Bangor Planning Board reviews 62-unit affordable housing proposal on Grandview Avenue

[0:33] Jonathan Boucher: Good evening and welcome to the applicant staff, board members and members of the public. This is the July 21st, 2026 meeting of the City of Bangor's Planning Board. It's seven o'clock. My name is Jonathan Boucher. I'm the chair of the board. Board members are volunteers from the Bangor community and other board members in attendance this evening include Ted Brush, Tricia Hayes is absent, but we have Greg Hobson, Ken Hewn, Vice Chair Jenna Jonas, Ross Whitford, and city staff members in attendance this evening include off planning officer Anya Collette, community and economic development director Anne Krieg, assistant solicitor Grace Ennis, city engineer Jefferson Davis, planning analyst Matthew Altiero, and community and economic development assistant Kaylee Riannis. We thank them all for their help in preparation for this meeting. We'll start with the old business, which includes the meeting minutes, the review of the meeting minutes from July 7th, 2026. Are there any modifications or comments? [1:36] Kenneth Huhn: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I don't know what I'm doing. I believe it's got a June 16 date. [1:47] Jonathan Boucher: Yeah, I saw the date correction in my packet. So we'll keep that amended. Thank you. Okay, that was it for me. Any other changes? Okay, so if not, I'd like to see a motion on accepting the amended minutes with the correction of the date. Remember you? Yeah, in a second. I'll second. Remember Hobson. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Super Hobson? Yes. Ever Hewn? Yeah. Number Jonas? Yes. Number Whitford? Yes. Chair votes yes. Next we have the adoption of findings. This is in relation to 557 Stillwater Avenue, 200 and 210 State Street, as well as Milford Street Extension. Any discussion or emotion? Over Brush. [2:39] Edwin Brush: Mr. Chair, I move that we adopt the findings and decisions of the January 7th meeting on And I-57 Stillwater Avenue, 200 and 210 State Street, and the Milford Street Extension. [2:58] Ross Thomas Whitford: And a second? Member Jonas? Chair, I second with the clarification that it was July 7th, 2026 meeting. Yeah. You said January, but yeah. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Member Hobson? [3:09] Jonathan Boucher: Yes. Member Hewn? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. That brings us to new business. So I'll start with my introduction of it. Yeah, 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. There are no such items on tonight's agenda. But secondly, the board serves as the regulatory authority for land development permits, commonly known as site plan review. Site plans are reviewed to ensure compliance with the city code as the parking, driveways, storm water management, lighting, landscaping and buffering, building location, environmental impacts, shoreline zoning as may be applicable. We also ensure the plan meets the dimensional requirements for the project zoning district. We review larger site plans that trigger site location development for the main dep as well as under as well under their requirements. Some uses are conditional uses that have specific conditions and requirements to be used to review of the project. State statute also outlines the requirements for subdivision review and the city has additional standards as to roadway and utility specifications. The board ultimately endorses a plan that will go to the registry of deeds if the plan is approved. There is one item on the agenda that's a land development permit. Further information on the city's codes and standards and the comprehensive plan may be found at the city's website or the process of the items presentation tonight for the land development permit we'll first consider and vote on the applications readiness for review and any concerns for conflict of interest. For all items the applicant or their representative should then come forward to the podium and provide a brief introduction to the proposal and then they should stay at the podium while we consider any questions from the staff and or board members. Once the item has been presented the applicant may be seated. We will allow time for public comments for public comments. The person should come to the podium, introduce themselves, state if they are bengal 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 discussions should remain respectful and consider to others. Once public comments completed we will close the item to public comment now Sometimes when we have a large volume of people, we put a time limit on the amount for each speaker during public comment. I don't think we have such a large number, but does everyone here plan to speak? Just wanted to get a general idea. I think we'll be good, but yeah. So we won't put a time limit per se, but if we, I don't know if anyone really sees a reason to go beyond three minutes. That's sort of our typical, but if you do end up going beyond, we understand. The board will then deliberate on the proposal using the applicable standards for clarity when considering land development proposals to code the code standards are typically read and voted on separately the final decision is then read and voted on if the applicant disagrees with a land development permit decision in the board that the board has made they may appeal the decision to the superior court of Maine once a project has been 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 before we get started on our new on a new item we do have less than seven people here so i 'd like to give the applicant an opportunity to come back when we have a full a full planning board anytime there's less than the full seven we give people the opportunity to do this is there does the applicant want to indicate their willingness to proceed tonight night or postpone to a later you want To proceed? Thank you. Okay, all right, so our first item is for the land development application for a major preliminary subdivision, major site development, and planned group development of a multi-phase development of 62 residential units. Phase one will include the construction of 14 single-family units on a proposed residential street, and phase two will include the construction to 24 unit multifamily buildings with associated parking. The project is located on Grandview of map lot are 41-0 to 3-a In the multifamily and service district M and SD, the applicant developers collaborative pre development LLC, and the owner of city of Bangor. So staff have complete, have indicated the completeness of this application and that it's ready for review. All fees are documented and paid. The applicant standing is confirmed. Does the board have any concerns about these issues, or are there any conflicts of interest? If none, I'd like to see a motion [8:18] Janet Sanborn Jonas: To accept the completeness. Remember Jonas chair, I move the board finds the application [8:24] Ross Thomas Whitford: Was deemed complete as of today, July 21st, 2026. All applicable fees for the project have been paid per exhibit 46 in our packet. The proposed project is a major preliminary subdivision. [8:37] Janet Sanborn Jonas: Major site development and planned group development. Thank you. In a second, member [8:44] Jonathan Boucher: Woodford. Excuse me, member Hobson. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Remember you? Yes. Remember Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. With that, we asked that the applicant, but in this case I think, and would like to start us off, come to the podium and give the presentation for and background for the project. [9:12] Anne Krieg: Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Anne Krieg. I'm the director of community and economic development for the city of Bangor. Project that's before you tonight, technically is still owned by the city of Bangor. We have a development agreement with the developers that are here this evening to present the plans that they're developing the property. We retain ownership until certain points of construction, should it be approved, have been completed. I wanted to give the Planning Board a brief understanding of how we got here. A lot of this project started before some of you were on the board, so you may not be aware of the work that happened that led us here to this evening. In early 2023, at a staff level, we were trying to look at other ways of what we could do to forward affordable housing in the city. The City Council at the time had designated that year as the year of housing. They wanted staff to spend a significant amount of time trying to do what we can. We made, as you probably have seen, a lot of zoning changes during, you know, those years, but also we were looking at, okay, what else can we do? So we started looking at city properties and to see, you know, can we be part of the solution where we actually dedicate city property to affordable housing? And we looked at this particular lot, it was the old nursery lot, unused by the city, and we really saw this property as, you know, from a planner's perspective, as, you know, a perfect site, you know, there's open Space across the street, you can walk to the high school, you can walk to a daycare center, you can walk to a grocery store. There's also a bus nearby and other types of goods and services that are within walking distance. So we really felt like this is a great site to locate affordable housing. And then we started looking at the affordability. You know, when we were, you know, we've done a lot of housing studies, you've seen them all, from the comprehensive plan to the housing study, and what we were hearing from people is that people in the 80 to 120 percent of average middle income, you know, for median income, excuse me, for Penobscot County, that they were kind of getting blocked out of finding housing that they could afford because they make too much to get subsidies and but they make too little to get into market rate housing. So for example, you know, the numbers for 80 to 120 percent for a household size of four, that range is about 75,000 to 113,000, and for a family of two it's 60 to 90,000 of household income. So that's, you know, kind of that sweet spot that we were trying to get to, that population of people that are, you know, working in Bangor, they're paying a lot for their rent and, you know, they're looking for either opportunities to purchase a home or, you know, to continue renting. And so that's kind of what led us to this. So we started again in 2023 and we started working with a group called the Genesis Fund. They support affordable housing projects throughout the state and they really guided us, you know, because, you know, we're not developers necessarily, you know, I kind of play one on TV as a planner, but you know, we really needed to get that technical support. So we started working with the Genesis Fund to, you know, to try to come up with a proposal, like, is this realistic for us to do this? And so we went through and looked at different scenarios of what we could do there. We met with city council ultimately in the fall of 2023 and gave them a proposal to say we would like to use this lot for affordable housing in this range and for these reasons that I described of the location of the lot. And so from there, we did the following year, we did a design charrette at Husson in March of 2024 and to try to work with the neighborhood to, you know, can we come up with a plan that, you know, is good for that site that gives us the number of units that we really are trying to get to. To, and you know, really kind of have that be a more participatory process for the design process, and then from there, throughout the summer, we, you know, did wetlands delineation, we did utilities analysis, and you know, ultimately in the fall of 2024, the city manager was authorized rise to commence negotiations after a request for qualifications process that we, you know, to negotiate a development agreement. And so fast forward through, you know, looking at sewer water and sewer, you know, analysis and working on an option agreement as well as a development agreement that was ultimately signed just this past January is we're here today now with a plan that we've been working on with this particular developer. So I just wanted to make sure people kind of understood, you know, how we got here. This is a project that's a little over three years now in the making, and but we, you know, we're hoping that the planning board will, you know, see this as a good project that, in your opinion, meets the requirements of the Land Development Code. So with that, I'm going to pass it off to the applicants. Thank you. [15:45] Steve Bushy: Good evening. Steve Bushy with LJB Inc. Engineering, formerly Goral Palmer Consulting Engineers out of South Portland. One. I've been with Goral Palmer since 2019. I've been in the civil engineering world after graduating from UMaine back in 1986, so it's been a long, great trip. I'm here with Mike Line, a developer's collaborative, the company that the city has chosen to try to go through with this project. I have a slide deck here with some 16, 17 slides I'd like to go through, if you wouldn't mind, to try to give you a sense of the site, what we're proposing, and so forth. I don't have a laser pointer. It won't work on these types of screens, so I'll try to walk my way through there, and feel free to interrupt if you would like as I go through each of these slide decks here. So the first one here, easiest for me, developers collaborative, just to add a little bit more to that, I've worked with developers collaborative now for probably at least 10 years or so. And I know under their direction and control, what they've built and redeveloped over the years, at least a thousand units, correct Mike? 2000 units, so a lot of development. I've been really fortunate, lucky to help them on so many of these projects. Some of them are new projects, brand new construction. Others are renos, old schools, for example, have been a target for them for many years now for affordable housing, and I've been involved with many of their main state housing financed and supported projects. So we would look forward to having a similar relationship here on this project on Grand View Avenue. So the area that you're seeing shows the site a little over 10 acres. We had Pliska and Day, local surveying company, provide our survey, the boundary in Topo. So the city of Bangalore, as best I know, with the deed, bought the property in 1923. So the city has owned it for a very long period of time. I know it's been referenced as the nursery. The remnants of the parcel include some fencing, maybe one small building. But beyond that, you know, I have not seen any photographs to know was it more developed in the way distant past or not. But as a nursery, I just assumed that must have grown some trees there and what have you to support the city's functions from public works or what have you. Grandview Avenue is kind of on the north top side of the image here. To the west left side is the newer development apprentice, but I can't recall exactly the name of those two new buildings are now constructed. And just to the south between the site and the broadway shopping center at least that's what I referenced it to the broadway shopping center I believe there's a daycare facility now under construction then to the east side right side there is a power line and more residential development so if you go to the next slide so just some introductions of folks I've introduced Mike, Ginny Stanley is the architect involved with our multifamily building. She's with Individa Architects, worked with her quite a bit on many of these projects with the Developers Collaborative, myself, and our landscape architect, AKLA, a landscape firm out of the Portland market that does also a lot of work with the Developers Collaborative, and as Anne has outlined here, Our project has 62 units, phase one of which would be 14 single-family homes, and we'll talk about exactly how we arrived at the 14 single-family as a phase one piece. And then phase two, to get more increased density, is two multifamily buildings, each with 24 units. This 24-unit model building is becoming kind of a good building to construct within that affordability range because everything within affordable housing is obviously driven by the cost of construction versus what you're going to be able to get for rents and so forth. So it's a very, tight market all the way from York County all the way here to Penobscot County, and I'm sure even further north. It's just pricing and building these projects is a challenge. Next slide, please. So, again, here is the city's GIS to give you a sense of what you see on the city website for the location of the property. In the blue color, 10.13 acres. Plissken Day did the survey, as I mentioned. If we want to come back to this at some point in time, you can see many of the other surrounding abutting properties as well. Next slide. So here's the multifamily service district zoning in the yellow, residential to the east and more commercial to the south and so forth. But you get some sense of where we're surrounded by various zoning districts. Next slide, please. So here's Plissken Day's existing condition survey. They actually gave us two different drawings. To give us a boundary survey, and then the existing condition survey has a topography, has some wetlands that you can see here in blue, which was done, and I'm going to show that in a moment, the map that was done by Watershed Resource Consultants, another firm that the city actually performed services for, and then the city kindly provided their deliverables to us to work off of. I guess what's most important here, and I'll talk about it a little bit more when I show you the Watershed Resources Consultant plan, but you can see the blue lines of Arctic Brook that extends from Grandview, culverted under Grandview Ave, and basically goes north-south through the site, and then a little bit from east west, there's a unnamed tributary going into Arctic Brook. So in a long Arctic Brook there are some wetland systems, and then the blue area here, much of which is within, you know, forested areas that look just nothing other than just some woods, but they're forested wetland systems. There is a bit of a road, I wish I could point out, but it's a U-shaped road, begins kind of on the left-hand side, and on the left-hand side where Versant Power has an overhead distribution line that passes down through basically, again, north to south through the property. That road, it's pretty rough. I traveled a portion of it just here a few weeks ago, and with a four-wheel drive, and I stopped. I didn't go much further. It's really thick and overgrown. I'm sure in years past, in the wintertime it's much more passable. There's a couple of trees that have fallen down as well through some of the road network, so you happened to go onto the site either walking or otherwise, that's what you would encounter. But that road goes across the unnamed tributary there to the kind of lower left corner, loops back around, and then comes up where there is this fence in a small building back onto Grandview Avenue. There's a second utility system as well that the city maintains for an interceptor sanitary sewer. I don't know the age of that, but I suspect it's been there a very long time because the tree growth over it would not lend you to believe that there was actually a utility down through there. But that sanitary sewer extending from Grandview goes down through to the shopping center, roughly 30 or 40 feet off of the Brook. The agreement or discussions, I should say, we've