Bangor committee reviews airport report, zoning changes, and climate bill support

[0:46] Joseph Leonard: Okay, good evening everybody welcome to another regularly scheduled meeting of the development committee, I am your chair counselor Leonard other committee members are counselors balloon. balloon Mallor and Carson because we are one member short I do like to have five members on this committee so if possible counselor Dean would you mind stepping in for counseling thank you I appreciate that anywho in finishing introductions we also have community and economic developer ann krieg we also have council chair susan hawes and as i just saved it counselor dean will be filling in for counselor fish tonight first thing on the agenda we have our airport director jose savadra is going to give us a little bit more details on the runway project maybe go into some of the passenger details i'll let i'll let you take [1:56] Osis Ovedra: the brains out. Good evening, I'm Osis Ovedra, airport director. Today I put together a airport director report and I'll provide a little bit more context of this report. About a year ago the committee and the council asked for the airport to put together a quarterly update on major things happening at the airport and at the time the intent was to get a better sense of the community of things that were happening at the Air Force a lot of activity surrounding different business segments of her operation and so what I've done over the last several quarters has been put together a report that gathered some of that information today what I did is I brought together a end of the year reports. So for quite some time, the airport didn't capture a lot of the confidence and the efforts that were happening over time. Starting last year, I directed my staff to work together on helping us capture that information. And the result of that effort was the 2024 end of the year report, and that proved to be a good tool to gather a lot of information and highlights and relevant information that we've been working over the last 12 months. And so that report, I won't go into detail into each section of the report, but truly what that does is, again, it captures a lot of the things that we worked over the last 12 months. One thing that you will notice in that report, as I noted the method from the director take, is that 2025 was still a year that we were dealing with the second year of construction of the runway. And so, as a whole, the year was very, successful. It was marked by a significant amount of disruptions because, in essence, we were more or less close, approximately a month. And so even with that level of disruptions, when you look at page nine, and page nine has the passenger numbers, this is a graph that usually the council and the committee likes to see. When you see the image on the top of page nine, even with that level of disruption, we still have a very, strong year. And so my sense is that as we lean into 2026, with the vast majority of the construction work on the runway being completed, with the brace airways being not fully integrated into the Bangor market, as they continue to increase their capacity, and obviously we've seen quite a number of additional seasonal services being added, including Atlanta, Detroit, most recently, United Airlines announced seasonal service this summer to Denver. So as those conversations continue to improve the services that we have, I would expect that the 2026 numbers will likely be a lot stronger, and that we truly will be able to use 2026 as the baseline year of what we can expect, obviously calibrate and use that in our forecast as necessary, but really that 2026 is going to be the year that we should be taking into account. Because again, 2023 was first year of construction under Bundley, 24 second year of construction, and really 21, 22 were a post-pandemic that had some wild sort of forces playing on in the market, so another thing that I would like to note in the report, and I could go into detail in case that anyone has questions, was the financial portion, so we did a little bit of extrapolating just because obviously as a department of the city we followed the fiscal year, and so in order to put together a end-of-the-year report we just adjusted so that the numbers that you see reflected in the bottom page on nine are for calendar year. For new counselors, one of the things that we will see again at the airport as a reminder is an earned price fund, meaning that we generate our own revenue and that covers the expenses that the airport generates. And if you see at the bottom of that section on page nine, you would see a number of 34.6. That's a lot of the federal assistance that we get for a variety of projects that primarily get funded through federal grants that account for anywhere between 90 to 95% of large capital projects that are eligible for federal assistance. I did have [7:39] Joseph Leonard: A quick one regarding the 2026 baseline, because as you stated, that the last few years of the Vangoria International Airport has just had a plethora of different variables that have affected the amount of passenger tracking and what our abilities as an airport are actually able to do. By approaching a year where we're not going to have any foreseeable interruptions, what do, what does it look like we have as an asset for our city airport to go forward into the future? Like, well, what does 2023 look like with these consistent numbers in terms of what are our capabilities as an airport for not just for maintaining it, but also for [8:30] Osis Ovedra: growth and expansion? So the best way to approach the, that question is looking at page four. On page four, what I have outlined there is the primary business segments of the airport services. So number one, and then they're not in no particular order, but the military is a huge component in what we do. So about a third to fourth of the total revenue that the airport generates, honestly, also through the military. And so our military segment is a tremendous part of our business. And as part of fostering that relationship, I have a team of airport key players that we work with the military and actually go out and visit their facilities to try to encourage them to continue to use Vanguard as their, as a point of service for fueling, for any missions that they are looking to do. So the military strong side of business. On the second side, which we've seen quite a bit of an increases in, the domestic airline passenger. In the past, the military played, it still plays a significant role, but an even bigger role. And so part of the effort has been to diversify some of those segments and increase the bandwidth and capacity that the airlines have. And that looks in different sorts of ways. It could be an up gauge, and that basically means that the airlines are bringing in larger aircraft, the more seats