Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[0:10] Jake Bullier: All right, all right, we will, it is six o'clock, so we'll go ahead and call our meeting to order. It is Wednesday, September 16th, 2025 at 6 p.m., and this is the Planning Board workshop. I am Jake Bullier, I'm the vice chair of the Planning Board, and I will be running tonight's meeting. We have two items formally on the agenda. One is data centers, and then the second is LD 2173. These are both sent to us by Amy. So with that, I will turn it over to Amy to kick us off on discussion.
[1:18] Speaker B (unidentified): Says it doesn't like create issues for water and electricity and power in that, but we need to decide, you know, what if we want to allow data centers at all in Hamden, what size if we do. I kind of just printed out very quick bullet points of what we should consider, you know, the water usage, the electricity usage, so.
[1:51] Speaker C (unidentified): One.
[2:11] Jake Bullier: One thing to consider on data centers is, yes, there's a lot of consumption, but it doesn't flow back into the sewer treatment system. Most of the consumption is through evaporative cooling. So these data centers use major evaporative cooling systems to pump coolant through the servers back into giant evaporative cooling towers that then waterfall and absorb the heat into that water that then evaporates into the air, right, and goes out and you'll see clouds and all that stuff. So it's not necessarily large volumes flowing into the sewer, it's large volumes topping up the evaporative cooling units that are cooling the systems.
[3:35] Speaker D (unidentified): Social cost, the sewer would be the big deal, but that's very interesting that it wouldn't affect the sewer. The water consumption is also a problem if they're paying for it and.
[3:46] Speaker B (unidentified): I.
[3:50] Jake Bullier: Think that's, so when I first read this and understood what the discussion area was, my mind went to we already kind of have things in place in our ordinance to cover that, right, if there's a concern about water, you know, available water supply or, you know, available sewer capacity, like we have things in our ordinance to consider that, and that's part of our approval criteria of any project that comes before us, which to my knowledge would be any level of data center would have to come to the Planning. Board, yeah, so we don't have it.
[4:32] Speaker B (unidentified): Currently in our use table it could fall under, I believe it was like non-essential service, so that is potential. So it's permitted in our industrial dirt, industrial district, and conditionally elsewhere. So that's a bit concerning because that would be what it falls under since we don't have a definition. So I think it would be important to put it in the use table at least and decide where it could be conditionally.
[5:10] Jake Bullier: yeah i mean if we think we need to define it as a as a use to put I mean what 's the point of defining it as a use is the question that pops in my mind and if we define it as a use we can put special rules on that specific use instead of just a overall use so if we wanted to find special rules for data centers then we would want to define that as a use else it could just fall under that general use
[7:37] Speaker E (unidentified): So I think the thought process to your point is kind of all over the place statewide and I think that's almost community specific. So I think the fact that maybe we could just sort of tailor it how we would handle it if somebody wanted to, you know, buy 200 acres out in the rural district and build a data center, is it allowed, you know, because supposedly, I mean I've seen these large ones we need a lot of
[8:10] Speaker C (unidentified): acreage they don't have enough water out there but I know what you're saying.
[8:16] Speaker F (unidentified): Right, I mean realistically where are they going to put one in the industrial box ammo bar, yeah right. So that's, that's where we're looking at, that's the only place in town I could see it would remotely fit, yeah, anything, any of that right, and that's all on town, on town water right, yeah sure.
[8:42] Speaker G (unidentified): I was at the council workshop, there was a lot of vision concerns both ways. One of the things that was raised, well we don't want to discourage data centers, that prohibit them, and that was expressed by one council member, and to which I would say in your zoning ordinance you already have pages of conditional uses and specifics around those and something from dog kennels to pot farms. So you know you could, you could add a specified conditional use with some perhaps some other concerns other than Being in the water in the sewer for that conditions and that discouraging it or just having some of those tailings. I think one of the things that allowed progress to be made at the council workshop is initially it was understood and then people were kind of thinking well that's that's too restrictive. Paula mentioned that count only in that 60-day moratorium three times and so when that part came through everybody was sort of okay we can we can we can take a 60-day time out to let the board come up with some rules or decide not to come up with some rules and we could extend that so they were okay with 60 days and I think a conditional a category of conditional use with some other things you might want to look at specific to that heard
[10:31] Jake Bullier: Thank you I think again where my mind kind of goes with this is a moratorium feels very emergency based right like well we need to pause and figure out what's going on and to me we have at least a lot of the things that are common concerns in data centers we already have in our ordinance and in our approval criteria water sewer light pollution sound pollution like those are all we already part of the approval criteria and you know honestly the projects that we see and that I've seen for the past you know three two three years like don't even touch on any of those right like I don't know that I've seen anything or discussed anything that was a sound pollution concern but this would be applicable in that area right like a sound pollution like the noise from a data center
[11:53] Speaker E (unidentified): And then that one marijuana operation, it was the fans that was keeping the grow house cool that the neighbors were trying to clean up. So, you know, it's not the same. It depends on what it is. Yeah.