had with city staff relative to easement rights. The city owns the property now, so it's technically not an easement over that utility, but we would certainly be interested, and I'm sure the city won't, would like to have a 30 foot wide easement centered on the sanitary sewer, and away we go. So we have one existing easement for Versant and one proposed easement effectively to the city if this whole land transfer and so forth were to occur. Topography basically slopes from Grand View down towards the stream, both of those segments. We have a little bit of relief across the site, 20 to 25 feet or so, but not too awfully bad. Next slide please. So here is the natural resources map that Watershed Consultants did for us though, and you can see in the green on this color, and maybe the outline of where that road is. The road has the wetlands on either side of it, and that U-shaped, the red line, red areas, red shading indicates what has been identified, that wetlands have special significance because they're attached to the stream segments. We don't have any impacts to those we've tried to minimize and i'll talk about this as i get into the actual site layout out. Going into this process, we saw the RFQ documents, and Ann had mentioned scenarios that were done through Charette design effort, which was great. I think they had some 12 different concepts of what people were envisioning for the property, variable density from anywhere. I think one concept may have just had like 16 units, small houses or something, all the way up to like 120, which more density and it is interesting at least by my count and staff can correct me if I'm misquoting this, but as I read the zoning code for the district density wise you'd be allowed like 1700 units, it's a huge number and I think it's just the way the calculation works because you only need like 100 square feet after you get so many units into your calculation you only need 100 square. Feet more for each subsequent unit, which for 10 acre parcel okay well we have a lot of land here, nobody's interested in 1700 units obviously, so again here the green or wetlands 10 acre site, there's over four acres of wetlands on the property and so that became more of a factor for us as we began to investigate site design. I can tell you that the scenarios as they were viewed and Ann had mentioned that was March I think of 24 and but they didn't have the resources work done probably until the. Summertime, so those folks didn't have the benefit of truly understanding okay what are some of these site constraints besides utility corridors, the natural resources obviously present, the primary constraints Arctic Brook being foremost and then wetlands and so forth, but you can imagine that four acres or more out of ten all of a sudden kind of encumbering the parcel relative to development opportunity. Those concepts most of them envisioned to a certain extent most people I think knew that they. Had arctic brook and then you had the little unnamed tributary and as I looked at these schematics and graphics most everybody paid attention to those and didn't develop over them or show you know graphics as to all buildings and parking and so forth, but they envision pretty much the 10 acres being used just you know very close to the streams, we'll let the streams be and I think there was a certain degree of our view of it as reading the RFP and responding to it oh okay we've got 10 acres here. Yeah, it sounds like we can probably get some density and some opportunity here once we really got into understanding the wetland limitations and then utilities and so forth. Wow, that began to really define how we're going to view the project and what we're going to be able to do, so that was important. Next slide, please. So here's our development piece, and it's going to be, we've identified as a mixed residential development. We have two phases that we're defining. The first phase I'll show here in a moment, but it's basically what's on the east side with 14 single-family house lots, with what we hope would be a just public street, ultimately after it's constructed and presumably made to city standards and accepted, would become a traditional 50 foot wide right-of-way with a 26 foot wide road, sidewalk, curbing, regular utilities and so forth. And we have 14 single-family lots here. For access, that would be the phase one of the project, and currently is being really targeted right now. There are discussions, and I only get too much into the details that to the financing and funding mechanisms, and either Mike or Ian might be able to talk to that if the discussion leads that way here in a bit. Phase two up into the upper left corner would be two multi-unit buildings, each 24 units, three-story buildings, and I'm going to show you some elevation to that, but these are just relatively straightforward rectangular shaped, two stairwells, no elevator in, just a pitched roof style, eight units, one bedroom or studio on each floor, times three floors, so we have 24 units, a nice model, and I'll give you some floor plans here in a moment to be able to look at that. Staffs comments on going from our initial submission and to where what we're looking at today, probably one of the bigger comments was connectivity. We had initially submitted a plan with a dead-end street with a turnaround, as you can see here, coming off a Grandview avenue, and then we were going to have a turnaround, and that was it, and it wasn't going to be connected to the two buildings with its parking lot, and that parking lot's 54 spaces now, the parking lot for that multi. We're taking advantage of the fact that Versant has said yeah, you can build parking in our easement, because basically their easement extends from the street down through, well, why not take advantage of that area and put a parking lot, no buildings obviously. I'll, I'll note, in our most recent discussions with Versant, and we provided the city today with Their letter of intent agreement to work with us on the project, they've got three poles. They're likely to just replace those poles, raise everything up so that everybody's happy with clearances for the wires. It's not bad today, but I'm guessing they're probably going to put 10 or 12 foot high, taller poles in three locations. That'll raise everything up, and I think we should be in good shape. But staff made the comment of connectivity, and so the plan you see here does show that we would expect that there would be some gate control, though, that could be controlled by the emergency services fire department, Knox Box with a key or something like that, would basically prohibit that being a cut-through for anybody. Everybody so the residents in the 14 houses still have effectively a dead end Street and then the multis have a basic parking lot and that would function that way it was a good comment I think we've worked it out well and actually we actually reduced a little bit of our wetland impact which was helpful and so forth so you can see in this plan as well and I apologize I'm not sure I have a plan but there's a little light yellow just above the word screen at the bottom that's part of the old road. And what we'd like to be able to do there is have an extension of a pedestrian pathway that would go from effectively the confluence here of the parking lot for the maltese and the 14 houses and its sidewalk anybody living on this site would be able to walk down that to get to the shopping center so we would at least extend that I think that probably matches into to where or whatever the daycare folks are doing relative to public access. I don't suspect that's getting used, at least from what I could see in the summertime, maybe in the wintertime if there's no snow, but I don't see a lot of traffic there. But that'll also connect to the north side to Grandview Avenue. And if you can see here, perhaps we're proposing a sidewalk, the full frontage length of the property. And importantly, to the left, we would have just a short connection to the new flashing beacon mid-block crosswalk. So I don't know the history of the city's installing that beacon, but I suspect it's not very long ago. I'm not sure it's actually been activated or not, but that's a crosswalk to get you to the sidewalk on the other side of Grand Grandview and then the trails that are to the north of that in Prentice Woods so felt like that was a good piece the sidewalk we'd be installing along our frontage going to the west would just stop at the property line and I'm not sure the city's expectations are so forth we do show another crosswalk without a flashing Beacon though that would get because there is a trail on the right hand upper right hand corner of the plan there's another trail system that we would have access and that crosswalk again would connect to that. Next slide. The important piece on this was the existing conditions and again outlining in red you see the utility easements so sanitary sewer to the right side several manholes that are there and I know that the city when I went out to the side just a few weeks back the lower corner as you see a little angle in there in their red 30 foot easement i think they had just discovered a manhole there and uncovered it and so forth but it's really thick on that side of the site in blue is arctic brook over to the left is a 80 foot wide easement for burson you can see a bunch of topo there next slide phase one again so that's in the red area here as you can see so what would be constructed to be that piece of the road we've got single family house lots anywhere from a little over four thousand square feet to almost seven thousand square feet believe we have 50 feet of frontage for all of the lots it's close on a couple of them and the lot up lot one up on the grand view the frontage was going to be measured on grand view So the frontage on this street, and we've been using the street name, not without official authorization, but Arboretum Drive seemed appropriate and, you know, reasonable. I recall, I think I did try to look up the streets in Bangor and didn't find that one. So, okay, maybe that was good, but have not confirmed that with, I guess, your 911 director or whatever, but we will. I'm going to show you a landscape plan in a moment again, traditional construction with utilities in the street, services to each of the homes, water, sewer, underground electric, everything would come in. We haven't gotten a lot yet from Versant, but we have communicated with them that we want underground for everything, and we expect that will just simply come off of Grand View Avenue. Shouldn't be that big of a deal, relatively straightforward. I know there's natural gas in Grand View as well, but we I haven't done a lot of projects where DC has been using gas as frequently. We're going electric on so many things now, so I'm not sure if that'll be an option or not, but again, it's always driven by price and cost. Next slide. Here are the single-family homes, modular homes, and if questions get into this, Mike might be able to talk a little bit more, but we have two different styles that are represented on our plans, recognizing our lot configurations all abide by your setback rules, front setbacks, side setbacks, how do these fit. But these are modular style homes basically delivered to the site, built and constructed off-site, more than likely out of state, and then delivered. And this is a new model for D.C., and it's really being driven by a long-term plan and vision of trying to build more affordable housing in the state. How do you best go about doing it? And I'm guessing you folks have seen some of that here in the form of either tiny homes or what have you, but this is a 1600 square foot home with a garage, three bedrooms, utilities would have a crawl space underneath it with a, you know, perimeter concrete block perhaps foundation, some of those details yet to be configured, but we wanted to show you what this was, the expectation of what the house was going to look like, just a single level. The next slide shows a floor plan. As you can see here, three bedrooms, 1,620 square feet. That front garage area, I suspect, fits basically a car, a car and a half. I'm not sure it would fit two, but maybe if you had two small, very small vehicles, but the expectation, you know, this is affordable, right? So maybe a lot of people don't have two cars, at least if they're, if they're wise, because cars cost so much. Next slide will show you the second model that we've also shown. So that one has a garage more to the side rather than the front, and that's represented in our plans as well. Actually a little smaller square footage, but again, a three bedroom garage style sets the garage back, so they have little bit longer driveway. We've designed all of the houses though between both of these models so that at least one car length, if not a car length or two in the, in the park in the driveway rather, plus the garage. So we think that should be able to handle well enough 14 houses relative to parking, and no need specifically for on-street parking, but it's a dead-end street, so I'm not sure necessarily how Bangor would necessarily regulate cars parking on a street like this. But that's the vision relative to what the houses look like. Next slide. Yeah. So phase two now in pink shows the two modulars, and I'm going to give you a couple of different things here on floor plan and building elevations. Again, it's a model that D.C. is building and likes because they have a pretty good handle on how much it costs to build these units. We have 54 parking spaces, so with 48 units, we're a little over one per. And as affordable housing, I believe the city's standard is less than a one space per unit. But D.C., in this particular location, in their understanding of the market and so forth, It's not downtown per se, although there is going to be transit access as we understand it along Grandview, which is great and good, but we're providing those 54 spaces. It feels just slightly north of one space per unit. It feels comfortable with that. We've got some common space area, and the point that I'll make there as we look at the layout of the site. So Grandview frontage, east side, up against the neighboring multi-unit development, east side, Arctic Brook, and the setbacks to Arctic Brook, we're under some amount of need and desire from DEP, for example, Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, all of whom we've had pre-app meetings. And, you know, they really encouraged us to offer as much setback to the resources as we could. And in fact, Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife first came out and said, oh, we'd like to have 100 foot setback from all the streams. Well, all of a sudden you begin to think, OK, well, we're on a project that's looking for density and numbers here for development. Development and another side of it looks with a different lens and says, well, we want setbacks and so forth. And that makes it a challenge, certainly. And the case that I have made, at least preliminarily, we're filing applications with the department DEP for our wetlands permitting. But our case that we made in our pre-application meeting was all about the city's goals and objectives of a certain density value. And we showed them all of the scenarios that had been done through the charrette and they began to understand oh okay so the city has a certain expectation of things there's going to be a give and take here and can we make a case and I'm hopeful that we're we're going to make a successful case relative to what we've tried to do here our footprint area and what we're clearing is about four acres of the ten and we do have some wetland impact we have about 0.85 acres of wetland impact which you know started off more than an acre, generally, all the scenarios that the city had done, I've. You know, roughly done the calculations and anywhere from 1 to 3 acres of well, an impact and, you know, that was just a lot and probably would be a tougher sell where we've arrived. I'm feeling comfortable that we'll, we'll get approvals. Staff has weighed in on our design particularly with some grading pieces that we provided them on the back side of those buildings so if lot one is up in the right hand corner then one two three four five six those lots as you can see are closest to Arctic Brook and we had some grading we're trying to create lawns behind those houses and they did go back a ways and staff made the comment that well geez we really you know tighten it up so you can get more buffer of i.e don't touch the woods and The trees that are there because it's a substantial amount of buffering that is there, and so we've done that and brought in, you know, lawn area and so forth behind those lots. And the staff also made comments and provided direction to a certain extent of, is DC willing to provide deed restrictions on those lots that effectively, when a lot is sold, the purchaser is going to be under deed restriction that you can't go clear all the way to the back side of your property, which you know often happens. Somebody, oh I bought the lot and I can go clear it all. Well, no, you're not going to be able to do that here. So we're comfortable with that to be able to protect the buffers behind those lots in specifically. The phase two law area as well, you can see there's a little area in between those buildings just to the right side of the building that's more vertical up and down, but that would be, at least envisioned right now, some common space and community garden type thing. DC has done a lot of projects. Community gardens seem to be a big hit. The tenants like them, and it's a good space. When I started this, I had many of the single families even tighter to the brook because I was trying to open up the common space in the middle. There was a certain degree of discussion amongst our team in the design trying to provide a core common, so to speak, between the two styles of housing. It's shrunk up a bit, but we'll make it work. It'll feel reasonably good at the sake of trying to save some buffering up against arctic brook. The next slide here's just a typical building elevation for these multis. So I believe the height, because I want to say they're like 42 or 43 feet once, I can't quite remember, pitched roof, three stories. I said you can see kind of the two areas in the middle here that are the two stairwell locations, and then you have the units, you have the end view up on the top, and then just a side view, and it's basically the same on both sides of the building, so I just gave you this one elevation. Buildings benefit from, or the site I should say benefits from all of this great location relative to utilities. You got 16 inch water main in grandview ave and we're going to have a looped water main through our site, so that's good. A few more hydrants, sanitary sewer as you know goes through the site, so we'll tie into that, and the power, so all good availability for all of those things. EV charging, EV readiness. Those are things that in these affordable projects, the EV readiness is a, is typically the direction we go, meaning we install conduits for all of this for future need. If tenant demand is there for EV charging, we don't always see a lot of demand, particularly affordable housing, but we're providing and being ready for it. Next slide. Here's the floor plan again, studios and one bedrooms. I believe the square footage is here. Did I mark that out? Yeah, 560 square feet for the one bed and then a studio is 502 square feet. Next slide. I wanted to point out here's kind of our resource area and you can see the wetlands in the shaded area of where we're impacting wetlands and the red line is a 75, 45-foot offset line