available. It could be adding frequency. So it might be the same destinations that we have, but adding an extra flight. It can be for some destinations that are only service, maybe two, three times a week, maybe moving that to four or five or potentially daily, adding seasonal service that eventually the hope is that becomes your route. So there's a lot of different ways that might not be as flashy, but still are a significant step in the right direction. And we're focusing on different parts of that side. On the other side at the bottom you have the general aviation side, and so that's a lot of our private aircraft. So given our location, we service a tremendous amount of private aircraft through general aviation FBO, and basically that the whole operation of direct we can count for approximately 40 to 60 percent of the total revenue of the airport. So it's a significant portion of our operation that we're well known for. Anytime we go to trade shows, that's a hallmark of our ability to service private aircraft, and if it's a small aircraft, we could get them in and out in less than 20 minutes. It's a large cargo aircraft in 40 minutes. So again, one of the key things that we speak with some of our potential customers or current customers. The other section in this page it has to do with cargo and I think that 's one of those areas that we just haven't had the expansion that we would like to obviously having to focus on some of the major your infrastructure projects has been the primary focus but obviously that's been moved forward my part of my hope is that we will focus more on developing those relationships because it doesn't happen overnight and so actually as a matter of fact I just got back from the conference that focuses on cargo operations, and so it being in the right places where they're just making decisions and discussing this type of topics is the first few building blocks that we need to have in those conversations. One other business segment that is not depicted here, but it has to do with a lot of the properties that are owned and operated by the airport. So the airport as a whole, of the core business obviously is the aeronautical services that we provide in that part of our business, but aside from that, the airport owns and operates a lot of other properties in which we more or less play the role of landlord. And so whether that's from the place that Nile operates or the innovation center that we work very closely with and on overseeing that facility. There's a lot of other surrounding spaces around the airport that are also part of the portfolio that the airport oversees. [13:27] Joseph Leonard: And if I can just touch on something more. You, early on, you touched on basically this report is comprised of data that was accumulated by your staff members for what they were able to find. Because of things that like cargo, for example, something that we could see an expansion on, a growth in, are there other capacities that the airport could potentially grow and expand on, but you just didn't have the staff to or the direction to actually get that data to present to council or to yourself even? [14:08] Osis Ovedra: Yeah, so I think that's a very interesting question, because what I would say is that the segments that you see there on page four, and we add that other, the fifth component of non-neuronautical revenue properties, I think that there's a lot of potential in each of these segments to get additional just the depth that we've been able to deliver on each of these segments. I think there's a lot more to grow within these segments before we look at other options. Of course we're always open to that, but I think that it's also very important to be mindful that additional expansion into other segments, whether it's drones, whether it's manufacturing of a large manufacturing facility or aircraft or anything like that, requires a significant amount of capital. And so as I was sitting in the back listening to Amanda, I think that the parallels between the operation that she runs and the operation that we run at the airport, that's something to keep in mind, because for quite some time what we've been focusing on is trying to replace some of the legacy infrastructure that hasn't been in place and that either hasn't seen as much use as it is truly capable of doing. And so with that constraint in mind, retrofitting the facility is I think one of the key things, knowing that the financial portion of how do we sustain growth, it's important. And you might recall that for quite some time we've been talking about the Connector Project. project, the connector project of close to $15 million expansion project at the airport aimed at linking both terminals. The reason why that's such a tremendous project is because even though at the end of the day it's going to be an extra hold room and a bridge, that bridge is going to allow us to take advantage of the international facility. Right now we don't have international scheduled flights, but we do have an international facility. facility. With that ability to flex into that other space, we would be able to accommodate a significant amount of increase in the domestic side that 's what we're seeing and continue to build that on. [16:42] Joseph Leonard: So if I can interject, it sounds like regardless of whatever pathway we want to go for developing, growing the airport, it's going to require networking with other industries that are not necessarily going to be in a state of Maine, particularly. So I guess just a general question, but based on your role and what liberties you have as a director, are there any sorts of conversations, because of how big the airport as an enterprise fund is, that you're restricted from having, even if it means networking with an entity that the city would almost certainly want to have a collaboration with, but you're not allowed to make that decision because of the circumstances of what we've ordained your role to make those decisions for. Does that make sense? [17:45] Osis Ovedra: Yes, so I think what you're probably, there's a couple things that I want to point out on more or less how to answer that question, because I think at the end of the day the airport is a, they are portable as it is a division and department of the city, right? So then really the guidance and direction of what do we want the airport to be come directly from you and the amount of resources, whether that's by staffing or by time that you allocate in your conversations on where does the airport need to go, that's dictated by your directive, right? And then my role obviously is execute on that general direction that you provide. One thing that I would note as an industry professional is that it's important to just take a step back and look at what is it that the airport is, right? And I think that fundamentally the airport is a economic engine, so if you're