking lot, it still would only need a building permit. But, you know, that we're talking about a really small, like, it makes sense to maybe only have building permit for that, because, you know, some people's driveways are like four spaces. So when you get into the five space or more parking lot, though, you start having more negative impacts on adjacent property owners and stuff. So we want to make sure that they're, they have their parking buffers and everything when they're doing that. Does that make sense? Okay, and then off-site parking agreements, that's the requirement from the state that we allow people to have off-site parking within 0.25 miles of their development provided they have a legally binding agreement with that property owner. So that's the last provision there. [31:49] Jonathan Boucher: A question about, you know, the public announcement that needs to happen when it goes before the planning board for site planning review. And we're talking about units up to 4, and then up to 6, etc. So do you still need to make the public announcement to the butters or anything like that when it comes before or the. When it comes for the staff review or things along those lines. [32:16] Unidentified staff member: Minor site plan revision, no, that's not notification because usually they're very minor changes, sure, yeah, there's one. [32:24] Jonathan Boucher: Yeah, just wanted to push that out. [32:29] Unidentified staff member: I mean, we can change the land development permit requirement, you know, or if you feel like having a parking lot that's between 5 and 20 spaces, if that's like too big to be minor site plan review, we can look at that. Well, no, I'm just [32:48] Jonathan Boucher: thinking about what is the impact of these changes, and one of the things is that the butters aren't going to get notified of them, yeah, as much as they are today. They're getting more notice because it goes before the planning board and has to get, you know, the message has to go out. Here we're going to see less of that, but that we have to be in compliance with the state. So I understand. I'm just comparing it. [33:09] Unidentified staff member: Yeah, the key things that will change will be, you know, sometimes you get applications for a four unit that, you know, the building itself probably doesn't look too different from the surrounding buildings. Things, the parking lot is the key thing that might be different, but to be honest now, like if somebody was only proposing a parking lot and it was less than 20 spaces, we currently don't have any kind of permit process for that because we don't say that it needs to go to anyone if it's fewer than 20 spaces, except unless they were doing grading and fill and they were changing this, the slope of the land by more than a certain percent, then it would need planning board approval, but if it, they're just putting a straight parking lot that's like 15 spaces, then they don't need review, so this would actually create more review for that, I guess. The [34:03] Jonathan Boucher: example I'm thinking of is if someone were to tear down a house in a, you already won, and then put up a, you know, a four story condo, they could do that. Oh, well, they still have to meet the height [34:14] Unidentified staff member: requirements, so maybe not for a story. Yeah, maybe three stories. Yeah, okay, I'm, and I'm not even [34:21] Jonathan Boucher: Saying I'm opposed to this, but without any notification, it's just, it's different than what people are used to, so that's sort of the con about going forward. What we have to do with this is that, yeah, slightly less communication, but that's all I was getting at. Any other thoughts? [34:44] Unidentified staff member: Well, so sounds like there's no major changes, so again I'm going to be reviewing this with the business development committee tomorrow, and pending no changes from them, all it'll be around for formal approval. Thank [35:00] Jonathan Boucher: you. Did we want to move on to the 2026 APA trend report? Yeah, I won't [35:07] Unidentified staff member: review that. It was just there for your reading benefit, to be aware of things. So any, [35:16] Jonathan Boucher: discussion before we move on to the follow-up thoughts on land use plan updates? Is there any updates from recent activity at city council you want to share with us? I don't have any [35:27] Unidentified staff member: updates on that, except that our land development code consultants have said they're going to get the draft, first draft to us next month, and that'll be staff reviewed at the staff level, and then we'll have a new draft out for you guys to review. So I envision it probably will take a few months to review the staff level because it's going to be pretty big. So maybe you already [35:51] Speaker E (unidentified): covered this, so maybe I can mute. The parking lot thing you were talking about, less than 20 spaces, your microphones, your mic, sorry. The parking lot situation you were talking about, less than 20 spaces? Yeah, they're required to do buffers. Yes, yep. Any parking lot over five spaces, if it's [36:11] Unidentified staff member: adjacent to residential or now GNISD? That's what I thought, but I went when you said it didn't need to be reviewed or, yeah, well, yeah, it'll need to be reviewed by us, you know, to make sure it meets all those standards. Yeah, all [36:31] Jonathan Boucher: right, any final discussion, any comments before we wrap up for tonight? All right, it is 7 35 and this is this meeting of the Bangor City Planning Board is