[12:07] Speaker F (unidentified): So we already have, so like to your point, Amy, we just add some provisions in the use table.
[12:15] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, so I think he keeps referring to the conditional use, which you're right. But now in the use table under that some of it is just permitted so should we make it all conditional or have a separate line for data centers and make our own decision on not allowed or conditional? Well it would be a lot cleaner for that
[12:35] Speaker C (unidentified): data center is listed right on it and you can specify exactly. I do think so
[12:40] Speaker H (unidentified): Yes. I think so. And there's no, yes
[12:47] Speaker G (unidentified): CO2, whatever, maybe that is already in the zoning ordinance, but that's something that could be new and specific to the data center. Because
[13:04] Speaker B (unidentified): A lot of the conditions we have in place or approval standards that have been mentioned by the council and by Jacob are the conditional use standards, so I think if we're going to allow them you need to go through the conditional application process to review that type of. We feel similarly, do we want to specify sizes of
[13:30] Speaker H (unidentified): data centers? Yeah, some of these sizes are a little over the top and I don't
[13:34] Speaker B (unidentified): suspect those will be interested in Hamden. I don't suspect we have the water capacity, but I could check with the water district to and see just
[13:48] Speaker C (unidentified): a medium in size 25 000 you
[13:55] Speaker D (unidentified): don't even have that now. I question a question whether like we have really high power cost, so I guess I just question how pertinent it is in general. Most hyperscale data
[14:09] Jake Bullier: centers are drawn towards prior running power facilities, so for example Three Mile Island shut down how many years ago and they're actually restarting Three Mile Island because they're going to put a hyperscale data center there to consume the power. It's it's hyper it's it's focused around cheap power locations or areas where there is already power, so Bucksport
[14:39] Speaker D (unidentified): Millinocket might have some potential, but yes, and specifically those will have already been
[14:44] Jake Bullier: conversation points, right? If you look back in the news they were somebody was gonna put a data center up in Millinocket but ended up pulling out at the last second because there was some concern around it, right? So absolutely Bucks for Millinocket. We don't necessarily have anything out here, but again like I don't want to just say well we don't have anything so don't don't don't worry about it, but I think you know making it a conditional use gives us those approval criteria to then go leverage you know because then it's open to public hearing public comment you know and all of that
[15:31] Speaker B (unidentified): So my hearing adding to the use table with a specific definition of what is classified as a data center and conditionally allowed everywhere what I
[15:51] Jake Bullier: would want to be a little bit careful of is so I used to work at Bangor Savings Bank. That big building downtown has a data center in it, right? It is one of two data centers, one there and one in Port Smith New Hampshire, and they do everything they can in that data center. It's not you know causing hazard, it's not a huge energy consumption. I'd have to imagine Main Savings has something, I'd have to imagine Bar Harbor Bank and Trust has something, so you know I would want to be careful of how we go about restricting some of that because there is some normal business operation that might have a small data center in an operation center like that yeah so I'm trying to remember the reuse table off the top my head but is there a way for us to do you know a data center less than you know 100,000 square feet in a data center over or equal to or over you know 100 000 square feet sort of thing and i just threw that number out because it's in front of me but we can talk more about what we want to do on that threshold small