able to, if you start with that premise that the airport is an economic engine would directly employ 130 employees but we actively have about 2,000 batches at the airport, meaning that there's about 2,000 people that are directly employed at the airport, the economic impact that has on the community is significant, right? And so it really depends on what the direction of the council is on how much resources do you want to be allocated to this particular economic engine. And so this will grow in the amount of development that could happen at the airport is directly related. It is a level of efforts put by the council and the directive to me or the level of flexibility if the if the objective of the council in the committee is to grow the airport, then empowering or setting up a structure that fosters that kind of development is important. And I think that's that's how I would bring. Okay, I really appreciate that clarification at the end. [20:08] Joseph Leonard: I will have a I will want to have a another conversation on this, particularly in the future, probably very soon. But I'm going to leave it at that right now. Does that yes, Council Carson? [20:20] Daniel Carson: Yeah, no, I'm just happy that you ended it that way. I would love to see a conversation in the future around something like an airport commission thinking about, you know, as well as a potential economic engine, I'd love to see discussion around a procurement policy. But, Jose, for you, this report, I think, is excellent. And I'm really excited about the potentials that we have for the airport. I would love to have you come back at some point, if it's okay with our chair here, and actually hear about your challenges, and specifically the challenges that you have at the airport that are related to policy that we set here at the municipal level. I think it would be great to sort of take a look at all of that, see what we can do. I [21:10] Joseph Leonard: would concur with that, Councillor Carson, if I may interrupt. Jose, is that something that you could have at a reasonable time for us, making sure you have all your other duties ready to go as well? [21:26] Osis Ovedra: So I think I would probably need a little more clarification. So I got the note on the particular challenges related to policy that comes from the committee. And then what was there anything else that I missed on that? [21:48] Joseph Leonard: There's a conversation I am going to bring up regarding the commission. Just because you brought up Councillor Carson, I am, I sent a few sneaky emails around five o'clock today, and this will be a conversation that I want to start to have with supporting staff behind the scenes, so that we can actually present this conversation of what is a commission, what is it compared to an airport authority, what it is to a municipal airport, going over what the differences of the three types of airport run facilities are, their pros, their cons, because even creating a commission, which even by our council standards, it's not the heaviest thing to do in the world. Forming something like an authority is very much a heavy related thing. In fact, I think it was in 2007, 7, the state of Maine made a statute based on airport authorities in general. Fun note, there are no airport authorities in Maine. But anyway, so there will be more discussion about this particular topic to be had very soon in the future. And I'm sure I'll forward you an email, both you and Director Krieg on ways to proceed forward regarding this and if you need to include any other staffers in regards to any information I bring to you or any other counselor brings to you regarding an airport commission I'm happy to follow up and coordinate answer any questions so that we can get a really good thorough discussion analysis on what this council sees as a direction for its largest enterprise fund. And I'll just leave it at that for right now, but rest assured councilor Carson, there is more conversation regarding commission coming up. Are there any other thoughts or comments for Jose or Jose? Do you have any other final thoughts or comments for us? [24:07] Osis Ovedra: So yes, actually, so the way I can just like to clarify my notes there's two different conversations one but or one asked directly to challenges with the current structure as it is in direct policy and then a second one about options of oversight and. Oversight and. Structure correct. [24:34] Joseph Leonard: I'll email you the latter one okay but the first one counselor Carson said if you director Creed do you have any other no any other thoughts or questions from council thank you okay thank you so much so the next topic we have are proposed changes to oh planning officer on your collab yeah so well I'll just let you take it away thank you sure [25:13] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): Thing so yeah planning officer on your bullet so I will just I 'm pretty sure I summarized before you know the three state laws on returns changes to our code so we did draft changes to start to comply with those and in this first round of edits we are focusing on the urban zones like URD one and two the land development permit requirements that refer to subdivision then the parking requirements for things like portable housing development accessory drilling unit rules and the affordable Housing density bonus rules. We did want to split this into two because the changes are a little more clear-cut in these areas than they are in like the developing rural areas. There's a lot of uses in those zones like floating sea residential that are now going to become irrelevant essentially because of these changes. And also we do expect our the first draft of our viewing for the next month, so we want get an idea of how the results are going to be addressing these changes with their draft code. And maybe we can just incorporate what they're doing and apply to our current zoning. So we want to hold off on that round two until we get a better idea of what they're proposing. But in the meantime and we do have again we have until July 1 this year to comply, but this will just be a start. So for accessory dwelling unit rules main changes with that are ADUs, you now have to allow ADUs on lots that have one to three dwellers units. Currently it's just single family homes, and then also the minimum. Square footage has been reduced from 190 to 160 square feet. That's a building sort of rule and we can't be more stringent than that. For affordable housing development we have to allow for basically any development that meets the definition of affordable housing development. They don't necessarily have to be using the density bonus, they just have to meet this definition. They can have 14 extra feet on top of our maximum requirement, and then also their minimum parking requirement would be reduced. To two spaces for every three units