from the wetlands of special significance and stream and within that area we have 16,000 square feet or so of impact related to either putting buildings, the houses or some grading activity. Not a lot. And then the wetland impact as I said,.85 or 37,000 plus square feet of wetland impact and you can see that the wetlands basically some of which the long skinny ones I don't know if they're man-made ditches you know from a hundred years ago or not but probably kind of look like that you can see certainly some semblance of where you know drainage it was an active site for whatever reasons or purposes besides a nursery over the course of a hundred years but that's where those wetlands are don't see it on this plan back on the arrow you would there's a pretty big stand of pine trees down in the lower corner next to the daycare area if you're familiar with that site we're not touching those are all south of that intermittent stream so we're not doing anything there it's really all upwards above the stream areas. Next slide. Here's just a lighting plan. Typical street. I think all of these street lights along Arboretum Drive are 15-foot high dark sky compliant lights and then traditional lights along the parking lot for the multifamily. So trying to keep lighting to a minimum certainly enough though for compliance but you'll know again to the east side of the site Arctic Brook and then everything further east which not a lot as you get up to the top of this property near Grandview but then Arctic Brook veers away from the property line again all land not being developed fairly wooded and heavily wooded with you know 30 40 foot tall trees and the same thing to the south side I think maybe one more or two more slides Matt I Can't, yeah, subdiv, preliminary subdivision plan, so again this is just showing the 16 lots, 14 single family house lots, lot 15 would be the multi-family, and then the remaining open space area which would be effectively lost 16 as we've currently configured the subdivision plan. Now, if ultimately this gets constructed, you have a public way of 50 foot wide. The city also wanted some easement areas. Therefore, the drainage, because the drainage and stormwater management that we provided. So we have a road and we have house lots. We also have the multifamilies, but the road and house lots have basically their own two systems, pretty straightforward, traditional DEP approved, grassed underdrained soil filters. They just look like relatively infrequently maintained areas. When it rains, they fill up with some water, 12 to 18 inches, water goes down through the ground, it's collected through some underdrains and released, gets water quality treatment, and then the basin itself offers some flood control. We have two of those that the city would take maintenance responsibility for a long term because that would be the city road and so we've provided some easements there and then there's a couple other drainage areas that too we would expect the city would want to have the maintenance ability for the property on the multi family their stormwater management is separate and they have their own separate system all underground with a storage system and a filter system underneath the parking lot and They would have their own maintenance responsibilities so city has no responsibility for anything having to do with the multis water district also wanted to have an easement so they're going to have a line theoretically they'll come down through grand view through the street and then loop back up through the parking lot through the multi-family parcel and the water district said okay it's a loop system great but we would like to have an easement because it's going to be our water main and it'll Be on that private property of lot 15, and so there's an easement identified on the plan, have the existing easements as I mentioned earlier about the sanitary sewer croissants easement. I don't think there's anything else relative to the subdivision plan per se. I'm not sure if I have one more or not, Matt. All right, yes, a few other specifics. I'm sure there's going to be some discussion and questions. Traffic, 14 single-family homes and 48 units don't produce a lot of traffic under the category of you know, affordable houses. In what we've provided staff trip generation, traditional, our office has traffic engineering. I think our traffic engineers have probably been here in Bangor a few times on various projects or maybe even working for the city. Weekday traffic, 358 trips, 179 round trips, that's the full day. In the peak hours, that morning or afternoon hours, 28, 37 trips, so not a lot of trip generation per se out of the other, the development. I'll just know, you know, the published annual daily traffic volumes that the DOT has, they're not most recent, but 19 or 2023, Broadway they had, or Grandview I should say, east of Broadway, closer to our site, had 2,900 and change vehicles for the total daily traffic, and 3,600 closer to Essex Street. So not huge traffic volumes, but you know, enough so took a look at the accident history on the dot site. Broadway and Grandview is a high accident location, it's got 24 crashes there with a critical rate factor of 108, which you know puts it above one, which is kind of the extent of my traffic piece that I can give you, but I'm pointing that out. I do not know exactly what, if there are any trends for traffic accidents or otherwise on Broadway given Grandview's traffic volumes, not sure, you know, left turns sometimes are culprits, but that's, I wanted to present that to you at least. We believe the site distances are fine or at our driveways, it's a 25 mile an hour a speed limit on Grandview, so thinking we're in good shape relative to both of our driveways there, and that flashing beacon that the city is now installed there at that crosswalk, it's a mid block, there's no, you know, signal or otherwise there, but you know, it's appropriate application of putting a flashing beacon, and we'll take advantage of that certainly. So hope to see that go in the next slide. So just other, again I mentioned, you know, we're really trying to get this project off the ground and in some construction for phase one, i.e. building the road and some house lots here using some Funding that I believe the city already has in place. You know, the technical pieces of construction, clearing and grading, soils conditions, had a geotechnical engineer do test bits on the property so comfortable with what we've got. It's not all sand and gravel, but it's also not all soft clays there. So we should be okay. So I've mentioned to you multiple times, utilities are all great. Raising of the pole so on the versant side will help with clearances we think the fire department access is good to everything there'll be I think our plan shows one or two more fire hydrants within what we're constructing so that I'll add the two multi buildings would have full sprinkler systems I'm not sure if there's a local hold on single family houses requiring any sort of sprinkler but I don't we wouldn't expect that as I've mentioned cost are always the driver and we're hopeful that we Can get this thing to work and good site the sidewalk and trails I kind of stood out to me as why this site feels like a really appropriate site wish there wasn't as much wetland in it in the streams would have gotten more density but for the four acres that were shown on the plan is being developed. I think we've tried to get as much as we can out of them, particularly because of the goals of the single family piece with the affordable housing ownership plan under which this is kind of falling with main state housing. I don't know a lot about the AHOP plan, but this project's already been awarded some AHOP funds potentially to build these 14 single family houses. So, that falls under the state's targets as to certain categories of housing and affordable housing plans, not just apartments, but housing. This is trying to fulfill that big need. And then finally, the transportation, transit opportunity that just kind of came up in the last couple of days as to a potential to have a bus round. I don't know any more about that, and maybe the city staff can talk about that. But when it was mentioned I thought oh geez that's like really good if we could get you know a bus route on Grandview and have a stop if not at the site very nearby we're putting in the sidewalk so that would be great I think now that's my last slide oh no process local process here that we're going through staff's write up has been clear that well you got to get your wetland permit as well and because we've been having some back and forth with staff and our submissions. I hadn't made my DEP application because I just didn't want to kind of muddy the water necessarily. I wanted to be pretty definitive once I made a DEP submission as to exactly where we were landing with things. And I'm feeling comfortable with that. So it's probably tomorrow that I'm making a submission to DEP. Again, feeling comfortable with the outcome of our pre-op meeting that we did have with both DEP and Army Corps, running them through where we were at and what the expectations were about the development for this size parcel and where we've landed with a 0.85 wetland impact. To some that may sound like a lot, given a 10 acre piece of property and what we have ahead of us there with the resources, I thought that was a pretty good number to land on. We really tried to do as much as we could to minimize those impacts and then maintain setbacks from the resources as well. So that's where we've landed. And we're hopefully you folks can query us with some good questions, and we'll look forward to listening to the public as well. [58:05] Jonathan Boucher: So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pushy. Great Asian wanted to ask if there's any staff comments. [58:14] Steve Bushy: Yep. So just wanted to clarify on the transit piece of it. We did coordinate with Lori Lynn Scott. She is the transit operations coordinator. There's unfortunately not room for a turnaround on Grandview for a bus to go up Grandview and make a stop there. But there is a bus stop on Hillside which is a short distance down for people to walk down to that bus stop. What we did agree we could add is a pull off for a paratransit van in front of that northern building, and that's for people that aren't able to walk down to Hillside Avenue. And so it's basically the size it's a van they could just pull right in front of there and then turn around and go back the other way. So that's the transit piece of it. I did just want to you all have the updated decision letter in your packet with updated conditions, but just for the benefit of everyone. Since this is a little bit different than the decision letter that was online. The updated conditions that we're requesting are that the final subdivision plan for the project addresses the comments from the water district that were received on July 20th, and also that the landscaping plan minimize conflicts between the plantings and utilities, and also minimize disturbance and plantings within the 75 foot setback from the wetlands of special significance. Also, that deep restrictions are created for lots 1 through 6 and lot 8 to minimize disturbance within that 75 foot setback outside of that required for the home construction. Also, obviously, that the project receives final subdivision approval, and then, before building permits are issued, the project receives the wetland permitting from Dp and Army Corp. Engineers, and that includes the permitting for the activity within that 75 foot setback thank [59:59] Jonathan Boucher: you any board member questions to staff or applicant yes [1:00:06] Janet Sanborn Jonas: member Jonas I just want to [1:00:09] Ross Thomas Whitford: talk to the applicant really quickly because when the way I understand this when the RFQ was selected by the city for to partner to develop this property the proposed density was 92 units for this more or less same size parcel and then the proposal that you're bringing to us is just over 60 right the 14 units plus 48 high density apartments so I'd really like for the record for a succinct for lack of a better sound bite for our press that are here why that decision was made and how that actually makes this a better project than having those additional almost 30 [1:00:49] Steve Bushy: units available for the public to live in yeah the original RF Q response by DC was 94 units if I recall correctly and we've arrived at 62. There was a bit of a change because of the AHOP plan or program that was being put out by Main State Housing I'm not sure maybe Mike you want to talk a little bit more how we went from the 94 I can tell you on the design side for the civil piece of it which I was tasked with doing layout after layout after layout and trying to make something work relative to the resources and the constraints that we had we started thinking all right we could be pretty close to the sanitary sewer line and I really felt going into this without having spoken to DEP for example that oh they'll allow us to build right up to the utility line because that's a utility line even though it's very close to the brook and it became relatively clear once we met with the DEP and IFW folks that oh well you know that's only like 25 or 30 feet off of the stream we don't want you that close to the stream area so we'd like to have you know they offered the 100 foot and we couldn't make 100 feet work relative of getting any sort of density because it just chewed up I think the land area available. If we abided by a hundred feet to those two streams, we'd have about two point two and a half acres of developable land to put buildings. That's not including the croissant right where we park, but I've done that measurement as part of my whole DEP permitting. Two and a half acres just really tight to basically fit anything in. We improve a little bit by maintaining the 75 foot setback. We get like 2.94 acres or something like that of developable area where we could buildings. We're a little over three acres because I had to encroach roughly that 16,000 square feet into the 75 foot buffer, and that's the case I'm going to be making to DEP as far as the reduction though. Overall, I'll let maybe Mike speak. I know our concept that we had in the RFQ was reliant, it was going to be a mix of housing styles. I think we had five or six 12-unit buildings, kind of a standard in some areas, 12-unit building, easy to build, have a cost structure to it, a couple of six-unit buildings. And we had a lot, we had, I think, 10 or 11, sub 12 single family duplex style, but it wasn't 100 clear exactly what those were going to look like. They were small though, very small, and they weren't these single family homes that we've now kind of arrived at. They were like 750 square feet, and so that's how we're getting to that 94 fitting those in, but we've now taken up a lot more square footage with the 14 house [1:03:57] Mike Line: Good evening, I'm Mike Line. I am the director of commercial real estate with Developers Collaborative, and thank you for having us here tonight. And you know, engineers are all detail oriented, right? So I think the short answer to that is we just got pinched. We started with a much heavier plan that was much more multi-family heavy and a smaller duplex, and we had that pretty much right up to Arctic Brook before we really started to understand what that setback was going to do to us, and at that point we were approved those 10 units through the ahop program with main housing we were eligible for 14 units so that's when we pivoted we went to the lot we shifted off the brook we went to bigger a bigger single family project and as time has worn on between the versant easement and the parking requirements over there and the brook requirements the whole site just pinches down organically so we feel like we've kind of maxed the number of units we can get on it without you know in order to get the Dep permit and not be, you know, not rolling the dice with percent, yeah. [1:05:06] Jonathan Boucher: Remember, Jonas, you had a follow-up question, just a quick follow-up. [1:05:08] Ross Thomas Whitford: I'm also wondering if you could speak just briefly, succinctly, about how having these affordable housing units for sale, for ownership, benefits affordable housing efforts in Bangor, where a portion of this will not be rental. It will actually be available for families to build wealth in that particular community. Yep. [1:05:34] Mike Line: Yep. The vast majority of our work is in the multifamily arena, and that's pretty much the product that Maine Housing has worked on for decades. This is a new program that was rolled out in 2024. We were one of the first batch of applicants. And this is, the acronym is AHOP. It's the Affordable Housing Ownership Program. So Maine Housing is really starting to focus on and listening to the public and realizing it's not just, it's just not a rental need necessarily that we really need, that's that it's, it's the wealth building, it's the equity piece for younger people. It could be, it could be an equity piece for a retiree, you know, so we're not, we're not specifying workforce, you know, a lot of people talk about the missing middle. That could be my kids who are in their 20s, that could be retirees who worked in the public sector their whole life, so that's what we're really focusing on, that's what Main Housing is focusing on, but this is a new product for us. We typically work on, you know, senior and family projects that are rentals, but it's definitely an area that the state needs to address, is addressing, and we're going to get into that space more and more. This is our first project [1:06:47] Ross Thomas Whitford: with single families. Thank you very much. Yeah, any [1:06:52] Jonathan Boucher: other questions from chances number one? Yeah, on [1:06:57] Greg Hobson: On your multi-building, it's three stories. I didn't hear anything about an elevator. And if there isn't one, how does that affect the Americans with Disabilities Act and accessibility and all that stuff? [1:07:11] Mike Line: Yeah, no, that's a good question. There are no elevators in that building. So all the ADA units, the required units would be on the first floor. And so they have to be grade accessible, whether that entrance right at grade or we have to ramp into that first floor. So they are essentially three-story walk-ups, and that same model we can build with a flat roof, with an EPDM roof that we happen to put pitched roofs on it. We're doing the same building in Bath for Bath Ironworks for a workforce project, and that neighborhood really preferred the pitched roofs based on all the historic homes in the neighborhood, and they thought that the flat roof wouldn't necessarily fit in. and the building's going up right now actually and it's roofed and being roughed in it and scale wise it actually fits really well we like them so no elevator ada on the first floor i think that answered all your questions yeah one more the eb charging stations [1:08:13] Greg Hobson: Yes, you know, I mean he made a off hand comment about not sure that affordable housing needs that. But I think in the future, electric cars are probably going to be cheaper than internal busting engines. [1:08:27] Mike Line: Yeah, more and more. [1:08:28] Greg Hobson: Yeah, we're seeing the Chinese model, which the American automobile manufacturer is going to have to meet. They're going to be pretty cheap. [1:08:36] Mike Line: Yeah, no, we. So and he talks about and Steve talked about, you know, gas being in Grandview as well for that a hot program. Program per the financing requirement condition has the conditionally