[17:20] Speaker I (unidentified): data center when you start i mean how many people in banks are like think about all the electricity that 35 000 all those homes are consuming like just one slot it's a lot of power and what does the utility company have to do like the transformers are all like
[17:54] Speaker C (unidentified): no we can't even get the solar hooked on yet because they don't have good enough lines to
[17:59] Jake Bullier: take it right but at the same time is that on us to determine is that in our ballpark if
[18:08] Speaker F (unidentified): they if they look in to prove that they can support what they want to develop
[18:14] Jake Bullier: like i don't i don't want to create ordinance to for the sake of creating ordinance if it's on the developer to make sure that they can get the power that they need and great if they're gonna say well we'll just put a bunch of diesel generators out back okay well then now we need to really consider what that looks like in other pollution and you know light and sound and all that kind of problem and part of the benefit for us is we hampden is i don't know if we're physically split but on the edge of the power distribution network so you look at cmp and you look at verson we are on that line right so we're at the very extreme edge of their power delivery network so they're not going to have that same level of capacity all the way at the edge they'd have to build that infrastructure back you know it they could build it back to Bangalore but that's a lot of infrastructure so
[19:24] Speaker B (unidentified): should I when I come back to the amendments or can I show you guys what you've been talking about like the use table we can put data centers and then the definition we can say a data center not exceeding 10,000 square feet or 20,000 square feet or we can say small data centers you know we can kind of define it in the parameters that we
[19:50] Jake Bullier: want with just one I think from a public perspective what probably gets viewed more is the use table versus looking at the use table then looking in referencing a definition. I don't want to clutter the use table, but I think that's a benefit or a good use of you know maybe two entries in the use table. [Speaker C (unidentified): do we] did I think to me that comes down is to you know do the people want to put a maximum on it. From my perspective I think the market kind of puts the maximum on that, right. I don't know, from my perspective that I would want to put a maximum on that. I'd let the market do it, but that's my opinion. I don't know what everybody else's power availability and the
[21:09] Speaker F (unidentified): water availability is going to create the cap in reality it's
[21:21] Speaker I (unidentified): crazy to think though a half an hour intensive AI usage requires point one six gallons I
[21:32] Speaker H (unidentified): spent
[21:45] Jake Bullier: thousands of dollars every month on AI usage well I spent $20 okay
[21:56] Speaker B (unidentified): I hear what you guys are saying in regards to that. Is there anything else so you think we should consider around that or kind of come back so we know the location the industrial one and industrial park or just industrial one and two because the industrial park I don't think they have a lot big enough left
[22:22] Speaker H (unidentified): i
[22:26] Speaker F (unidentified): would think so yeah
[22:31] Jake Bullier: that's pretty much 202 colebrook back corner right that's what
[22:37] Speaker B (unidentified): comes to my mind so what's barry's field that's still risky but it might not be that right but
[22:45] Jake Bullier: if it's still resident taking that out of the equation yeah there's the potential of the map changes eventually but well you know they could come in and try to do a rezoning application right oh I know yeah I'm good with that ld 2173 what fun's going on in that one today
[23:27] Speaker B (unidentified): They haven't even really figured it out completely yet, but I'm going to start the conversation because it's getting to that time. So it's obvious. If you saw what I sent you, I really just highlighted the important stuff to discuss as regards to our zoning. Let's see. The density bonus is for, like, affordable housing.