currently. And that as a reminder that density bonus is allowed in all of our multi-family zones like you already to MNSD, and then some of our commercial zones where we have multi-family like CPS and GCMS. And so because of these new rules what I did was we have some definitions currently and that density bonus article I've moved all of those to our general definition section just to make it more clear because again you might have a development that's not. Necessarily using that PC bonus but they can use that height that height allowance or parking allowance. Then moving on to changes to our zones, so with URD one I basically took excuse me I meant to pause I didn't sorry. I just had a question on the 14 feet, is that two stories? Well, an extra 14 feet, I think one story is roughly 10 to 12 feet, so probably an extra story on top of what's already allowed. And currently we're allowing how many stories? Well, in URB 1 and 2, it's roughly three stories. And then MNSD, it's 45 feet, so rather. And then in SPS and GCN, it's like 60 feet, about five stories. So it would be allowing one additional story. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah, sometimes they choose the 14 feet because of different communities measure height differently. Some measures are halfway, you know, up the attic, and so that's why they, if they're adding a story, they'll often do 14 feet. [29:17] Wayne Mallar: yeah I have a question it's probably a crazy question but the parking issue this is a state requirement okay but now if there were federal funding involved for this violates the federal funding isn't it one and a half spaces per unit so I'm just thinking how many of these building projects are not going to have federal [29:39] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): funding? Again, I, we haven't been able to find any federal funding requirement on the minimum parking spaces for, you know, I feel like the state would work through that given how many main state housing projects have to have federal. Yeah, I know, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Man, housing authority is changing all of their rules because of this. Yeah, I [30:06] Joseph Leonard: mean, it's, I don't really have a choice, yeah, at this point, but I mean, I have nothing really else to add unless any other counselor does, but we, this does [30:23] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): need to go to council, right? Yeah, I have quite a bit more though. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I just wanted to pause. So in URD1, I took just the state language, period, and they basically create these four different scenarios. So if you're in the growth boundary and you're on public water and sewer, the minimum lot size you can't require more than 5,000 square feet, and you have to allow four units on that lot. That includes ADUs. So for you already one, we're proposing to take that, we're capping it at four, essentially. And then if you are outside the growth boundary but you're on public water or sewer and sewer, minimum lot size is five thousand square feet for the first two units, and then an additional five thousand square feet for each additional up to that again, that cap of four. If you're inside the growth boundary but you don't have public sewer, the minimum lot size is dictated by the state septic requirements, so a minimum 20,000 square feet for the first unit. And then each additional unit would be determined by those state sewage disposal rules. And then if you're outside the growth boundary and not served by public water or sewer, we can set whatever minimum loss size we want, which currently in our RNA essentially is what that is. It's one and a half acres. We do have to allow three units on this lot in those situations. And that is, and that you have an ADM on top of that. Just a key consideration with all this is that even with these reduced allowances, you still have to meet the minimum parking requirements and other conventional requirements like impervious surface ratio, height, lot coverage, setbacks. So there's quite a bit there that's still limiting the size of the structure and the print on the block. Then you already too, so again, we changed that minimum lot size down to 5000 for the first four units, and just to differentiate it from URD1, since it is supposed To be kind of a step above you already won, we propose allowing up to six units on a lot and requiring between 500 square feet for each additional unit, so up to the six. And then the other key difference would be that you could use that affordable housing density bonus, and you already too, you can't use that anymore. And then with MNSD and NSD, there's, there's no major changes there, but we did just clarify again that minimum lot size with the four units, and then clarify the types of dwellings Allowed, because currently we just say detached. And then in USD, we are proposing to change. We have currently a mixed commercial residential use. It's conditional. So we're proposing to move that to permanent by right, because this draft rulemaking by the state says that you can't be more restrictive with residential and commercial areas than you are with regular residential. So there's that. I did just want to touch on another proposed change that's not in here. We did discuss it with the planning board last night, but something that came up was the idea of doing a smaller minimum lot size for single tiny homes. So we do have a lot of lots, especially in our Urban areas that are smaller than our current minimum lot size, if I call this square feet, and so while you couldn't, a typical home would take up a lot of that lot, a tiny home would really not take up much space, and it would give a lot more avenues for redevelopment. And so planning board was amenable to that idea, so I could just want to put that out there. [34:05] Osis Ovedra: For your thoughts as well, I appreciate that. I was completely forgot about that at that [34:12] Joseph Leonard: point that you just raised it. Any other thoughts for planning officer Colette? Any questions and [34:23] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): then the next change is that the state made it so that basically the current rules for subdivision, when you have to go to planning board for subdivision, is when you create three or more units on a lot. The state has changed that now to where it's five or more units, and the draft Wilmington says that we can't, for projects that create four or fewer units, we can't have a more stringent review process than we use for single family homes. So for us that's a building permit. However, we can have review for things like parking and buffers and things like that. So what we're proposing is we would have, for any project that creates between 5 and 19 spaces, we would have a minor site plan revision, which is basically just staff