we have to make those all electric. We have to we have to make them solar capable, so we rough in for solar for future solar, and we have to provide a certain number of you know conduit to the parking areas for a certain number of future EV stations. So it's it's really moving towards at least roughing in for you know the electrified world. The multis depending on the funding source, which we have not nailed down yet, could be gas heating, but if it's a main housing project I guarantee you [1:09:21] Greg Hobson: it'll be all electric. So the charging stations won't be per unit, it'll be so many in the parking [1:09:27] Mike Line: lot? For the single families actually it will be per unit. Each unit has to be roughed in, so they have to be their garage will have to have a right size panel and the conduit will have to be there, and they can they can add the charger itself later, but the panel's got to be big enough and the amperage to the building has to be adequate that 220 or so level two is two is 240 like these would be probably level one chargers, which would just be one 120. Typical building will get 200 amps, so not to you know overpower a small single family home any [1:10:05] Jonathan Boucher: Other questions to the applicant or to the city staff? I have one question to city staff. It's about the enforceability and what it would look like for the deed restrictions for the people who would be buying these properties up against the water. Is that so they can't clear right up to the past the buffer zone, the 75 foot area? What is the process of enforcing that? I'm not familiar with that. I haven't run into that previously. Grace, do you want to find one? Yeah, just so I'm clear. [1:10:43] Speaker K (unidentified): What you're asking, are you asking about like if they were to extend past a lot line or something? [1:10:48] Jonathan Boucher: Like that. Yeah, what's the body that checks? Is it just at the resale of the property that the deed is reviewed and it's seen whether or not it's in compliance with the deed restrictions? Or just to [1:10:58] Steve Bushy: clarify, it's the restriction that they would be placing on a homeowner clearing within their lot. That's what the deed restriction would be restricting people to. It [1:11:09] Speaker K (unidentified): would probably be at the time of purchase and sale. You know, when you purchase a house, somebody goes out and looks at [1:11:17] Jonathan Boucher: it wouldn't be code enforcement is my point that would be going out and checking on these yeah that's that's I thought it would be at the purchase and sale thank you wanted to understand that a little bit any other questions before we thank you for the applicants for your clarifications at this point we are looking to open public comment so for this process we just remind you to state your name if you're a bangor resident if you bought it if you're for or against it and i see that the light is green. But if you do turn it off, or if you do come up after someone, just make sure it's green so that everyone can hear you. So if we have anyone who'd like to come up for public comment, now's the time. Please. Yeah. [1:12:04] Nori Casdoy: Hello, my name is Nori Casdoy. We live on 555 Grandview, we live right next to this project. So needless to say, we are a little concerned. And those numbers for traffic are from 2023. There's been more construction. There is a childcare facility with room for 200 children. Traffic is going to be a disaster. It's already bad. Essex suffers, Broadway suffers. Like you mentioned, there's many, albeit for the most part small, but still accidents on that corner with Broadway traffic is going to be an issue. And yes, we are all bus service and a walking path. People are going to use their car. This is this is the culture. People are going to take their car to Hanaford. They're not going to walk with their heavy bags down that walk path. It's nice that it's there, you know, and for strolling, but people are going to drive it. There's going to be a lot more traffic, I can guarantee you. And which is very disturbing, there's been lots of construction in that area. It's already very congested, and now we're adding this. Like okay yeah low income, there won't be much traffic. There will be a lot of traffic, and I would like to see how we're going to resolve that. You have to anticipate before you decide to build, and it is going to be an issue I guarantee you. Also I have one question. Whereas the single family houses are going to be for purchase right, the multi family units are going to be rentals who 's going to manage those what [1:13:49] Jonathan Boucher: I might suggest, well just again just the, what I might suggest is we'll keep track of that question and then we'll just we'll if there's other comments and then at the end we'll we'll give the applicant a chance to respond to those and we'll just make sure that we have [1:14:03] Nori Casdoy: and so the traffic is an issue also living right there it's a very wet property it's a wetland our most of our property is very wet it freezes in the winter it elevates it changes you know with the with the seasons and i'm and i'm not an engineer so if somebody can explain to me if you're going to you know build all these heavy units partially in the wetland how is that going to affect how the water is going to be processed is that going to affect our property is it 's already you know not easy keeping our garage and our basement dry. Is it going to push some of that water? It might be a stupid question, but could that affect my property? And if it does, do I have any kind of resource to say listen guys, this is what we're going to do about this? Those let's see, I think also the new neighborhoods that have been built in our area lately are very stark. I know there is some existing trees that I'm glad that you guys are keeping, but still Whisper Drive and the new neighborhood of Lancaster There's nothing there. It's it's very stark. It's very ugly. It's is there are there any plans to make at least this more aesthetically pleasing so it doesn't look like you know you can drive into Whisper Drive. It looks awful. Those were [1:15:34] Jonathan Boucher: the concerns that I had, so thank you for your attention. Thank you. Just a point of order. We've got questions here. I was going to ask maybe the applicant to – I can either just finish public comment and we can keep track of all these questions and then ask the applicant to come back up and answer them, or I think that's probably the cleanest way to do it rather than back and forth. So if – that's how I think we'll do it, and we'll just make – I have a list and we'll do our best to make sure that you get a response. All right. Other public comment? In good [1:16:19] Brian Ames: evening members of the Planning Board. My name is Brian Ames. I'm a resident of 124 Lancaster Avenue, which is not too far away from this project, and I just want to say that this is the first opportunity that we've had as neighbors to see what the details are of the potential project. So what I'm asking is, what I'm saying is that we are we are a little bit behind the curve in terms of being able to offer suggestions and being able to participate in the process at all. But I will say that there are some observations that I would like to make, and they are in light of the recently constructed project that has been referenced that is now on Lancaster Avenue, and I see very many similar issues that are going to be presented with this development here. And those issues relate to setbacks of the buildings from public way, they relate to landscaping and the ability to keep these buildings in somewhat of a manner that's consistent with residential buildings in Bangor, and that's one of the things that I'm most concerned about is maintaining the Bangor a residential character. I don't think we need to be a South Portland or Portland simply to create more units, which is I think the basic objective here. I think the design team has done a great job, by the way, in terms of how they've laid out the single families and the architecture that's been proposed for the single families. I think they've done a great job. I would take a moment to look at the multi-families and notice that they're very Close to Grandview Avenue. In fact, they're beside land of Grandview with a very little setback, and that's going to be very imposing upon the character of Grandview Avenue. And I think maybe that could be taken another look at in terms of whether or not there's any opportunity to do more construction on Lot 10, for instance, a Lot 16, pardon me. What's going to happen with Lot 16? Is that ever going to be developed in more? Is it going to be set aside as a wildlife refuge, or what is it going to happen? So that's one question that I have. The other question is, are any of the existing trees that were part of Roland Perry's tree farm, are those any of those going to be reused and perhaps saved? And or is it going to be a clear cut from wall to wall like we've experienced recently in our neighborhood? And if that's true, then I didn't notice on the landscaping plan where those might be and exactly how much landscaping there would be. I noticed there is some down the long Grandview Avenue, also out in the right of way of Grandview Avenue, which is a good thing. I think we need that. So those are my comments. And I just did want to say that, again, the original concept was for quite a number of units, which, as we found out the restrictive situations of the site, forced it down to a much smaller number. We are happy. I think with the single family homes, I think those are very nice. And again, I would like to take another look at the setback of that parallel building next to Grandview. I think it's going to be very imposing in terms of the neighborhood similarities. That's all I have. [1:20:12] Jonathan Boucher: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Ames. Any other public comment? Yep, please. My [1:20:22] Kelly Hashy: name is Kelly Hashy. I'm a taxpayer and a homeowner, and I have the unique thing that me and my friend walk two miles seven days a week. We live where the disastrous Maine Woods is, and we walk on Greenview Avenue seven days a week. We used to be able to have a conversation on Essex Street, which is right around the corner, goes down Greenview. We can't do that anymore. The traffic is so horrendous. We've almost been killed, I can't even tell you how many times. Four times I've had people try to get me in their car. This was with another person this week. He didn't speak English. He said, you gotta get in my car, you gotta get in my car. I don't want to dwell on that because I got too much to say. I wish I had 50 minutes to talk because I got a lot to say. We live right near the Main Woods development, which was all supposed to be affordable housing. Right now it's mostly rented. The people who bought have mostly sold it and out and to other people. If you followed up with these projects you could learn from. We're victims of what has happened to us. The advertisement and the paper said that this, the land you're going to use is city-owned. You work for the taxpayers and the taxpayers own the land. And in Bangor as a taxpayer I wanted and I'm gonna ask rhetorical questions, don't answer them. I want to know why in Bangor as taxpayers we're not allowed to vote on the city budget, school budget, County budget, and what you vote on to do with taxpayer owned land. We should get to vote on this. Grandview is also built on the Arctic Brook. We know firsthand because the Maine Woods was built on the Arctic Brook. It's flooding continuously. On East Broadway, which is an abutter to that development, four roofs have had to be replaced because once you rip out every single tree and all the dirt, there's no buffer anymore. It's like a vortex of wind that just comes and rips the wind the roofs off. My neighbor, he knows her because we're neighbors, she had to spend ten thousand, ten thousand dollars on a roof this year. And other people have had to do repairs to the roof. One neighbor still the same vortex, their insurance company said you have to replace your roof or we're not going to insure you. This is what happens when you rip every trio. There are consequences. And there are animals that live there. And I have been in planning meetings for the last three, four years. The comprehensive plan says you were all about open spaces. You're slowly sucking away all the open spaces and all the animals have nowhere to go. I walk this every day, and I see how many animals are being displaced. The traffic, oh, they're gonna go 25 miles an hour. It says it all. This stuff works on paper, but we are victims of reality. What has happened to us, the flooding, the wind, the mosquitoes, it's, it's just, as a homeowner, you don't have a choice. The second this development went in behind us, I had to put gutters on my house. My basement flooded day after day after day. And I'm a photographer. I have 25,000 photos. Thousands of them were on flooding. 12 months out of the year, flooding,, flooding. My neighbor had to put in a new cellar, $32,000. This is the reality of these developments and the over ripping every tree out and sticking 4 million people in there, being abducted by people. I mean, it's not safe even to walk anymore. Now, two people last week told me I should be carrying. That means carrying a gun. I don't carry one, but I now carry mace. You're overpopulating and just thinking this is a utopia that we're gonna, oh, we're, we're doing housing for people. We have illegals living in back of us, renters living, motorcycles that go all night, my neighbor's dogs are all discombobulated anyway. Smart growth, this isn't smart growth at all. Why is there growth at all? There's enough people in this section of town. Go somewhere else. And I want to say on it, I want to vote on this stuff, and I'm tired of not being able to vote on anything. My neighbors have also had to put up fences, roof repairs. Grandview is just going to be another environmental disaster. I say we owe everything to the veterans. First off the veterans, the homeowners who are paying these exorbitant taxes here. I have a friend who lives over in the area. She has a house, a barn and 4 acres and pays 400 dollars a year. I have a neighbor in my neighborhood who pays over $10,000 a year in Bangor, Maine. So we need to have more of a say in what's going on. The taxpayers and the elderly owe everything. You don't owe these magical people that you want to give housing to. We live here, we built this city, and we deserve that,. Bangor has stolen all our democracy from the taxpayers, and we're tired of these stupid decisions that make our lives worse and cost us so much money. It cost me thousands to put on gutters. I never flooded before. I live in my family home, so I know the whole history. And it never flooded. We never had to have gutters. So it's more than just, oh, wow, this all looks good on paper. So I am vehemently against this. [1:26:43] Jonathan Boucher: Any other public comment? [1:26:50] Mark Tuck: I'm Mark Tuck. I live at the end of DeWitt Street. And the power line that they've been talking about is my back line. So I'm quite familiar with this area. Now, I lived in Bangalore my entire life. and so for 73 years I've been able to appreciate the quality of life that Bangor has provided me and my family. When I look at how close these houses are going to be, that is a very poor quality of life that Bangor is supporting for these people that will be required to live there, that will start out there, but as we've seen in the other development off in Lancaster, many people are rotating through, and they're finding that this form of lifestyle is not what they are looking for. So I wish you would be very cautious as you promote the housing and the congestion that this type of plan actually provides. Thank you very much. [1:28:11] Jonathan Boucher: Thank you, Mr. Tech. Any other public comment? Is there anyone on Zoom? Or is there any other comment? You're saying all set? Okay, at that point I think we'll close public comment, but I wanted to make sure we had an opportunity to revisit some of the themes that came up. It sounds like we would like to put that back to the applicant. Some of the major themes we heard were about traffic, landscaping, and aesthetics, impact to, like, I think there was a, it was phrased in different ways, but water damage or other damage related to the, to this development, so it would be about water management, I think, would be the theme, and if property damage, yep. [1:29:05] Mike Line: Yeah, we do have a subsidiary management company at Developers Collaborative called DC Management who would manage the multifamily portion of this project. [1:29:22] Jonathan Boucher: Thank you for remembering that about the multifamily. There were other topics about setbacks. Would you like to, okay, I didn't realize you were going to come back up. That was what I would like to speak to, any of those items. Sure, I'll talk to kind of some [1:29:39] Steve Bushy: of these technical issues, maybe traffic first, and understanding the numbers that we've represented you folks in our application represent standard calculations and traffic trip generation using published numbers from what they call the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and our, I have traffic people in my office who provide me all of that background ground information. Those are basically just published numbers that go with regular housing projects. And there's all sorts of different categories, and we try to use those that best represent the proposal that we're putting forth. And so those are the numbers, percents of scale on traffic generation, trip generation here in the state. Typically, if you have a project that generates what they call 100 trip ends in a peak hour, AM or PM, could be one or both, then that might trigger you to have to go to the Department of Transportation to get a traffic movement permit. I'm not as familiar here locally within your own codes as to what might trigger traffic analysis or otherwise, but the numbers that we provided, more or less in response to staff comments, were just the trip generation numbers. And some of this other information I gave you in the background as to, okay, Grandview Avenue and what is that as to site distances, the speed limit. And we've represented that, yes, indeed, Grandview and Broadway is a high accident location from DOT's published numbers. But typically in our representation relative to the trip generation we're providing, we don't trigger a traffic movement permit with the main DOT. And the numbers from our perspective, again, the technical engineering side, they're relatively low, and we wouldn't expect that they're going to generate more. Now, I understand traffic is always a sensitive local issue, per se, and I get that. And so we're happy to perhaps talk more. But those are the numbers that we have. And the conditions, particularly, as I've mentioned, the crossing beacons at the crosswalk, I mean, that would be commonly a topic that we would have. For pedestrian safety for crossing, and we're doing what we can relative to our development of providing sidewalks for our full frontage connectivity to the south, so that people wouldn't have to necessarily get down on the Grand View if they wanted to walk to the shopping center, they'd be able to walk down through. We didn't talk specifically about what maintenance might look like in the wintertime because I understand, you know, okay, if we have a trail going through property, what that looks like. And I don't have any, you know, specifics to that because we haven't really talked about that