[23:54] Jake Bullier: real quick just for my brain to get into the right mode I'll be 2173 is proposed
[24:01] Speaker H (unidentified): legislature that is or is it proposed or has it has not but still needs to go to
[24:15] Jake Bullier: a vote in pass and it's anticipated to pass okay yeah thank you yes yeah trust
[24:23] Speaker B (unidentified): Me, it's been a hard trying to wrap your head around this for me anyway. So the affordable housing density, I don't think I really want to talk about that yet tonight. I'd rather get the general density discussion first before we go there, because that adds, it's like another layer on top of the increased density that makes sense they're proposing. So page 9, municipality must allow at a minimum the following subject to the requirements of this section in section 4. So a total of three dwelling units attached or detached on lots where residential uses are permitted, including conditional uses. So, a total of four dwelling units if a lot is located in a designated growth area or served by water and sewer. And then one of the units described can be an accessory dwelling unit. So the tricky part here is our comprehensive plan, the growth area, talks about suburban and sprawl throughout the rural district, which is technically a residential growth area. So it is in the interpretation of myself and Hillary go at the decd, then our residential zones are growth areas, and then there's the residential with sewer. And so basically
[26:05] Jake Bullier: real quick, I'm again, I'm just, I'm thinking back to this, we've designated specific growth nodes. So the opinion is that it goes beyond those growth nodes because we talked about suburban sprawl in the
[26:20] Speaker B (unidentified): residential district. Well the no, so the nodes were more of mixed-use nodes, so like mixed residential commercial use. If you remember the suburban sprawl was the growth of the residents moving out, and basically you know like rez bead kind of turns more into rez A and rural turns more into the rez B type feel, and it slowly higher density. Yeah, you know, yep. So our residential zones are kind of called out as our growth zone
[26:58] Jake Bullier: okay, yeah, I trust you. I'm just, I'm
[27:06] Speaker B (unidentified): trying to wrap my head around it. Yeah, so that being said, a total of four dwelling units can be on a lot. Well then if you go to the next page, we cannot require a lot size no more than 5,000 square feet if it's public water and sewer. So right now currently Res A, Res B, you know, they can now be 5,000 square feet, no more than that. We cannot require more than 1,250 square feet a lot per dwelling unit for the first four units. We choose to have more, we need to determine lot area per dwelling unit for The additional units, all right. So essentially, let's see the lot size. If they're not water, oh, it's outside designated growth area in surrogate water and sewer, it's 10,000 square feet. But that's, that's not necessarily applicable to us because all our residential zones, so it's either 5,000 or 20,000, which would be the rural district, because of if it doesn't have water or sewer, the minimum lot size can only be, can't be more than 20,000 square feet. That's on page 10.
[28:49] Jake Bullier: And it takes all of our rural district and takes two acres and cuts it into 0.5
[28:57] Speaker B (unidentified): acres, more or less, but it doesn't say anything about road frontage, so we could require more road frontage per house. I had to double check on that, but as I was discussing it with Miles, because I was trying to come up with a max gross density for this strip of road that we were in discussion, and I was like, well, if you have 20,000 square feet lots, you know, doesn't say anything about road furniture and stuff to keep that 200 foot road furniture, which you think is quite hard on the configuration of lots, so that is a way to control the density
[29:36] Jake Bullier: a little bit and we remind me we don't have a provision for flag lots. We do, because it was there and then it wasn't, okay, and it came back, yeah, so
[29:51] Speaker D (unidentified): is there, it's 20,000 square feet, how much per extra? So in the other zones it's 1250, right, per extra, yeah, is there a per extra, so
[30:21] Jake Bullier: I think the per extra is beyond four units, right, so like reading a for, if a municipality chooses to allow more than four units on a lot, as described in section 3b 1b, a municipality may determine lot area per dwelling unit for the additional units. Well, the way I was reading it was municipal ordinance
[30:42] Speaker D (unidentified): should not require more than 1250 square feet of lot area per dwelling unit for the first four
[30:49] Speaker B (unidentified): which is the five thousand square feet, and that's under those that are with water and sewer, so it's
[30:54] Speaker H (unidentified): 20,000 per floor, so we can determine
[31:08] Speaker B (unidentified): a lot area per dwelling unit for additional units. Number a lot is located in designated growth area and it's not served by public sewer system, for dwelling units shall be allowed use attached or detached, inclusive of an accessory dwelling in the municipal, municipalities minimum lot size requirement may not exceed 20,000 for a single-family dwelling unit as required. It cannot be more restrictive. So this is just a first introduction to this tonight. We don't have to solve the problems. Because, you know, technically it's not adopted yet. We just wanted to get our eyes on it.
[32:16] Jake Bullier: But 1829 is, right? Right. And which is? And 1829 is?
[32:26] Speaker B (unidentified): Essentially the same idea.
[32:28] Jake Bullier: Yeah, even so, like the lot minimums are smaller.
[32:34] Speaker D (unidentified): Than it's not in effect though, it passed, it was signed.
[32:38] Speaker B (unidentified): But it was extended, so we have until July of 2027.
[32:43] Speaker D (unidentified): And this is hopefully to take the place, make it a little more restrictive.