review. Currently, our code requires if you're creating 20 or more spaces, it's planning board review. This would have the extra benefit of adding a permitting process for smaller parking lots that we don't have currently. If you're creating less than 20 spaces, it doesn't have any kind of review. And so that would let us make sure that they meet buffer requirements. Are there any questions so far? I have two more things. Actually, I did cover subdivision. So the only other thing was the off-site parking agreement rules. We do have to allow people to have that off-site parking within a quarter mile of their development as long as they have a legally binding agreement with the property owner [35:58] Unidentified speaker (City Staff): if [36:02] Joseph Leonard: no questions or comments, I will take a motion. [36:08] Osis Ovedra: So move. Do I have a second? [36:12] Joseph Leonard: Right there. Unless doubted, this will move on. [36:17] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): Okay, I wanted to mention real quick too that we were looking at drafting some companion changes to this when it comes to like boarding homes, for example, because these are pretty drastic changes and allowing more units per lot. Boarding homes in some ways might be a less drastic change, so we might look at reducing some of those restrictions in some zones. Like for example, you already to we limit those to major arterials, so we might look at removing that restriction, and that would allow more flexible use of some of those larger homes. And then in the multi-family service district, it's a conditional use, maybe we move that to permitted. So just wanted to float that as maybe a companion change that would make sense. [37:09] Joseph Leonard: That's something that you would recommend that we amend the current motion? That was no, I [37:15] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): just wanted to okay we're still working on it internally yeah sure that 's totally [37:19] Joseph Leonard: fine. And of course, feel free to bring anything back to committee. Okay, unless anything else on that topic, leave we're on to the historic preservation changes. Yeah, oh, go [37:38] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): ahead, please. So these changes were based on a workshop we had with the preservation commission back in October, and we floated some changes by them which they were good with, so this formalizes those. And this is just the first round again, we're doing something similar. I will plan to come back later with changes that address things like new construction guidelines, speaking about cultural significance, and things like that. Those are kind of larger changes, so they're going to take us more time to do, but these are just some simple things to start off with. So the first thing that we proposed changing was for certificates of appropriateness. Currently it requires four affirmative votes. We would be changing that to a simple majority. Oftentimes HBC does have issues with quorum, or even not necessarily quorum, but getting to about four members present, and so this would kind of help make projects get through the pipeline. And then also allowing solar projects, generators, and heat pumps, changing volume fabric and changes that are in the physical chemistry, allowing those as minor revisions instead of certificate of appropriateness. And I will say, when we workshopped with the HTC, they were good with that. But for communication devices, they wanted us to keep commercial communication devices as a certificate of appropriateness, and residential devices that could be minor review. So we were going to make that change. The length of approval time for certificates appropriateness and minor site review, we were proposing to match what we have for planning board permits currently. So extending that out to two years to complete their projects. And that helps a lot with some of the problems people run into with availability of historic materials and contractor availability and things like that. And then updating the requirements on replacement of materials. materials so we use basically what the secretary of interior standards recommend for this cause and we also looked at what other places recommend and use their language and so we remove that requirement where you have to match a material and composition we also for more flexibility we add a stipulation that if it's techno technically or economically feasible to use that same material So if it's not feasible, then they can maybe use a different material. And I will caveat that with the Commission wanted us to include a better definition of economically and technically feasible, which can be difficult because we want to keep some flexibility there because these vary so much and they're supposed to review applications on a case-by-case basis. We don't want to be too detailed, but we'll try to find a definition for that and bring, we also wanted to clarify that replacing to match is exempt and that's already, it's already a thing, but we just want to make sure people know that. And then also for hardship provisions, providing clarification that one of the hardship provisions could include things like difficulty finding a contractor or extended timelines for completing a project, structural integrity of the structures is in danger, and the commission wanted us to insert a clause in there that someone has to provide evidence on why, you know, that is a hardship, so we'll add that in there. And then just the very, we added a minor clarification on the application for strategic experience, so [41:35] Wayne Mallar: those are all the changes any questions i have a question yeah did you say this had been reviewed by historic presentation yes that's interesting I talked with the director today and they said they have not completed the review of it are you talking about the state yes [41:52] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): That's right, we are. This all hinges on them also reviewing it, right? That's what I thought. Yeah, so [41:58] Wayne Mallar: I meant the commission, our commission. Okay, yes, but the state hasn't reviewed it yet. Not yet. Okay, and [42:07] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): we are going to bring back the edits that the commission wanted us to make to their next meeting, so that would be another workshop, so we're not close to putting formal language. [42:21] Joseph Leonard: Okay, I think we need action on this item, right? I don't think we've [42:29] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): because we're not ready yet. Yeah, not yet. Yeah, okay. Thoughts? There's something in comments. [42:34] Joseph Leonard: So I mean I don't really have any other thoughts to bring other than just let us know how everything goes, but unless there's any other conversations regarding this matter, is