sort of thing, but that's where we would land on traffic, storm water, and flooding, those sorts of issues. So what I've represented, we have our development, we're under three acres of new impervious area. Traditionally, when you have a development between one to three acres of impervious area, meaning roofs, pavement, and the like, you're required to go to the DEP, and City Bangor has its own standards relative to stormwater. They're pretty consistent with DEP standards as well, and there's two things that you're looking for. You're looking to treat stormwater runoff because it comes off of dirty surfaces of pavement, roofs, and otherwise, and you're trying to control it to stop the flooding. And as I heard, you know, the comments about flooding, we're providing systems that basically do what is the standard practice of when it rains, you store some water on your property and then you release it very slowly so it does not cause a flooding issue downstream of you. We're discharging to the brooks, and we obviously don't want to cause issues with increased peak discharge into those brook systems, so we're sensitive to that, and we're providing these systems that are generally speaking, you know, the standards relative to, I think probably Bangor, but in a larger perspective of the DEP. So you build little basins, ponds for the Maltese, for example, you can't see it because it's all going to be underground, and we're going to spend a fair amount of money on building all of those, and all this boils down to how much money do you spend to take care of stormwater runoff. We believe that the systems we're providing are, you know, more or less state of the art and state of the rules to satisfy those, and if I thus far staff have basically reviewed our calculations and our designs and given us a little bit of feedback and we've made some updates, and I think we're in pretty good stock relative to that as to our site recognizing again we're in this little wedge of area bounded by the brook, Arctic Brook on the east side, an unnamed tributary more or less to our south side. All of our water flows into those areas. We've evaluated to those points and said, all right, we're going to store some water, we're controlling it, and basically we will be as good or better than what the current condition is. So that's what we've provided there. A good question was raised relative to how you go about building things in wetlands And I agree that those are challenges. We're not going to build a house basically at grade in an existing wetland area. Our site right now, what we're showing is that we're going to bring some fill to raise buildings and the houses and the multi-units all within the area of construction. So most of these houses are going to be raised up two to maybe as much as four feet on good fill that will, yes, we have to clear all that area and grub it all out, but bring in good granular fill so that we have good drainage. The single families are all on basically crawl spaces, no full foundation, so to a certain extent that helps. Some of our houses in fact are going to have under drains. I would expect probably all of them ultimately going to have some under drain systems around to help with drainage as well. The multis are basically slab on grade construction, perimeter foundation to frost depth, foundation drains, and again they're both on fill because this site slopes away from Grandview down to the brooks. My approach is we fill it all in with good granular material so drainage and flooding, that sort of thing, isn't an issue for all of our sites. So yes, it is a concern when building in wet areas and we're addressing that. Lot 16, I heard a question with respect to maybe what would be happening to lot 16, which I identified is basically the open space, roughly six acres of area. Thus far the just open space would be recorded in the subdivision plan as such. DC has no plans or expectations for any of that. I don't know the specifics as to ultimately who retains ownership of that. Does it retain as DC or maybe the city takes it? 's basically all the area outside on the other side of the brook from our development and we're not proposing to do anything with it. It's just too hard and too difficult relative to, you know, crossing of the brooks and then the wetlands and so forth. Maybe the city has different expectations, but it's currently not part of our proposal on that and it could become basically just the city's need be, I suppose. I think, well, I'm remiss here, realized no explanation other than I completely missed it here, the landscape plan. We've submitted a what I would call a very robust landscape plan. There was some calls to that, so I apologize. Somehow I realized didn't Put my landscape plan in there and I'm sure the folks at AKLA will be like, what happened? What I was going to point out on that plan was the number of plantings that they proposed, and the good folks at DC always say this when this landscaper, they usually go overboard with plantings. We typically don't get too many complaints about the number of plantings because a lot of all right, great, thank you Matt for pulling that up. Very hard to see the numbers on this plant list to the right, but there they do have the numbers there. I think on this shrub count I was over 800 shrubs that they were proposing. The number of deciduous trees might have been like 99, and then there were some evergreen trees, you know, you know, pretty decent number, 40 or 50 evergreen trees, all within this four acre area. And had made mention, in fact, you know, there's comments from the utility company and the water district, we've got too many plants and a lot of them are over some of the water services, so we're going to have to tweak a few things and make sure we're not putting plants over water services and that sort of thing. But as you can see from the plan there, the street, the larger circles represent street trees, and then there's all sorts of shrubbery and so forth in an esplanade, the street. I didn't really describe it as much, but you know, it's a regular paved street, curb to curb, esplanade five foot wide, then the sidewalk behind that. So we've got street trees, you know, traditional street design, at least on Arboretum Drive, also up on Grandview. You can see we have a curb along Grandview that'll be installed today. That's non curb section, water just sheets off the street and goes into the road or into the woods. Will provide a curb, a little drainage system, Esplanade, and then sidewalk, and you can see some large circles there again, street trees along that side, plantings all around the multi-unit buildings. What we probably a little shy are around the single families, leaving that probably to owners. Staff has made a comment, we have to make an update, you can see on the plan to the rear of lots one through four, for example, we've got a few trees right at the back of the line, that's a non-disturbance, and I didn't do a good job coordinating with the landscaper to say, oh by the way, our tree clearing limits like halfway through the middle of the site, we can't have any trees out in the woods, so we're going to clean that up as our final modification there to make sure that one, we're not showing big lawn Areas behind those lots, because those are supposed to be the deed restricted areas where we're maintaining existing buffering to the brook, but you can see there's a lot of circles there, and so it's a pretty intense landscape plan, this in my opinion. So hopefully that's addressed that. Again, I apologize for not showing that. I'm glad Matt was able to bring that up for you. That's what I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much. I that was my [1:40:35] Jonathan Boucher: list as well. One item that wasn't really talked about though was setbacks. Would you like to [1:40:41] Steve Bushy: address that in any way? Setback for the multi-building, that as I understood the comment being directed towards the building that's basically facing Grandview and its setback. Again, we held the setback per the zoning basically because I was trying to keep tight and not expand the site because of our wetland restrictions. It's just this game we play knowing that Grandview and the street where it sits from the right-of-way line, we actually have a pretty good distance there from the edge of curb to the right-of-way line, so we're able to put in, I forget the esplanade width, might be seven or eight feet, and then a five foot sidewalk, and then we have, I believe the front setback 10 feet, 10 feet right. So we've pulled that building back beyond that, so it's sitting 30, 35 feet off of, well maybe not that much, maybe 25 feet off of Grandview's edge of pavement today, but really we're trying to take advantage of the space because if we moved it further into the site, then we'd be dealing with more well and impacts. [1:42:00] Mike Line: Just to add to what Steve said, you know, we've looked at as the site got pinched and we went from at one point eight multi-family buildings down to, down to what are now two. We looked at different configurations. That configuration also allows that courtyard piece, and if you look closely at the site plan and landscaping plan, there's, there's that pedestrian connection between the single families and the multis, with the idea being that courtyard can benefit both sides of the project. Someone made a Comment that this product is small and tight and too dense and not what Bangor needs and you know quite frankly you know it's smaller lots and that concerns that concerned us as well and so this connectivity whether it's to the open space to the south or Prentice Woods to the north or the courtyard between the two projects was important to us to keep and maintain so if we pivoted that multifamily we could we could put the narrow end up against Grandview but we pretty much dig into that Courtyard space so that's the genesis of how it kind of lays out and we've just tried to preserve that courtyard the whole time and it's just kind of shrunk on us thank [1:43:16] Steve Bushy: You chair I'd like to [1:43:19] Jonathan Boucher: Address a few things if I could yes so planning officer Colette if you'd like to comment to some of the public comment items and yeah applicants feedback I just wanted to clarify [1:43:29] Steve Bushy: That and Stephen kind of touched on it with the open space but as it is the designated open space recorded on the subdivision plan it is it wouldn't have development on it would also have a deed restriction on it limiting development and then also we have talked to the city forester about this law they had input on the plan and they are going to be looking to see what trees they can relocate and keep at the city nursery for planting elsewhere in the city so [1:43:57] Jonathan Boucher: So you're saying can I taking trees off the site and placing them elsewhere in the city yeah or one right when possible what and did you say maintaining trees or we've already seen what they're planting so it's just about taking the existing trees that are in that development area yeah so we talked about the so any other questions to city staff or discussion before we move forward so remember Jonas I'm sorry this is not the first [1:44:33] Ross Thomas Whitford: Time I've heard or read about concerns about the Maine Woods being very I think the term was used sparse and so my just my quick question for staff is who how do we ensure that what is presented to us because we are really careful to have robust buffers and plantings and everything when we approve the plants but where in the process is that actually verified and enforced [1:44:59] Steve Bushy: Yep, so what happens at the end of a project when it's completed is the engineer submits an as-built drawing to us, and they submit a letter that they stamp that says this plan was, this project was built in conformance with the plan. They send up to the code enforcement officer, and that's basically we rely on that engineer's stamp and their license to say this was done in accordance [1:45:20] Ross Thomas Whitford: with the approved plan. And so if we get public feedback that perhaps that wasn't the case, does code enforcement go out and verify that? I want to kind of defer to Anna legal about that. [1:45:34] Speaker K (unidentified): Yes, code enforcement would go out and verify whether or not that plan is adhered to. [1:45:44] Speaker P (unidentified): I'll add to that. So the city is an MS4 permit stormwater permit, so we have permit requirements. So we have a stormwater manager that goes out and inspects these properties as construction is going on to make sure they're building what the plan says, what the DP permit says, or what our permit says. The city is delegated, authority to do stormwater law plus site law, so and we follow what DP says, we follow the same standards, same perm requirements, everything. So yes, we, you know, code engineering is involved when these are happening. You know, that's, that's all I'll say to that piece. But you know, we had some other questions. I think, I think Anya answered Brian's question about the tree farm, but we have met with, yeah, just to reiterate that we have met with forestry. I'm also a landscape architect, so I, you know, I look at this stuff and maybe a different ones than other folks do too, but you know, we have an opportunity to do some tree spade, get a tree spade and replant those throughout the city, so that's what we're working on. So you know, I knew Brian was going to actually ask that question because, you know, Brian worked here many years ago, and I'm sure he was instrumental with Roland Perry to get a lot of this out. So like I kind of had a feeling Brian might ask that question, but that is something that we have looked at and to make sure we just don't clear cut all that stuff, and we also have as part of that stormwater program, we also monitor all of our urban impaired Streams which Arctic Brook is so actually we have currently we have loggers out there right now and we you know we monitor this yearly you know we look for you know these loggers they look for the good bugs. If you have good bugs it means you have good streams. We also have a strong water utility fee and that fee is strictly used to improve the urban impaired stream so we do riparian projects. We did one just upstream of this where you know we recreate the floodplain and do like live stake and get trees in there so you know the good bugs can survive and we have a flood plain instead of just washing out neighborhoods so you know we do you know that it might not seem like it all the time but the city does monitor this stuff you know we think about flood in we think about traffic we think about sidewalk access and safe and vehicle pedestrian safety. So I understand you know these projects are you know they can be controversial but the city you know and not just me in the past and in the future going forward we always think about that and we study quarters you know Broadway quarter we had a large study from you know Grandview down you know we have been we have plans to do a new quarter study once all the improvements are done at the interstate and all those safety improvements are done with the on and off ramps you know to do Grand View out. We do know that you know the 24 crashes that are at Grandview and Broadway that is a three-year period that's how the DOT does their study of when it's high crash locations like so that's 2023 to 2025 so year 2023 year 2024 year 2025. So that's 24 crashes in that area those three years 2025 I think there were five crashes at Broadway and Grandview on Essex Street there were two in 2025. So you know all crashes are not good but we do monitor that and we try to you know provide for future use on that you know Essex Street again is our Grand View again you know two thousand three thousand vehicles AEDT that's not you know for Bangor standards that's that's not very much traffic this development I think A and P and peak hour are You know, under half of what traffic movement permits require, but that doesn't mean we don't look at each intersection as well. So, you know, the applicant does provide us a traffic generation analysis, and we also review that. So that's my long answer of yes, a study. The city, you know, engineering, planning, code, everybody is monitoring these situations as we, as we develop the city. So that was kind of a long-winded answer, but [1:50:07] Jonathan Boucher: Any other discussion or questions to the staff while we're on the topic of traffic? I wanted to ask City Engineer Davis, are there any traffic calming steps planned for this area? Is there anything that we can talk to, you know, outside of what's, what's been mentioned here with the, sidewalk and the crosswalks there? I think, I think there was, there were issues, I [1:50:38] Speaker P (unidentified): think there were concerns raised, you know, throughout this area with crossing, so that's why the city put it or flashing beacon in that area for the uptick in pedestrian usage. We are looking at putting sidewalks on Essex Street to the north of Grandview. That's been a, that's been a complaint for quite a few years, so the city is looking to study, is doing a study on sidewalk access throughout there. You know, that area is outside of the downtown where you have closed drainage systems and curb, so it's all open ditches, so you know, we have to look at how we still deal with the open ditches to our closed drainage system and sidewalks. But again, we are looking at all of that. Specifically on Grandview, we had a, I know we had a speed complaint, I think last year, two years ago, and we engineering department has a black cat radar system that it's a little box we can hang it on a utility pole. It's not like a speed trailer that the police put out that you can see your speed. It's, you know, people don't notice it, so you get accurate speeds. You don't get people either flying to get a high number or hitting the brakes so they don't get, you know, past the speed limit. I think the 85th percentile two years ago, I think was like 30 miles, just around 30 miles. Now I'm sorry, I should have brought that tonight, but you know, it wasn't abnormally high as we have seen on other roads that we've done recently. But again, you know, when these developments go in, we continue to monitor the speeds throughout the years So and then we, you know, we use that traffic data to, look at speed common devices, you know, in the in the recent future, recent past. We've gone to more of, you know, speed table trial. We've done that on Kandusky, a Gav, Grandview. Might be a good opportunity for that because we have the trail system just north of this project. So there are ways that we can help calm traffic in that area. But our last, again, as our last speed study showed, it wasn't really that high of a speed, Essex Street. That's a different case. I think we do have some high speeds on that for sure, but that [1:53:00] Jonathan Boucher: answered your question. No, that did. I wonder if they'll ever do the high school as a one-way, and I think that, I wonder if that would ever, but that's, that's not what we're talking about tonight. [Speaker Q (unidentified): All right.] Any other questions or comments? All right, then at this point we're going to turn to the findings. I want to know, so this, we're going to get started with the applicable provisions and findings part, and part one as to whether the project meets the requirements of articles 2 through 12. And let's make sure we're using the updated ones, just to make sure. You guys need to take a minute to make sure you're using the most recent ones, the ones that's, yeah, we're on the table, and we're, so with that, I'd like to see if there's a motion on the first item. Sure. Yes. [1:54:02] Greg Hobson: A member Hobson, I move that the board finds that based on excuse me, exhibits 2 and 11, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-33.1's requirements surrounding erosion and sediment [1:54:16] Jonathan Boucher: control, and a second for member Jonas, and a roll call vote. Remember Brush, yes. Remember Hobson, yes. I remember, yes. Remember Jonas, yes. Remember Woodford, yes. The chair votes yes. Item two here. [1:54:30] Ross Thomas Whitford: Member Jonas, chair, I move the board finds that based on exhibit two, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-62's requirements regarding visual clearance on [1:54:40] Jonathan Boucher: corner lots, and a second, member Hewn, and a roll call vote. Remember Brush, yes. Remember Hobson, yes. Remember Hewn, yes. Remember Jonas, yes. Remember Whitford, yes. Chair votes yes. Item three. [1:54:52] Edwin Brush: Member Brush, the board finds that based on exhibit two, the applicant satisfied land development go with section 165 and 62's requirements regarding building setbacks [1:55:07] Jonathan Boucher: on planned streets, and a second, so I can, remember Hobson, and a roll call vote. Member Brush, yes. Member Hobson, yes. Remember Hyun, yes. Over Jonas, yes. Over Woodford, yes. And the chair votes yes. Item [1:55:20] Greg Hobson: four chair member hobson chair i move that the board finds that based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-64's requirements for side yard width [1:55:34] Jonathan Boucher: okay in a second member hewn and a roll call vote member brush yes member hobson yes member jonas yes member woodford yes the chair votes yes item number five member brush [1:55:49] Edwin Brush: Chair, I move the Board finds that based on Exhibit 2, the applicant satisfied Section 165-65's requirement regarding yard space for group buildings. And a second? Second. Member Jonas. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. [1:56:05] Ross Thomas Whitford: Member Hobson? Yes. Member Huynh? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. The Chair votes yes. item number six member jonas chair i move the board finds that based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied section 165-69 of the land development code regarding the requirements for planned group [1:56:22] Jonathan Boucher: developments thank you in a second number hobson and a roll call vote member brush yeah robson yes for jonas yes woodford yes chair votes yes item number seven [1:56:33] Greg Hobson: member yeah chair i move that the board finds it based on exhibit two and the finding made above in subsection 7 of part 1 of section 4 of this document the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-68 requirements for lot frontage thank you in a second member [1:56:54] Jonathan Boucher: brush and a roll call vote member brush yes number hobson yes for jonas yes number woodford yes chair votes yes item number eight member brush mr chairman the board finds it [1:57:07] Edwin Brush: based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied land of old code section 165-72 regarding [1:57:15] Jonathan Boucher: the required number of parking spaces thank you in a second number hobson or roll co-vote member brush yes number hobson yes number here yes number jonas yes number whitford yes chair votes yes item number nine chair number hobson chair i move that the board finds that [1:57:31] Greg Hobson: based on exhibits 2 28 30 and 52 the applicant satisfied land development code section 165 dash 73's requirements regarding parking space location and screening thank you in a second [1:57:45] Jonathan Boucher: member jonas and a roll call vote member brush yes remember hobson yes remember hugh yes member jonas yes remember woodford yes the chair votes yes item number 10. member jonas chair i move [1:57:57] Ross Thomas Whitford: the Board finds that based on Exhibits 2, 28, and 30, the applicant satisfied Land Development Code Section 165-74's requirements regarding parking lot design, construction, and maintenance. Thank [1:58:09] Jonathan Boucher: You in a second. Where'd that come from? Woodford. This guy Woodford, I'll take him. Wait, okay, miss, remember Woodford. The audio on that was strange. I caught that too. Remember Woodford with the second. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Number Hobson? Yes. Member? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. Item number 11. Member Brush? Mr. Chair, I move the board [1:58:39] Edwin Brush: finds that based on Exhibit 2 and 37, the applicant satisfied section 165-76 of the land development [1:58:48] Jonathan Boucher: code regarding required number of loading spaces. Thank you. In a second. A second. Remember Hobson. And roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Remember Hobson? Yes. Over Jonas? Yes. Number Woodford? Yes. The chair votes yes. Item 12. Chair, is that Member Hobson? Okay, yeah. Chair, I move that the board [1:59:08] Greg Hobson: finds that based on Exhibits 2 and 37, the applicant satisfied Land Development Code section 165-77 requirements regarding loading space size, sizes. Thank you. And a second. Number. And a roll [1:59:22] Jonathan Boucher: call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Number Hobson? Yes. Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. The chair votes yes. Item 13. [1:59:32] Greg Hobson: is that member here yeah chair i move that the board finds it based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied land development code 165-78 general requirements for loading spaces [1:59:42] Jonathan Boucher: Thank you. In a second. Member Jonas. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Member Huynh? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. And the Chair votes yes. Item 14, Member Jonas? [1:59:55] Ross Thomas Whitford: Chair, I move the Board finds that based on Exhibits 2, 32, and 53, the applicant satisfied Land Development Code section 165-79, requiring adequate utility service, including water, sewer disposal, electricity, fire protection, provision for stormwater runoff, and lighting, with the condition that the final subdivision plan addresses the comments from the Bangor Water District on July 20th, 2026, as shown as Exhibit 51. [2:00:24] Jonathan Boucher: And a second? Second. Member Hobson, and a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Member Heughan? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. Chair votes yes. Item 15, Member Brush? [2:00:36] Edwin Brush: Mr. Chair, I move the boardifies it based on Exhibit 2, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-80 requiring that whenever possible all uses and developments shall be provided with the water service from the banger water district and shall be connected to the banger [2:00:56] Jonathan Boucher: Water the banger sewer system. Thank you. And a second. It's number Hyun. And a roll call vote. Remember Brush? Yes. Remember Hobson? Yes. Remember Hyun? Yes. Remember Jonas? Yes. Remember Whitford? Yes. The chair votes yes. Item 16. Chair Hobson. Chair, I move that the board finds that based on exhibits [2:01:16] Greg Hobson: two and seven, the applicant satisfied the land development code section 165-81 requiring appropriate lighting and prevention of light trespass in accordance with regulations on [2:01:27] Jonathan Boucher: intensity, direction, and height. Thank you. In a second, remember Jonas. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Number Hobson? Yes. Remember Jonas? Yes. Woodford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. [2:01:38] Ross Thomas Whitford: Item 17. Chair, member Jonas. Chair, I move the board finds that based on exhibits 2, 27, and 32, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-82 requiring approval of fire hydrants from [2:01:50] Jonathan Boucher: the Bangor Fire Department. Thank you. In a second from member Hyun. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Number Hobson? Yes. Member Hyun? Yes. Jonas? Yes. Whitford? Yes. And member chair and the chair votes yes. Item 18. [2:02:06] Edwin Brush: Member Brush. Mr. Chair, I move the board funds that based on exhibit two, applicant satisfied land development code section 165-83 requiring adequate electrical services. Thank you [2:02:20] Jonathan Boucher: in a second, Hobson. And roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Member Huynh? Number Jonas? Yes. Number Whitford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. Item 19. [2:02:31] Greg Hobson: Member Yun. Yeah, chair, I move that the board finds it based on exhibits 2, 8, 9, 10, 13 to 16, 24, 28, and 52 to 53, the apple satisfied the land development code section 165-6 84 requiring provisions for [2:02:47] Jonathan Boucher: surface water and storm damage drainage. Thank you. In a second, member Brush. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Jonas? Yes. Number Woodford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. [2:03:01] Ross Thomas Whitford: Item 20. Chair, remember Jonas. Chair, I move the board finds that based on exhibits 2 and 37, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-85 requiring adequate sanitary sewage [2:03:14] Jonathan Boucher: discharge information. Thank you. And a second. I'll second for Hobson. A second. A roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Or Jonas? Yes. Woodford? Yes. The chair votes yes. Item 21. [2:03:29] Edwin Brush: Number Brush. This is chairman of the board finds that based on civics 2, 50, and 53, the applicants and so on and it all reaches the whole section 165. There's 86 requirements of combined with chapter [2:03:49] Jonathan Boucher: 252 sewer and drain of the banger ordinance. Thank you. In a second, I'll second. Number Woodford in the second. Excuse me, remember Hobson. With member Hobson with the second and a roll call vote. Member Brush yes. Number Hobson yes. Number yes. Number Jonas yes. Number Woodford yes. And the chair votes yes. That completes part one and brings us to part two. That as to whether the project meets the district site development standards under article 19. Now there's one item here. [2:04:18] Greg Hobson: Remember Hobson chair. I move that the board finds that based on exhibits 2 and 37 the applicant satisfied section 165-135 of the land development code regarding height limits impervious surface. [2:04:30] Jonathan Boucher: Ratio and buffer yards. Thank you. And is there a second? Check number human and a roll call vote. Member Brush yes. Remember Hobson yes. Remember Hyun yes. Remember Jonas yes. Woodford yes. Chair votes yes. Completes part two. That brings us to part three. As to whether the project meets the requirements of section 165-128 for a major site for a major subdivision. Is there a motion for. [2:04:56] Greg Hobson: Item one chair member Hobson chair. I move that the board finds that based on exhibits two five through 6, 8 through 18, 28, 29, 37 through 41, and 50 through 53. The applicant satisfied land development code section 165-128c1's requirements that the subdivision shall meet the state of Maine guidelines for subdivision approval contained in 30 AMRSA subsection 4404 with the condition that the final subdivision plan addresses the comments from the Bangor Water district on July 20th 2026 shown in exhibit 51. Thank you. And is there a motion? Is it member. [2:05:39] Jonathan Boucher: Huynh and a roll call vote. Member Brush yes. Number Hobson yes. Number Jonas yes. Number Woodford yes. And the chair votes yes. Item two member Brush Mr. Chair I move the board finds. [2:05:51] Edwin Brush: That based on exhibit two and the findings made in part one of section four of this document the applicant satisfied land development code section 165 s 128 c2s requirements that the plat shall conform to existing zoning requirements regarding the dimensions and areas. [2:06:16] Jonathan Boucher: Thank you. In a second learning a lot dimensions and areas a second. Thank you. And a second for member Jonas and a roll call vote. Member Brush yes. Remember Hobson yes. Remember yes. Remember Jonas yes. Woodford yes. And the chair votes yes. Item three chair member Jonas chair I. [2:06:37] Ross Thomas Whitford: Move the board finds that based on exhibit to the applicant satisfied land development code section 165 dash 128 C part 3 s requirement for lots to have. [2:06:46] Janet Sanborn Jonas: frontage on an approved Street. Thank you. In a second. [2:06:48] Jonathan Boucher: Hobson and roll call vote member brush yes number Hobson yes for Jonas yes Woodford yes chair votes yes item for member brush mr. chairman of the board [2:07:01] Edwin Brush: Board finds it based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-128c fours require requirement regarding side lot lines being at right angles to straight street lines. [2:07:18] Jonathan Boucher: And radio to curved street lines. Thank you. And a second. I'll second. Member Hobson and a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Number Hobson? Yes. Again? Yes. Number Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. The chair votes yes. Item five. Number here sure. I move that the board finds it. [2:07:37] Greg Hobson: Based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-128 c5's requirement regarding corner lots having adequate width to permit required building setbacks. Thank. [2:07:51] Jonathan Boucher: You. In a second. Member Jonas and a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. For Hobson? Yes. Number Huynh? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Number Whitford? Yes. Chair votes yes. Item six. Chair. Remember Jonas. [2:08:02] Ross Thomas Whitford: Chair I move the board finds that based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-128c part 6's requirement that all proposed streets shall provide connection with. [2:08:13] Jonathan Boucher: Existing streets. Thank you. In a second. Whitford and a roll call vote. Number Prep? Yes. Member Hops? Excuse me I gotta correct and I apologize I miss they do it was member Hobson with the motion I was a second you know absent thank you remember Jonas but the I'm stipulating this for the minutes so my apologies for everyone on Jonas with the motion number Hobson suffer on you know has glasses over Hobson with the second thank you and we were starting the roll call vote and let's do it again remember. Brush? Yes. Remember Hobson? Yes. Remember Hyun? Yes. Remember Jonas? Yes. Remember Woodford? Yes. Sure votes yes. Item seven. Chair. Remember Hobson. Chair I move. [2:09:06] Greg Hobson: That the board finds that based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-128c7's requirements that the street intersections not be at an angle of less than. [2:09:18] Jonathan Boucher: 60 degrees. Thank you. In a second. Thank you. Number Brush and a roll call vote. Remember Brush? Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. Number one? Yes. Number Jonas? Yes. Number Woodford? Yes. The chair votes yes. Item. [2:09:30] Edwin Brush: item eight member brush Mr chair move the board finds that based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied and development code section 165-128c10s requirements that Street grades not be less than one percent or more than six percent unless the city engineer approves a variation from this [2:09:54] Jonathan Boucher: standard. Thank you. And a second. Number Hobson. And a roll call vote. Member Brush. Yes. Yes. And the chair votes yes. Item nine. Chair. Member Hobson. Chair, I move that the [2:10:10] Greg Hobson: board finds that based on exhibit two the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-128c 11's requirements that residential access street right-of-way would be not less than 50 feet [2:10:24] Jonathan Boucher: In a second, Member Jonas. And a roll call vote. Member Brush. Yes. Member Hobson. Yes. Member Huynh. Yes. Member Jonas. Yes. [2:10:31] Ross Thomas Whitford: Member Woodford. Yes. Chair votes yes. Item 10. Chair. Member Jonas. Chair, I move the Board finds that, based on Exhibit 2, the applicant satisfied Land Development Code Section 165-128c Part 13's requirements regarding the number and spacing of access drives. In a second. Second. Member Huynh. And a roll call vote. Member Brush. Yes. Yes. Member Hobson? Yes. [2:10:52] Edwin Brush: Member Huynh? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Member Woodford? Yes. Chair votes yes. Item 11. Member Brush? Mr. Chair, I move the Board finds that based on Exhibits 2, 28, and 53 of the Hopkins Satisfied Land Development Code Section 165-128C-14's requirement, guarding interconnection of street and pedestrian systems. And a second? [2:11:19] Jonathan Boucher: I'll second. Member Hobson. And a roll call vote. Member Brush. Yes. Member Hobson. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Member Jonas. Yes. Woodford. Yes. Chair votes yes. Item 12. [2:11:32] Greg Hobson: Member June. Chair, I move that the board finds that based on the findings made in subsections 1 through 11 above, the applicant satisfied Land Development Code Section 165 to 128 c 14's requirement that the preliminary plat contain all required information in Section 165-128C. Thank you. In a second. Second. Member Jonas. And a roll [2:11:56] Jonathan Boucher: call vote. Member Brush. Yes. Member Hobson. Yes. Member Heughan. Yes. Member Jonas. Yes. Member Woodford. Yes. The chair votes yes. That concludes part three and brings us to part four as to whether the project meets the requirements of Section 165-114, the land development approval [2:12:12] Janet Sanborn Jonas: standards. Item one, Member Jonas. Chair, I move the board finds that based on the findings made [2:12:17] Ross Thomas Whitford: In part three of section four of this document, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-114 A's requirement that the project meets the subdivision criteria established under 30-A MRSA section 4404 as it shall be amended and the requirements of article [2:12:36] Jonathan Boucher: 18 of the land development code. Thank you. And a second. Member Brush and a roll call vote. Member Brush, yes. Number Hobson, yes. For Jonas, yes. Woodford, yes. And the chair votes yes. Item two. [2:12:50] Greg Hobson: Chair, member Hobson. Chair, I move that the board finds that based on exhibit two, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-114 B's requirements that the proposed parking and loading layout are arranged in a reasonable and safe configuration. Thank you. In a second. [2:13:07] Jonathan Boucher: Second, member Huon and a roll call vote. Member Brush, yes. For Hobson, yes. For Huon, yes. For Jonas, yes. For Woodford, yes. And the chair votes yes. Item three. Member Brush, Mr. Chair, move the board finds [2:13:20] Edwin Brush: it based on exhibits 2 and 32, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-114C's requirement that all proposed access drives from the site to any public right-of-way are reasonably [2:13:36] Jonathan Boucher: will be and necessary and safe. Thank you. In a second, member Hewn and a roll call vote. Member Brush, yes. Number Hobson, yes. For Jonas, yes. For Whitford, yes. Chair votes yes. Item 4. [2:13:52] Greg Hobson: Remember Hugh, chair, I move that the board finds that based on exhibits 2, 8, 9, 10, 13 to 16, 28 and 52 to 53, the applicant satisfied land development code 160 section 165 to 114 D's requirements regarding minimizing adverse effects from stormwater runoff and ensuring adequate stormwater [2:14:13] Jonathan Boucher: collection capacity. Thank you. In a second, Hobson enroll call vote. Member Brush, yes. Remember Hobson, yes. Number Hewn, yes. Number Jonas, yes. Woodford, yes. The chair votes yes. Item five. [2:14:27] Greg Hobson: chair robson chair i move that the board finds that based on exhibits two and seven the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-114 ease requirements that the proposed outdoor lighting is designed to avoid unreasonable light pollution thank you and a [2:14:42] Jonathan Boucher: second, remember here in a roll call vote. Member Brush, yes. Hobson, yes. Remember Jonas, yes. Number Whitford, yes. The chair votes yes. Item six. Member Brush, Mr. Chair, move the board [2:14:58] Edwin Brush: Fines are based on exhibits 2, 19, 30, 37 through 38, and 52. The applicant satisfied land of the lowland code session 165, that's 114 F's requirements for screening, landscaping, and free preservation, with the condition that the landscaping plans updated to minimize conflicts between plantings and utilities, and that and to minimize disturbance and plantings within 70 the 75 foot setback from welfare, oh correction, wetlands special significance of [2:15:49] Jonathan Boucher: Special significance. And remember Jonas with a second. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Remember Hobson? Yes. Remember Jonas? Yes. Remember Woodford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. Oh, excuse me. And remember? Yes. Remember Brush? Let's start from the beginning just to make sure we followed it correctly. Remember Brush? Yes. Number Hobson? Yes. Remember Hyun? Yes. Remember Jonas? Yes. Whitford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. Thank you for that correction. Excellent. Yeah. And item seven. [2:16:23] Ross Thomas Whitford: Remember Jonas, chair. I move the board finds that based on exhibit two, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-114 G's requirement that the location of the buildings meet all required setbacks and are situated to avoid unreasonable adverse effects on adjacent [2:16:39] Jonathan Boucher: Properties or public rights of way. Thank you. In a second, member Brush. And a roll call vote. Number Brush? Yes. Number Hobson? Yes. Member Jonas? Yes. Or Whitford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. [2:16:51] Greg Hobson: Yes, item number eight. Member here, the board finds it based on exhibits 2, 17, 18, and 52 to 53, the applicant's satisfied land development code section 165-114H's requirements that the proposed development site does not negatively affect historic sites, significant wildlife habitat, or rare and irreplaceable natural areas within 250 feet, with the conditions that the landscaping plan is updated to minimize conflicts between plantings and utilities and to minimize disturbance and plantings within the 75 foot setback from wetlands of special significance. Deed restrictions are created for lots one to six and lot eight to minimize disturbance within the 75 foot setback from wetlands of special significance outside of that required for home construction, and before building permits are issued, the project requires wetland permitting approval from the main department of environmental protection and army corps of engineers, including permitting for activity within the 75 foot setback from wetlands Of special significance. Thank you. In a second. [2:18:03] Jonathan Boucher: It's like member Hobson in a roll call vote. Member Brush, yes. Member Hobson, yes. Member Huynh, yes. Member Jonas, yes. Number Whitford, yes. And the chair votes yes. Item number nine, chair number Hobson. [2:18:13] Greg Hobson: Here I move that the board finds that based on exhibit 2, 17, 18, and 52 through 53, the applicant satisfied land development code section 165-114 eyes requirements of water resource and shoreline preservation of any ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, or tri, excuse me, tidal waters within 250 feet, with a condition that the final subdivision plan addresses the comments from the engineering department on July 16th, 2026, shown in exhibit 40. Thank you. In a second, member Jonas with a second. [2:18:48] Jonathan Boucher: And member so for a roll call vote, member Brush, yes. Member Hobson, yes. For Jonas, yes. Chair votes yes. That completes, that completes part four and brings us to our decision. Now before we move forward with this, are there any additional amendments or corrections needed in the reading of this decision? This seems to be updated and comprehensive for what we've discussed. Yep, no further additions. And this decision will be the preliminary decision and they'll have to come back to get the following. Yep, the final. Yep, okay. Are there any, is there someone who'd like to make the motion on the, on the decision? Member Hitt. [2:19:35] Greg Hobson: Yeah, sure. I move that board finds that the project meets the requirements for a land development permit for a majority preliminary subdivision, major site development and planned group development. And therefore the board grants the land development permit for this proposed project with the following conditions. The final subdivision plan for the project addresses the comments from the Bangor water District on July 20th, 2026, shown in Exhibit 51, and updates the landscaping plan to minimize complex between plantings and utilities and to minimize the disturbance of plantings within the 75-foot setback from wetlands of special significance. Also, the deed restrictions are created for Lots 1 to 6 and Lot 8 to minimize disturbance within the 75-foot setback from wetlands of special significance outside of that required for home construction. The project receives final subdivision approval and before building permits are issued the [2:20:36] Jonathan Boucher: project receives wetland permitting. It can see inside that. Yeah, and approval from the [2:20:43] Greg Hobson: wetland permitting approval from the main department of environmental protection and army corps of engineers including permitting for activity within the 75 foot setback from [2:20:54] Jonathan Boucher: wetlands of special significance. Thank you, that's a very long one. Thank you very much. And do we have a second? Member Hobson. And a roll call vote. Member Brush? Yes. Number Hobson? Yes. Number Huynh? Yes. Number Jonas? Yes. Whitford? Yes. And the chair votes yes. Now so as far as next steps on this one and staff indicate [2:21:20] Steve Bushy: what we should expect? Yeah, so they would have to submit a final subdivision plan along with the deed restrictions of any easements and things like that. And if the city is going to be accepting the open space, we'll need to have council accept the open space, although it's kind of weird because we currently own the lot, so we have to work through that. But yeah, so they do have to submit that plan at least 20 days before the meeting where it's considered, and I had given Steven the date and I can't remember what that date was, but it's it's maybe next week, so [2:21:59] Jonathan Boucher: it's pretty soon. Yeah, 28th is the date I think, so yeah. Thank you, that completes that item and brings us to our other business. Our first item in our other business is a review of the bylaws that were attached in the meeting pamphlet for today. Now how would we like to go about introducing this? Would you like to talk us through it? Well since I wasn't here [2:22:34] Steve Bushy: at the last meeting, I'm not sure exactly what you wanted to talk about. I think it was related [2:22:38] Jonathan Boucher: to attendance of it was so one of the biggest items that was brought up, it was brought up in response to the question about attendance for our adjunct member or associate member or the person who fills in, and if we should place an attendance requirement for that role, and I think we were just also just taking a look through it to see if there was any refresher that we needed to have around it, or just open discussion around bylaws. Is that about right? Anyone correct [2:23:16] Kenneth Huhn: Mr. Chair, if I may, that is correct. I was going to bring up at some point just to see if you had any additional information on this. I happen to be looking on the onboard website and noticed that the associate position is currently listed as vacant. That's a good point [2:23:35] Jonathan Boucher: we should announce maybe someone from maybe Anya would you like to announce the [2:23:41] Speaker Q (unidentified): the information you received? Justin submitted an email that wasn't that kind of said that he [2:23:47] Steve Bushy: was leaving the position and so we took that as his resignation. so i afford that to lisa goodwin the clerk since she manages all the vacancies and stuff like that and she agreed that it was a resignation. i assume so since it's listed. yeah he basically said he was he was leaving the city [2:24:09] Speaker Q (unidentified): and yeah [2:24:10] Kenneth Huhn: it's definitely still something that should be looked at as far as bylaws. there just maybe isn't necessarily as much of an urgency at this point but it's [Greg Hobson: but it's definitely] something that should still be I think amended in the bylaws [2:24:30] Jonathan Boucher: yeah there wasn't comment about any. it's we should just have an open discussion right. so I won't necessarily ask people to announce you know or be called on. i didn't see anything about attendance for any members or any sort of measure on that front and i know that we're all good faith participants and volunteers and we come as often as we're able. if it's if it's not a concern if it's not an issue in general then we might not need to formalize it. but is there any sort of similar attendance requirements in other and other boards or well i believe we do have a [2:25:10] Speaker Q (unidentified): city policy on attendance grace do you have one. remember seeing attendance somewhere. i think i think we yeah we should let her right now do you want to come up to the podium while he's coming up [2:25:27] Speaker S (unidentified): yeah this is the first so i'm the council liaison just for everyone who's on the youtube. so if i remember what we have for council it is if you are outside of the city for a period of six months or more that kind of makes the entire position that you have moot and you're just automatically removed from the position that you're in. that's for what we have for council and most other municipalities have something similar as well. definitely double checked out to make sure if i'm correct but there isn't necessarily an attendance requirement what it used what it says in the charter for council and this usually goes down the as a waterfall. it is if you are medically incapable of attending or if you are outside of the city or if you have some other excuse those are the only things that we are seeing as legitimate excuses. but there isn't necessarily a attendance roster it's sort of a honor code sort of thing. but i don't think it would be necessarily unprecedented if you want to go forward With having some type of formalized attendance roster, I don't think that would violate any like Robert's Rules of Order or anything like that, but anyway, I just wanted to clarify that's if you want to. I don't think it would be a problem, but I also don't think it'd be a problem if you didn't do it as well. I think, I'm not going to say personality, so okay. Is there any other questions that you would have of me? [2:27:24] Jonathan Boucher: I mean, not at this moment, but anyone, any other questions? [2:27:28] Greg Hobson: I'm assuming the city council will appoint another associate member. [2:27:35] Jonathan Boucher: So, and I did have one question there. It's that, so I know that there's a residence rule. I saw that stipulated in the bylaws, but in terms of changes to the bylaws, are we empowered to make our own changes to our bylaws? Yes we are, but there was some stipulate we were having some discussion about. Yeah, well then if we can, we can, I just wanted to make sure whether we'd have to put it to council to have them vote on it. Oh chair, if I could step in, yes, is that, oh yeah, it's me. [2:28:09] Speaker K (unidentified): Not to lawyer this to death, but I don't know if it's a good idea to necessarily have, like, a very specific requirement, just because, you know, if you say, like, no more than two absences, then, you know, somebody might miss for an emergency. They might miss for a trip, a vacation. We oftentimes in the summertime have trouble getting a quorum anyways. So there's that to consider for an attendance requirement. And then as for I guess like punishments for not attending, if you're talking about removing a member, then that would have to be done by the council, so that's, that's when they would step in. You can change your bylaws to add an attendance requirement, but any form of punishment would come [2:28:53] Jonathan Boucher: From the City Council, so I guess that's where we're going, is that what would be, what form would it take if we were gonna make the recommendation? We would have to make a, we would propose an agenda item to have a vote on as a recommendation to the city council as ought to remove a member or something to that effect. It's just, it would be interesting to know what the process would be if we encounter this issue again and don't get such a straightforward response from the person who did resign, if, It was an issue, yeah, I can't give you a straight [2:29:31] Speaker K (unidentified): Strait answer at the moment, but I think that you know we could, we could look further into it. I don't know that this has really happened before, because our other boards and committees don't really have that. [2:29:42] Jonathan Boucher: Oh, and then remember brush and I'm sorry we'll get to you in a second. [2:29:46] Edwin Brush: One way to think about doing it would be to have a section in the bylaws on duties of the members. Members and a duty could be the and maybe lighten up to say an expectation that they would [2:30:03] Jonathan Boucher: attend the meeting yeah like regular yeah and it's still kind of all members you have the [2:30:11] Edwin Brush: expectation that they would attend the meetings and then another section is on removal which would be I don't know how the phrasing but we would be authorized to suggest to the city council they remove a yeah [2:30:36] Jonathan Boucher: I hear where you're going with it if they didn't meet the duties I was gonna counselor Leonard member Brush actually brought up what I was going to [2:30:52] Speaker S (unidentified): to suggest you can always come to Council and deliver a letter of this is an issue or here's a matter that we would like your attention on the matter and here's our recommendation we [2:31:05] Jonathan Boucher: actually take those matters very seriously you know if there's been and if you're able to answer this grade but otherwise I'd look to Grace to see if the review if there's been any instances is where this has happened on the planning board or others certainly on council there was but [2:31:23] Speaker S (unidentified): obviously that's within excuse me that 's within a council matter off the top my head I don't recall one specifically but I would almost assume something like this has happened within the past at some point it's it wouldn't be that odd of a of an occurrence thank [2:31:47] Ross Thomas Whitford: you and then member Jonas I just wanted to ask member Woodford Whitford if you have it you opened this with a recommendation I think it was from the Maine Municipal League is that right yeah I don't [2:31:58] Kenneth Huhn: have that open in front of me yeah but what they go back and check the minutes sorry yeah what they had on the MMA's booklet or whatever it was that a board could request that a member be removed for cause and that one of the four cause reasons was excessive absence which is what I had been looking at in the first place and they didn't have a specific number of any kind stipulated because different boards and different locations meet you know different amounts throughout a month their ear but they did have you know a four cause removal request at least with one of those causes being excessive absences so that's that's what it initially I had kind of looked at [2:32:52] Greg Hobson: And bringing this up, yeah, remember maybe we, there could be a provision in there to differentiate excused absences versus unexcused, being I just don't show up versus I'm going to be on vacation or I'm going, whatever it might be, and share this. I mean, this could be kept fairly simple. [2:33:12] Kenneth Huhn: If this is something that does move forward, something I had thought of was you could have a stipulation saying any member is expected to attend two-thirds of all meetings. Failure to do so could lead to blah, you know. For a meeting twice a month, 24 times a year, that's what, 16 meetings a year. I mean, you could keep it relatively simple, but still 16 out of 24, that's quite lenient I think. If you're missing eight meetings a year, you [2:33:48] Jonathan Boucher: know, yeah, I would side on, there was a comment by Grace not to be like a very specific about the amount, but to keep it as like we know it when we feel like it's become disruptive, and then we have a discussion, and then we, would vote on it as a recommendation to the city council to consider, to consider the matter. I could, I could understand that process, but it does get very tricky, and I would hate for someone to be asked to leave because of like a technicality or like, but again, if it's an excused absence, that totally changes it. Even if it was like, you could imagine a medical scenario or situation, someone would like to come back, but yeah, that makes sense to me. Does anyone [2:34:30] Edwin Brush: anyone remember Brush, you know, going along with that would be, could be the expectation that they [2:34:35] Jonathan Boucher: attend the meeting or excuse their absence yeah that makes sense to me too like note and noted to the city staff I think that 's always helpful so we know what to expect well not to [2:34:51] Ross Thomas Whitford: throw a spanner in the works here, but do we want to or want not to make a distinction for whether you're actually present in chambers or you're on Zoom, because you know I take advantage of that [2:35:01] Jonathan Boucher: when I'm still attendance. I think that's, well, I agree, but yeah, I mean, if you only join via Zoom, then it be, again, we know when it's a problem, and I don't even think only joining by Zoom would be all that disruptive, although I mean, it's a little disruptive. It is when the technology doesn't work. I've appreciated this discussion. Are there any next steps that we're going to? I just have one. [2:35:23] Ross Thomas Whitford: More point, I think the point of having an associate member is because I was one, though I was the last previous one, is that person is ready to step in to ensure that there's a quorum or to ensure that we have a full panel when we need it. So I think that position is still very important, and one of the rec, I just went back to the minutes, and one of the recommendations was potentially having more than one associate member, just in case. Now I don't know that we have enough room at the table for that. But it's just, I feel like that position is really important, and I feel like because I was able to spend the better part of a year in that position, it really helped me understand how the board works, so that when I was able to become a full member, I really kind of knew what I was doing. So I think it's really important to have that position available so that when [2:36:10] Janet Sanborn Jonas: unexpected things happen, we've still got enough votes. Yeah, like in the event of a conflict of [2:36:14] Jonathan Boucher: interest, right? Yeah, I don't think we've ever had an instance where we weren't able to conduct induct business because of a conflict of interest or a quorum not being reached in a meeting. We had [2:36:23] Ross