[32:51] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah, the red stripe out is 1829, which has
[32:54] Jake Bullier: been extended. Is that what I heard? So this is written as 1829, it's written as 1829. Yeah, the changes are right, the proposed 2173 that has not been voted on yet.
[33:10] Speaker H (unidentified): And none of this is effective yet, so if 2173 fails, then 1829 goes into effect
[33:19] Jake Bullier: in 2027. Yeah, okay, Mill.
[33:28] Speaker D (unidentified): Signed it in June 25, so
[33:36] Speaker B (unidentified): should I look, so how do we feel about it, I guess?
[33:39] Jake Bullier: Those are, that, I think in a res district, you know, res A district, I think, okay, I follow, doesn't mean I'm a huge fan, but I follow. In rural district, those numbers are wild to me.
[34:00] Speaker H (unidentified): To me they
[34:02] Speaker B (unidentified): have to have a suitable septic, they have to have a suitable septic that meet, I think it's a pretty much higher standard septic.
[34:20] Speaker C (unidentified): So what defines affordable housing?
[34:23] Speaker D (unidentified): This isn't, well this isn't even, this isn't even affordable, it gets wilder.
[34:27] Speaker B (unidentified): There's a whole other section that's the one I skipped because I'd like to get this kind of down first and then the affordables even more allowance.
[34:39] Speaker H (unidentified): So basically
[34:44] Speaker C (unidentified): you might as well do the affordable first because everybody can say I'm going to do the affordable. Great.
[34:53] Speaker D (unidentified): Affordable comes with its own set of problems though. It does. Yeah, but I mean what do they classify as affordable housing? I don't know, below market, it's going to be below market rate and below market income for the tenants.
[35:11] Speaker C (unidentified): Or yeah, if you're renting, because those up on 1A was affordable housing, yeah, Stern's Farm, those were like 270 something thousand, I was, yeah, I was gonna say I think he
[35:23] Speaker E (unidentified): had to be like, he couldn't be above like 280,000, can't be like 270,000.
[35:29] Jake Bullier: Yeah, so it says an eligibility for bonuses for purposes of this section, a municipality shall verify that the development A is an affordable housing development as defined in this chapter, which includes the requirement that 51% or more of the total units on the lot are affordable, and then there's the
[35:50] Speaker B (unidentified): affordable housing standards a couple years ago, so they are in there, but this is a density bonus that we're going to have to incorporate into that now, I
[36:10] Jake Bullier: guess, so I guess the thing that comes to mind to me is our growth areas set in stone until our next compliment, so
[36:28] Speaker B (unidentified): Then there's a lot of moving parts here, and I'm trying to see, like, what would be the best way for you guys to absorb all this. Would it be to, like, give you options to look at as far as it's like road frontage, what that looks like for 20,000 square feet? I don't know, you make it
[36:50] Speaker C (unidentified): bigger, then you're going to lose lots, cost more to build a road, suck up the road frontage,
[36:59] Jake Bullier: and you have wasted back land. So I think my mind goes to, do we as a planning board and the keepers of the ordinance, I'll use as a term, you know, it says more than just us, but do we want our ordinance to be along the same lines of restrictiveness as they are right now and say, you know, you've got to have 200 feet of road frontage, which would then limit how many lots you could put on this, or how many, you know, if you have a two acre lot right now, in theory you could split that into four different lots and then put 16 houses, 16 units on that, right? Do we want to allow that as written, or do we want to look at how we can adjust our, I
[37:54] Speaker D (unidentified): guess I'd love to see what the options should come up with where, I mean, I think it's very vague, it is, so I'd
[38:01] Speaker B (unidentified): love to see what the options might be, and then that brings me kind of to my next thing, that it's coming in the new subdivision law anyway. But I'm trying to do, I haven't done research on it, but I did hear that maybe for like dwelling units four or less can only go to major site plan, they don't have to go through the subdivision. The subdivision law is going to change to five lot splits anyway, and supposedly next year as well, so that's something we should think about, like, you know, if somebody's going a three unit or four unit, do we still want them to go to