the next the letter of support? Okay, oh it's still, yeah, okay, good, go right ahead. [43:02] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): So the state is currently, they have a bill pending to create what's called a climate the superfund, which essentially works the same way as a the current federal superfund bill works that was created back in the 80s, where polluters pay to clean up their pollution. So this would look at fossil fuel companies and the pollution they've caused over the decades, look at the climate damages that have been that Maine has experienced, and require those polluters pay compensatory fees proportional to that damage in Maine. And Bangor in particular, when you look at our vulnerability assessment that was done a few years ago, we're particularly vulnerable to flooding, especially in our downtown. Severe storms, we've experienced some major power outages and things, drought as we experienced last year, extreme heat, and all of those things really put a lot of strain on our infrastructure and cause increasing possible things like emergency response and things like that. When we have really heavy rain events, which we've been experiencing more in recent years, like very heavy downpours that can really strain our sewer and stormwater systems and cause overflows. So what this bill would do would be, you know, once those compensatory fees are recouped from the companies and communities like ours would get that money to help you know bolster our infrastructure, which would in turn decrease the property tax burden because the infrastructure is going to need to be repaired and bolstered anyway, and otherwise we'd foot the bill for that. So what we're requesting is just a letter of support if you're amenable supporting this bill, we would drop that basically what I've said so far, we'd use that to drop the letter and [45:04] Osis Ovedra: send that to the state. Questions [45:08] Joseph Leonard: or comments on the support letter? I [45:14] Susan Faloon: Have a question? Yes, please. It's probably not for you, it's probably one for the people who wrote the bill, but like, so I mean there's female money, I mean if it if it's still available, so like with this, how would that work? Do you know like how that would work in a storm event and there's damage to infrastructure? Because I know, like, you know, the municipalities can apply for FEMA money when this kick in after that, because I know that doesn't usually make somebody whole. [45:44] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): Well, yeah, I mean, FEMA money really helps you repair after disaster. And this funding would be more to go a step further and increase our resilience, you know. And on top of that we could use that to help make you know residents more resilient to power outages, you know, get generators or you know get air conditioning or something with extreme heat. And then on top of that you know the FEMA funding is in question. Some communities have been denied FEMA funding recently, and with the scale of disasters that are happening more free for women the cost, great questions about whether you will even be able to cover all the costs in the future, so okay. [46:33] Joseph Leonard: How's the committee feeling, yay or nay on this letter? Do we need a roll call vote or it seems like the committee's yes? We don't have anybody on Zoom, so okay, so I guess I'll just take a motion then. I'm not in favor because I don't know enough about it. Yeah, okay, that's totally fair, so we will need a roll call vote then if it's motioned and [46:57] Daniel Carson: seconded. I would move that, okay. [47:02] Joseph Leonard: The motion drive a second, okay, moved and seconded, it is doubted, so we'll do a roll call vote. Councillor Deane? Yes. Councillor Carson? Yes. Councillor Mallar? Councillor Faloon? Yes. And I'll be yes, so that will be four to one in favor. So we have some follow-ups from a memo regarding city-owned properties that well [47:40] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): did you want me to describe more? Should I? Yeah, I just I prepared just some information regarding the use of the economic development fund and sort of why, and just generally speaking, you know, why a lot of communities have enterprise funds, so it's a way to kind of manage, you know, in this case all of your city properties, so that they're you know the general taxpayers don't bear that burden of you know paying the person that's mowing the lawns that are you know undeveloped properties or properties that release, so you know things like that. And they're pretty common. A lot of communities have separated enterprise funds for specific things like this, so I wanted to just give you some background on that. We also prepared the list of properties and buildings that come under this fund. Every year, as part of your budget process, you'll see a much more itemized list of, you know, exactly, you know, the expenditures that are expect that we budget for every year for these properties, and you know what we expect to spend, so you'll have, it'll, it'll just be part of your budget process that you'll accept or otherwise at it. I asked Sarah McCullen to come this evening. She's our development analyst who works with our economic development team that manages the leases and the properties. So if you have specific questions, one of us should be able to answer. [49:28] Wayne Mallar: One question. I'm just curious, what utilities that we're paying out of the leases that we receive include electricity? [49:39] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): That's correct. Well, it depends, right? Right? [49:44] Unidentified speaker (City Staff): That's okay. So yeah, it depends on the development assistant. It depends on the individual lease, the utilities were set up at the time. At the moment, we only have one lease property with a tenant that we are covering the electric cost for, and the way that the lease was structured was that the lease, the rent due every month would cover the cost of all utilities so [50:20] Wayne Mallar: we were just getting enough to cover our expenses. How long have we had this place? Has it been updated, you know, yearly, every three years or [50:30] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): is it a 20-year lease? A lot of the leases have been recently, as you've seen on your agendas recently, renegotiated, so I'm not sure if that particular one was recently done or not. This one was last amended in 2023 [50:52] Unidentified speaker (City Staff): and it's also written into this lease that we have the ability to change the lease amount to cover utilities if utilities are starting to go over what we're getting, so why [51:05] Wayne Mallar: Why would we lease property for just to cover utilities? [51:11] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): I mean, the previous policy