Thomas Whitford: some close calls. We might have been close today if we'd had one. No, we'd sold that time. Sure, could [2:36:29] Greg Hobson: I just, for my own education, being relatively new, does the associate board member get to vote any time that we don't have a full contingent of board members? So if I'm not here to, then the board, the [2:36:42] Jonathan Boucher: the associate member would step in and vote. My reading of it is, and maybe we should just get, I don't know if you'd like to speak to it. Yeah, the associate member, when they're filling [2:36:54] Greg Hobson: the spot of a regular board member, has the right to vote. So whenever there's not seven board members here, that person automatically becomes a voting member. Well, they have to be like told [2:37:03] Jonathan Boucher: that they're voting, but or be assigned as a voting member, but they always have the opportunity to talk and ask questions or liberate and participate. It's just that we only can have seven votes, and so if there's an eighth person, they sit out. But if there's a conflict of interest, and I remember there being a lot of conflicts of interest in the past, we've had very few in recent time, but I remember myself having to be conflicted out, and we had people to come in, so it's been good. It's it's definitely nice, and some of them, some of the associates have a lot to bring to the table in terms of discussion and knowledge, so it's always, it's always beneficial. [2:37:43] Greg Hobson: That eighth person, what would it take if we wanted to have a second associate? Would that [2:37:48] Steve Bushy: be a city council? Yeah, we would have to bring it to council because it's an ordinance change [2:37:53] Ross Thomas Whitford: and it's in the, yeah, it's in the bylaws that there's only one. So yeah, I mean, the bylaws are [2:37:58] Steve Bushy: easier to change because you can approve that, right, with the makeup of the board. We have to [2:38:03] Ross Thomas Whitford: go to council for that, but fortunately we've not had, at least in the what, almost three years now I've been involved, we haven't had, we've had one and sometimes two absences, but that's been it. [2:38:15] Jonathan Boucher: I'll take this pretty seriously. I remember once we were down to five people. Yeah, it was, I think it was when we were over at the previous place. All right. All right, well, any actions that we're requesting for the bylaws or any changes that we're actually recommending, either for this matter or somewhere else? Did anyone see anything else in the bylaws that sounded surprising or that we weren't recognizing here? I think it's a good refresher to see it. I would recommend every time, every year we just take an opportunity to discuss the bylaws as new members come on. Great idea, because I think we should do that. It's like in the January meeting we can, you know, when we do the application with our, with Grace's and the water, the water [2:39:11] Steve Bushy: district, Grace's conflict of interest training. I'll put out one thing because we did make this change with HPC because to approve a certificate appropriateness they needed four affirmative votes and that's more of an issue for them because they do have fewer members. With you guys I don't think that it's been an issue. In the bylaws here it says you need four affirmative votes to pass, for example, a land development permit. I don't think we've run into issues with that in the past, but just in case there were an issue where maybe you have just 5 members, you know you might have a 3 2 decision. So then permits don't, put in the past you don't have 4 affirmative votes. Since that is written in here. I just want to put that out to you guys. [2:39:55] Jonathan Boucher: Yeah, I have that as a reminder every time when we're going into it that it is going to be required that we get 4 even. And so if we have six people, it's not, it yeah, passed before a tie, it would be a 3-3, would still be, it would not pass, that's before. And I think that makes sense because it has to be a majority of the seven voting plus, that's why attendance is so important because as we get lower, it's not fair to the applicants. And that's why we have to ask them before they, before they present, if they'd like to go forward. And with the scenario that we have, that was a really great explanation. [2:40:39] Ross Thomas Whitford: Okay, for the record, that's a really great explanation, thank you. [2:40:43] Jonathan Boucher: So any other time, so do you have something else to say? Well, I just wanted to get [2:40:50] Steve Bushy: I just kind of wanted to get a, what we do going forward, like it sounds like we do want to [2:40:57] Jonathan Boucher: have something written in here about attendance and method. Would everyone agree to adding a section about removal, being able to propose a removal for cause? Is that vague enough or is that too big? Then it's not clear what the cause is. It's pretty vague. I think you would have to give some examples. We want to have that ability to remove someone for cause. You can imagine if someone was disruptive or in some way just disruptive, I guess. I think you would have to in that situation include what qualifies as for cause. We would make the recommendation to city council, that makes it a deliberation determination. It's really not something that we're saying, we're just asking city council to review and then also Leonard. But if we're saying this is why we're [2:41:48] Kenneth Huhn: asking for this person to be removed but it's not anywhere in the bylaws that 's a requirement we're tying the council's hands but we're also opening up to an issue of the person [2:41:59] Speaker S (unidentified): they were asking to be removed. That's what I just wanted to give my personal recommendation. Obviously, you guys do what you think is best. I would recommend at minimum putting something in your own bylaws for what is the minimums of what you expect the member to have. Obviously, that's not something that you could officially remove someone from the board for. But one thing that does do, though, is it gives counsel some sort of documentation that says, hey, this is what we have as a minimum for our board. And this is a violation that we set in our own bylaws. And this is why we're emailing you or informing you formally that this is an issue that we have. The other thing that I do want to state as well is, one, I would absolutely support you guys and I would go to bat for you if you want to pursue this, not only because I think it would help you out, but also this is something I've talked to our city clerk, Lisa Goodwin, about this at least once or twice, that attendance is something that we have issues with, all of our other committees as well. And I think formalizing it in a committee like yours would actually help us create those echoes through all the other committees as well. So if you guys want to be the pioneers in this, I would absolutely support you guys. That's all I had, unless you had any other questions. [2:43:39] Jonathan Boucher: So it looks like it would be under section 3 with duties that the duty that's listed here is related to the chair or the acting chair, and what they have to do. There could be a section after that includes members shall attend or provide notice of absence, and I don't know the exact wording we'd like to use. [2:44:04] Steve Bushy: I don't know if we could, we can draft something with legal, discuss it, and bring something back to [2:44:09] Jonathan Boucher: you and then any other, any other duties that would be suggested other than attendance, would it be not cause disruption, I'd not disrupt the proceedings. Go ahead, member Brush. [2:44:23] Edwin Brush: Yes, please. I think the expectation that they attend meetings or have an excuse could go in section, article 1, section 1, where it, that's the section that deals with, yes, [2:44:44] Jonathan Boucher: with the members rather than the duties of the chair. Well, that section, duties, that it doesn't stipulate just the chair, although it, I could see how you think that it comes after offices, so yeah, you're right. So we would like to see, I guess, where counsel thinks it might fit best, but other than attendance, are there any other expectations we'd want to, could we realize something in about essentially [2:45:11] Greg Hobson: the terminology maybe not be right, but conduct unbecoming, for lack of a better, yeah, better way of saying it, and I'm sure that legal can clean that up, so [2:45:23] Jonathan Boucher: it'd be trying to identify what those clear duties are, at least, you know, to define them, and then to provide clarification on what the process would be for formalizing a request to city council requesting a removal of a board member, I guess. Those are the two pieces. Yeah, did we hit it, guys? So those are the items we wanted [2:45:46] Edwin Brush: to make sure we, I think we might want to consider an a clause on recommending removal. Yes, what [2:46:00] Jonathan Boucher: the process would be directly in the removal yeah we'll drop something and bring it back to you all thank you any other discussion on this item before we move on to the next one there 's it's called data center regulation discussion would that be would that be you anya would like [2:46:21] Steve Bushy: to present? Yeah, just more of an update at this point because we did bring this to Business and Economic Development Committee last night, and we're going to be coming back to them with more information about how potential data centers at different sizes would affect our utilities, water, sewer, electric, and what their capacity is, at what threshold would potential upgrades be needed, if there is a closed loop system in a data center for water, how would that affect the water requirements? And then also looking into things like community benefits agreements and project hiring requirements. Oftentimes those fall outside zoning, and I was more focused on zoning with the memo that I included in your report. But we're gonna look and see like what kind of leverage do municipalities have to require those kinds of things. But it just, I the main purpose of bringing that forward was because, you know, obviously, like the city has a moratorium right now, so we can have, we can develop these regulations. But we did some initial outreach at the polls amongst other things that we talked to people about. Data centers was one topic. People kind of already have their minds made up about them. I think, for the most part, people are thinking about the hyperscale data centers, the really large ones, and they just don't want them, period. And it's understandable, because they have huge impacts on communities. So our question to Council was, should we? We had looked into a ban. We're not really sure, you know, how that would hold up to a challenge, but we're gonna look into that more because other communities have done it, and we'll look and see, you know, how did they justify, to justify that. But also there's the option of doing a ban of data centers over a certain size. Brewer does that. They ban data centers over 20 megawatts. And they set out three different tiers of data center size, and they have different regulations for each of those tiers. I think what they've done is pretty nice. And then, you know, regardless of whether we ban over a certain size or not, we would still have very strict regulations. And that's kind of what I was detailing in the memo, all the proposed regulations that we would have. I basically picked and chose, you know, from the communities that we included in this memo, but I also looked at other communities and model ordinances that people put out to put together this set of potential regulations. I did, you know, just jot down like a few other things that we would probably, they want to add. For example, requiring confirmation that there is electrical capacity to serve this and documentation of, you know, well, basically we would kind of leave it up to you all because we would probably make it a conditional use wherever they would be allowed to say, you know, if they don't have electric capacity among other things, you know, is that something we should prove, you know? But essentially my proposal was to only allow these in industrial zones. We didn't really get into the nitty-gritty of discussing like, are there other places in the city that these might be okay? Are there certain commercial lots that these might be okay? If we wanted to pick and choose places in the city to put these, we might need an overlay zone instead of just picking a few zones where they're allowed, having greater setbacks from residential zone schools, daycares, very heavy regulations on noise, and not just regular noise, the DBA limits, but also having limits on low frequency noise, vibrations, things like that, potentially requiring a certain amount of rooftop solar to help mitigate their impact on the grid, and also using battery energy storage because that can help mitigate their impact but also reduce the noise impacts, potentially requiring lead certification, having a plan for e-waste, making all their power lines underground, and then are there, would we want to maybe offer zoning incentives if they do things like provide waste heat to surrounding residents and businesses? You know, you could allow a greater building size or more height limit or greater height if they do certain things like that. So there's a whole host of things that we can do, and I kind of just put all of them so I [2:51:04] Speaker Q (unidentified): wanted to get thoughts. Isn't it true that the moratorium expires? Yes, but we can extend it if [2:51:11] Steve Bushy: we're still working on it and we need one time, so yeah, we just council has to approve another [2:51:19] Ross Thomas Whitford: Extension so somewhere and I don't remember if it was one of the case studies that you or you just, it was something that you recommended, but I did like the idea that some, it would have to have some kind of decommissioning plan. Yeah, kind of like we do with solar, right? Yeah, because I think that's really important to recognize that this is, we've had a lot of big boxes that have been empty And we might wind up with another one if this is the case and with all of the resources and equipment and I don't know what else I want to say, but you know, there's got to be some kind of end of life or upgrade or some kind of plan to scale it that we shouldn't, that the city taxpayers shouldn't have to bear the brunt of. So I appreciate that. [2:52:06] Jonathan Boucher: Yeah, I saw that. I appreciated that as well. Did anyone else have any comments? I have a question about, so it's pretty clear. So first of all, I appreciate the thoughtfulness. There's so much good information here, and it definitely, whether or not it's a moratorium could hold up to appeal, and to have this ready and coming together, I think is great to see. The if it's a or if it's a company that is looking to build a property that they're not a data center company, say it's another hospital or university that's looking to build, it's too hypothetical, but those are two examples that I can think of that they do as part of what they provide, they do, they may have an on-prem data center now, it wouldn't necessarily be enterprise level, it would probably be a tier one or something close to a tier one, maybe. How would that fit into this? Would they, would you be looking at a proposed site plan and asking them questions like, are there any data center services being provided in this [2:53:22] Steve Bushy: right off the bat I want to say we would consider that as accessory to the primary use, like for example we have a room of servers that serves city hall, but that's just accessory to our use as an office. However, given a sensitivity around this use, we, I would probably look into how other communities deal with that. Do they consider it as a primary use even if it's, it is accessory to another use? It's probably based on the size. I would have to [2:53:56] Jonathan Boucher: Guess you know I figured it would be size as well, and there'd be some sort of threshold, and that's why I thought it was good that you had these numbers here about or proposed potential numbers around like megawatts. Yeah, the square footage is interesting, but yeah, even the tier three with the 5,000 square feet, I mean, that's very large. So yeah, but it's definitely a good question. We'll look into more. Any concerns about existing data centers? I know we have one at least in Bangor. Which one are you thinking of? Give me a second to come up with their name. They're based out of Bangor and they're based out of Brunswick. I think it's First Light maybe. [2:54:40] Steve Bushy: Does that sound right? I'm not sure. I mean, if they're existing, they're not affected by the moratorium because that just affects new development. And I don't know if they're [2:54:48] Jonathan Boucher: even tier one. I think they're even smaller than that, but I'm not, I have no, I have no insight into it. So we're not proposing any sort of retroactive. No. Yeah, all right, any other comments or questions? So what's the next steps? You're going to be reviewing this some more for the next few [2:55:16] Steve Bushy: months? Yeah, we're bringing more information back to council about the infrastructure capacity and things like that, and then get more direction as far as, and we'll also be looking into bands, and if that's viable, and then we'll be looking to counsel for more direction on where to go from here. But potentially, after that, looking at regulations, and we'll be working with our land use code consultants to help develop those as well. [2:55:46] Speaker Q (unidentified): If that's the direction we go, [2:55:49] Jonathan Boucher: yeah, it is First Light. I was thinking of. [2:55:54] Nori Casdoy: Yeah, and [2:55:57] Steve Bushy: we probably will also do like a public survey on the proposed regulations. Just to make sure we're transparent with people, and you know what we're doing and getting feedback. See what people say. [2:56:14] Jonathan Boucher: Other agenda. Are we ready to move on to any other questions on this side? All right. Thanks. It's just an open discussion about land development code updates and land use planning. Is there anything else on the, in the near future that should be coming? [2:56:30] Steve Bushy: I don't know if you guys will be seeing anything soon. I am aiming to finish. I know I said this last month, but then I went on vacation. I'm aiming to finish up staff review by the end of this month. And I think we're on track. And after that, we'll be looking at the zoning map right now. We've just been looking at all the text we'll be looking at, the map piece of it, and also talking with the consultants, like going through all of the comments that we've made and discussing that. So it's going to be a lot to do all that, but I'm fingers crossed we'll have, you know, a new draft for everyone else to review by the end of the year. I just don't know how long because some of the changes we've asked them to make are going to be pretty big, and I don't know how long going to take them to make those changes. And I am sorry that it's taken longer than we expected. Maybe it was overly ambitious to shoot for this summer because it is such a huge project to do a land use code overhaul. I think Portland took like eight years to do there, so I haven't [2:57:38] Jonathan Boucher: had a lot of other stuff, right? Thank you everybody. There's some forms to sign here this evening, yeah. [2:57:46] Steve Bushy: Yeah, the findings that you adopted. [2:57:48] Jonathan Boucher: So let's make sure we stay around to do our signatures. Any other items before we? It is 9.56.