[38:42] Speaker H (unidentified): subdivision review or just major site? So that's a site, so you, I just want to
[38:49] Jake Bullier: clarify, you said lot splits, but then also talking about you can do dwelling
[38:53] Speaker B (unidentified): unit, so subdivision is triggered by dwelling units or lot splits, you don't
[38:56] Speaker F (unidentified): have to split the lot to be right, which is asinine, but that's a whole
[39:00] Speaker B (unidentified): another, yeah, so I want to check legally because I heard that if it's for dwelling units or letter or three, you don't have to do the subdivision review for dwelling, mm-hmm, you do for lock splits, yes, yeah, either way you still have to for lock split, right? So is that something you want me to look into, so that four units are less just go to major site plan and not do not trigger there's your division, make sense to me. One thing
[39:48] Jake Bullier: that pops into my mind is what do we have in subdivision ordinance that we then lose when it goes to just zoning
[39:56] Speaker B (unidentified): ordinance besides the road stipulations those
[40:02] Jake Bullier: ordinances are so intermingled which I understand they have to be but after
[40:09] Speaker B (unidentified): attending the meeting on Monday about this in South Portland Waterboro and Bath all shared how they incorporated it we're very old school in the way that we operate
[40:23] Jake Bullier: so yeah but how many of those have the what was it that Clifton was looking at doing
[40:29] Speaker B (unidentified): before based yeah form based so I think if anything so Portland was the only one water borough and I asked were very similar but they're the plan I was saying how they're outdated and they'd like to intermingle their zoning and or subdivision ordinance as one land use ordinance so but that's probably for far down the road for us but something that was brought up was the not triggering subdivision with dwelling in it that's why I'm bringing it up now before we intermingle this new law so that I'm not changing subdivision and site plan
[41:08] Speaker F (unidentified): I think it would be so
[41:29] Speaker B (unidentified): examples with a dimensional table to kind of see it that way would be helpful you think
[41:39] Speaker H (unidentified): I mean are
[41:45] Speaker F (unidentified): we trying to I mean obviously we have to amend the ordinances to follow the law but are we trying to encourage affordable housing as a town
[41:57] Speaker H (unidentified): or are we trying to discourage well the affordable housing is as a town do we
[42:03] Speaker F (unidentified): want to bust up our rural zone into smaller lots or do we want to keep that
[42:07] Jake Bullier: rural feel yeah and I think that's where I was kind of going with my question but it didn't make sense that's why we're here I guess this is we need to determine as a town
[42:18] Speaker F (unidentified): what direction we want to head and then shape the ordinance to match that direction
[42:25] Speaker D (unidentified): instead of vice versa yeah so we're kind of stuck with the square footage though so I think
[42:32] Jake Bullier: but if you have a 200 foot road front implement right you can only go so deep with that and you can only you know we don't have flag lots right I mean we have alternate frontage lots but you still have to have frontage somewhere so you can only go so deep and that brings your density down whereas if we go down to 50 foot of road frontage now you have five right or not five excuse me, four, math, four lots, and you can put 16 units on that same lot that was 200 feet previously.
[43:19] Speaker B (unidentified): So I'm reading this as the affordable housing bonus is separate from the general density requirements. Right. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page.
[43:31] Speaker F (unidentified): That bonus is pretty hefty. Yeah.
[43:38] Jake Bullier: Where's the bonus? two and a half times the density oh boy so that's section two versus section three yes okay
[43:52] Speaker B (unidentified): so do we want to the rural character now is so
[44:04] Speaker D (unidentified): Altering the amount of road frontage is the easiest solution, assuming it gets left the way it is. I mean, 10 units.