of this fund, from what I understand in the files, is that this was a fund created to lease and manage properties, and not necessarily as a fund to make money, because the money, it's an enterprise fund that stays within the fund itself to support itself, so it doesn't make sense to [51:43] Wayne Mallar: me that you'd be leasing something for just the expenses of water sewer stone water electric when maintenance is not included so if you have a maintenance issue that 's not covered [51:55] Unidentified speaker (City Staff): By the lease right, the lease amount covers all possible, well, to the best of anyone's knowledge, all possible expenses for the property, so I look, it covers everything, yeah, so I'm just [52:08] Wayne Mallar: confused when I see these two items separated here. It doesn't look like it's included in the lease. That's why I wondered if maintenance was. So when I look back at the last five years of [52:19] Unidentified speaker (City Staff): what we've gotten in lease revenue versus what we've spent on each of these properties, we haven't lost money on any of them, and we've more than broken even on all of them over the last five [52:31] Wayne Mallar: years. Breaking even is not a profitable operation. We need to make money. No, we've done more than that. We have made money on them. I just find that strange in the business world, give people a [52:43] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): free ride. One thing that our economic development team has been doing in renegotiating leases is bringing them to a market rate. They're doing the analysis to make sure that, you know, we are doing more, as you say, than just covering our basic costs. [53:01] Wayne Mallar: How many are at a market rate now? What percentage would you say? I'm not sure. [53:07] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): I'm not sure who's up coming up, so. [53:11] Joseph Leonard: If I could actually piggyback off of that point, Councilor Malheur, one of the things I would like to see regarding these funds is almost like a defined performance metric or an annual report, just so that, not only for staff to view, but also for council to sort of view, so that we know what directions we can take for the overall sum of these funds in the future, because you are right to nitpick it, Councilor Malheur, 100% you are. I think it is important though to make sure that we know what we're working with on this committee, so that we can plan around what we want to use these funds for in the future. Plus also, sometimes there are things that, like whether it's capital maintenance repairs or whatnot, that we're not able to foresee the future in terms of that. There might be some things that we do need to reconcile regarding what we charge for leasing these or renting these properties out in some way. So I think having a annual report or that sort of metric will probably help all of us see what these properties, not only their values, but their importance to the city overall for the fund itself. Does that make sense? [54:40] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): I mean, we can make that part of the budget package for the ED fund is to have a report that it comes with it. [54:46] Joseph Leonard: I would like that if the committee is commendable to that. [54:51] Unidentified speaker (City Staff): Can I ask how much detail you would like? [54:54] Joseph Leonard: You know, that's a fair question, and I think off the top of my head, I hesitate to give like specific guidance in regards to that. But at the end of the day, what I would like to see is a categorized list of all these different properties and what we get from them annually. And if you, if council wants, if the committee wants to get further into the weeds regarding we only charge sewage and rent for this but not electricity or whatever the specifics, you want to go further into that, I think that's more helpful. But when we're just looking at overall funding and line items for the budget process, that's really data I think is more privy to your department, less so for us to look at. But I mean, I could be wrong. [55:59] Daniel Carson: Yes, Council Carson. I would agree with you for the budget process. I don't need all of those pieces. But if the question is, how do we want to move forward with the enterprise fund? How do we want to grow? How do we want to have vacant buildings? We have vacant lots. What do we want to do with those? We would need capital in the enterprise fund if we want to. So I would like more detail if that's the question. And then I have a follow-up which maybe doesn't get answered right now, but vacant buildings, right? Is there like 178 Corporate Drive? I don't know what's over there. [56:37] Unidentified speaker (City Staff): That's a booster pump station. [56:39] Daniel Carson: Yeah. And then we have a lot of vacant lots. I mean, do we have plans around any of that right now? [56:46] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): Our economic development team works with people to, you know, to try to sell the properties we're trying to or lease. Okay, oh, council, [56:55] Susan Faloon: is it typical for municipalities to, they have ed funds like this to do this way where they're just like making a little bit more than what the expenses are, or do they do it, you know, where they're making a lot of money and if so, what are they doing with that? It's unusual overall [57:17] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): all for a municipality to own this much property at all. I mean, this was all part of, you know, when the airport, you know, the airport became an airport and a lot of the properties were given to the city from the military. So that was, that's very unusual. Most municipalities don't own property like this. They'll own little pieces here and there that they have taken for taxes, but at this level it's unusual, and I think again that was why the ed fund was created, was okay, we need to focus, you know, on maintaining, selling, leasing these properties in their own fund. [58:04] Daniel Carson: Yes, Council person, I love that it's unique. I, if I don't know how we, if there's a preference or how we decide whether we're going to lease or we're going to sell, but I really have a preference for us not selling off properties that we own, because that is unique, because of their potential for cashflow, and because everything in this country has been hyper privatized. I think it's great for municipalities to actually own some land. So I really would hate to see us selling and have a preference for leasing. [58:36] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): And that has been the policy for years, is that leasing, even if it's a long-term, you have a lot of 30-year leases out there, to have long-term leases for just that reason, to have that control over who's going in there as