[44:12] Speaker B (unidentified): Change, are we altering the road frontage to more or to less or same? So I always go and reference
[44:21] Jake Bullier: my lot, right? So I'm out on Kennebec Road just past Meadow and Monroe. I've got 15 acres there, but I've got 240 feet or, well, it's more than two that, it's like 400 feet of road frontage. So I could split my lot once, but you know that's a total of, you know, eight units. But if I take, I could get creative with the way I draw my boundary lines because my, you know, my 15 acres goes back 2200 feet, but it's only 400 foot wide. So I could get creative with my road frontage and then just slam units in there. I don't want to do that, but that's what I go to reference in my mind. Would Kennebec Road, outer Kennebec Road support that? No, but I've got a pond on the site, right? I could in theory put in a bunch of septic systems and put in 20 units according to this without a road frontage in rural, sticking with, you know, 200 square feet, 200 feet of road furniture. Another
[45:21] Speaker B (unidentified): thing to think about is the additional unit like the 1250 speed we could increase that which section so when they talk about the municipal ordinance shown that require more than 1250 square feet and that's it 's by water and sewer so it doesn't say anything where we can't increase that well yeah that's the math that's but that's for public water and sewer the rural doesn't have public water and sewer right oh yeah so this it would be number see on page 10 but
[46:13] Jake Bullier: does it call out that it can't be more restrictive then calculations in 423 a the c2 so it's top of page 11 it says in the density requirements or calculations may not be more restrictive than those required by title 12 chapter 423 a right am i interpreting that right I think for rural and others right I don't want to just single out rural but that's where my mind goes I think we need to look at continuing to have our road
[47:13] Speaker F (unidentified): frontage requirement. I think that's probably, if we're gonna keep the rural feel, that's our only avenue. The only thing you got to take into consideration is all the
[47:25] Speaker C (unidentified): people in the rural area that have road furniture. If you extend it out, you're taking money out of
[47:30] Speaker F (unidentified): their pocket well I mean that's the other but that's what I said we need to figure out which direction we want to go to town but we'll like if somebody wants to sell their land and develop it 's not really like I don't want to be the one to tell them no you can't do what you want to do
[47:46] Speaker C (unidentified): Your land, well, I mean, if we've had it 200 feet for the last, I don't know how many years, yeah, now you tell this guy he's sitting on the land a thousand feet of road from each, now it's 300.
[48:00] Jake Bullier: Right, I wouldn't go beyond what it is, right, I'm just saying, yes, I don't want
[48:06] Speaker C (unidentified): to go beyond it either, yep, I don't think I necessarily want to go last, yep, but that guy's
[48:12] Speaker F (unidentified): potentially gonna lose a lot of money if you did, right, if he was planning on splitting a lot off and as a retirement or something, right, I mean, the obvious
[48:21] Speaker B (unidentified): thing too is a lot of these long skinny lots, that was the other thing, I mean,
[48:31] Jake Bullier: my lots at some points 150 foot wide, but I could put a road in, I could stack them
[48:37] Speaker J (unidentified): up, I don't want, cost you a lot for that road though, I mean, well, we live in the
[48:43] Speaker D (unidentified): loosened the standards as you increase the density, those numbers, you're correct, yeah, you get the two and a half, yeah, pencil density bonus, start the
[48:49] Speaker F (unidentified): pencil, a lot better, I mean, that's the whole game, but I do agree with people
[48:55] Speaker C (unidentified): in the world, well, somewhat, yeah, so you can't make it small, no, I would, I would
[49:02] Speaker H (unidentified): say keep it where it is at 200, yeah, I mean, it is a struggle for Res A and B
[49:07] Speaker B (unidentified): for the sewer capacity. But I don't know any lots are available to do, especially in Res A.
[49:16] Speaker C (unidentified): Is that road as far as the track?
[49:19] Speaker B (unidentified): No, that's actually, Res B stops right at like Mayo Road.
[49:24] Speaker C (unidentified): That's where the sewer and water and all that stops.
[49:28] Jake Bullier: Back Winterport, I think, right?
[49:33] Speaker C (unidentified): Is it water stops right there at the bottom of the hill?
[49:37] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah, so I think we saw some options like to be flexible but also serve at the same time, yeah.
[49:56] Speaker B (unidentified): It's gonna take a lot of workshopping for this because I'm still wrapping my head around it and there's gonna be things that I realize that we realize, is there
[50:15] Speaker D (unidentified): a proximate timeline of when it's gonna get taken up on the
[50:20] Speaker B (unidentified): state level, this is going the end of the month and then we have to have it finished by July 27, still under a year.