well, what kind of businesses you want to attract. So, I mean, it's an incredible tool that you have. [59:09] Joseph Leonard: Okay. Okay. What is it like 14,000 plus lots Bangor has, and how much does the city own? It must be close to 350, 400. [59:21] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): I don't know that number, but I'll get it, because that's a good one to know. [59:26] Joseph Leonard: So at the end of the day, it's not a lot of properties for us to have a sheet or a performance reforming metric to view. So I think this will help not just for business economic development, just for all general committees, which is because property affects every single aspect of the city. Were there any other thoughts or questions on this? [59:59] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): And actually, this was just a request to write more information. [1:00:04] Joseph Leonard: So I think we, Council Carson, do we want to have another discussion regarding the types of information that we want for the properties that the city owns? Or do we want to trust staff to give us a more detailed performance metric for those properties. What are your [1:00:26] Daniel Carson: thoughts on that? I trust staff. I mean, it depends on whatever question we're asking it, but I trust your judgment. [1:00:38] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): Since we're so close to your budget time, we'll put an annual report in with your budget, okay, budget sheet, so you have, I think that's acceptable. [1:00:51] Joseph Leonard: Thank you sir. Thank you so much. All right, and now we just have general updates, Grandview development, Maine downtown, very quickly, I know it's late, so it won't take up [1:01:05] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): Much of your time, but I just wanted to update you and inform especially newer members that may not know about the Grandview project. It was a project that was started a few years ago when, once, you know, previous counselors have had housing as their top priority for a while. And so in 2023, we started looking at city-owned properties to look at, you know, was there a way that we could, you know, be part of the solution. And so the Grandview lot really kind of popped up as a as a really viable option. As you can see what's around it, 's so well located with the high school, Apprentice Woods, shopping, jobs, us, and you know very close by. So it's a well-located property. So we did an art, actually first met with, we had a neighborhood meeting that was facilitated but with design professionals, and we kind of got out the maps and the markers and came up with some ideas. And then we did an RFQ for a developer, chose Developers Collaborative out of Portland. They do a significant number of affordable projects. And the affordability that we're looking at is 80 to 120 median income because what we were finding is a lot of people, you know, in that in that area and that demographic, you know, they can't, they make too much to get subsidies and but market rate housing is still out of reach for them. But they're here, they're working, you know, they just need to have decent housing. So that's, you know, that's the demographic that this project is looking at. So we, you had authorized us to enter into a development agreement, which has been done, and we're working with them right now to come up with a development scenario. This is a very unusual situation. You typically, you don't look at development scenarios because they're in private property and they go to the planning board, but because ultimately you as the city are the applicant for the planning board to review the project, we will be bringing you a more formal development plan. The one that's in your packet that's already been changed, but I just wanted you to see sort of the kinds of things that we're looking at with that site. So ultimately probably at your April meeting you'll have a more formal presentation of a development plan that you will either accept or reject or otherwise edit, as well as a review of their pro forma because you have as part of the development agreement dedicated two million dollars of ARPA funds for to pay for pre-permaning and infrastructure costs for this parcel. So it's very important [1:04:13] Osis Ovedra: Important that you look at both as well, right? [1:04:18] Joseph Leonard: Any thoughts on Grandview Avenue lot at all? [1:04:26] Wayne Mallar: Yes, Councilor Miller, I'm just curious what's, what are we going to get out of the law? I mean, we're [1:04:31] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): going to gain revenue from taxes, I assume. Yeah, it'll be privately owned, so yes, and the property costs them, you know, that's part of the development agreement is that you're giving the [1:04:44] Wayne Mallar: property to the developer, so we lost that. Okay, just checking. Any [1:04:53] Joseph Leonard: other thoughts or comments? Yes, [1:04:54] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): Council Dean, this could be premature, but what do you anticipate for time frame for breaking ground? This year is what they're looking at, for, you know, spring, summer construction. Great, [1:05:07] Osis Ovedra: right? Yeah, oh, [1:05:13] Susan Faloon: yes counselor so do you know what the anticipated completion date would be [1:05:21] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): Roughly, it's probably going to be done in phases. They're looking to do the, rentals first so that they can kind of get that income going, get that portion of the property developed, so then they can work on the, because there's also going to be an element for [1:05:41] Susan Faloon: ownership housing as well, so anyway, the ownership, would that be like a single [1:05:49] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): family? Possibly single family, possible condos. Yeah, we're still working out some of the details. [1:05:57] Joseph Leonard: Okay, any continuing thoughts on the main downtown symptoms? Oh yeah, very good news, [1:06:07] Unidentified speaker (Planning Officer): news that this the city's downtown is going to be part of the Maine downtown program that Maine Development Foundation organizes part of a national Main Street America program it you know it opens you up to some funding ability there's you know funding programs that they run it just you get you know you it's just part of that bengal buzz that we do in economic development of just getting the name bangor out there nationally beyond just maine and these are the types of programs that really help you, help you get there. Any [1:06:52] Joseph Leonard: any questions on? Oh, yes, no,, you're very nice, very nice. Unless there's any other thoughts or comments from our staff. It is currently 825. This is the last committee for this evening. Thank you so much for attending everyone, and we are adjourned.