[50:41] Jake Bullier: So this goes into a bigger question, back when you know Clifton was here there was discussion about going through the entire thing and I know we've worked through bits and pieces, but is it, is it time to do that ground thing, yeah, the underground electric did that, came back, yeah, so like I have an ongoing
[51:11] Speaker B (unidentified): list of little things that we need to change as far as like the big overhaul, I'm gonna be
[51:19] Jake Bullier: Real honest, I don't know if I'm the person to do that, but as a as a town, do we say we need, we have to do this because it's so antiquated, and I do not know the town finances, I'm gonna be honest, but like do we, do we look at over the next two or three years or something hiring a firm to help us rewrite all of our ordinance, and whether it's form based, whether it's land use, you know, it's, it feels like there's so many of these weird conditional like just things that it's been happening over eight you know, since the 80s and it needs to be completely redone, I [Speaker E (unidentified): mean] look at Neely's corner, I mean that was served that community for forever, yeah, even if we go to a single land use code where it's you know we don't have subdivision and zoning that they conflict with one another, you know, go through and just revamp the whole thing and go through the workshops in the process, you know, it's gonna be at least a year-long process to really sit down and go through and like what do we want, how do we want to deliver this, and then you know build it out, it's a it's a project like I could certainly look into it and see
[53:47] Speaker B (unidentified): like what it would cost and how long it would take and the best avenue to do it, I mean probably a couple three years, two or three years, yeah, realistically between budgeting and having it
[53:59] Jake Bullier: done, but yeah, how long do we keep putting band-aids on something that's been around you know for, when was this, well I don't have it, 79, yeah, so 50 years almost, any idea what cost
[54:13] Speaker D (unidentified): for that is it something that's fifty thousand dollars or something that's a million dollars like
[54:18] Speaker H (unidentified): I would not
[54:22] Speaker B (unidentified): yeah, I wouldn't say more than, I would hope it would be more than six figures by any means
[54:27] Speaker C (unidentified): didn't they look into that years ago or you may have, seems like I heard that discussed once
[54:32] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, we've talked about it. I think it's a good idea.
[54:41] Speaker D (unidentified): It seems like a streamlined, less confusing to residents, easier for town staff to navigate.
[54:49] Jake Bullier: I agree. It would be worth it. I mean, Mr. Haley Ward over here, do we know any, have you heard of that? Is that a service that there are companies or contractors that offer? Yeah, absolutely.
[55:29] Speaker B (unidentified): I think it's either
[55:35] Speaker J (unidentified): way
[55:40] Jake Bullier: I mean, probably won't be done for when we have to have this done, right? But you know, if we can say okay, we understand, you know, we're going to plan for, you know, have a full revamp of land use or form based or whatever it is in the next three years, we can look at this and understand this from a different angle. We just have to get to that end point of we can use band-aids on this while we work towards the long-term goal, yeah.
[56:39] Speaker B (unidentified): I was, I heard the end of the month. Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Yeah, so it
[56:54] Speaker G (unidentified): ends Friday, yeah.
[57:02] Speaker E (unidentified): and
[57:24] Jake Bullier: I, where my mind goes is something like this, and you know, South Portland or Gorham, Falmouth, okay, I see that makes sense, but like that's having one law like this for the entire state of Maine, like that, it's so vast, yeah.
[57:46] Speaker C (unidentified): yeah
[57:50] Speaker J (unidentified): like I, well in some avenues that's taken care of by the
[57:57] Speaker D (unidentified): cost of building, right, like you know, nobody's gonna go to Penobscot put in a hundred units just because they can, right, there's no rental market there for
[58:05] Speaker B (unidentified): it, right, so oh yeah, okay, I'm gonna try to do more visual understanding of it
[58:15] Jake Bullier: for next workshop. There were a couple more highlighted areas, did you want to touch on those real quick? Yes, thank you, thanks for coming. [Speaker H (unidentified): 13] part C municipal
[58:42] Speaker B (unidentified): implementation. For any area in which residential uses are allowed, including as a conditional use, a municipality may not require planning board approval for accessory dwelling units or solely because the project will establish four or fewer residential dwelling units within a single structure on the lot. I know what I was talking about with the subdivision thing, so now, so yeah, so that
[59:04] Jake Bullier: would not cause our subdivision to be illegal, essentially.
[59:09] Speaker H (unidentified): just four units anywhere.
[59:18] Speaker B (unidentified): who says, and that's anyone in the state, within a single structure, yeah, own a lot.
[59:26] Speaker H (unidentified): so quadplexes, it's just four units anywhere, i can throw a four units.
[59:31] Speaker J (unidentified): i feel like we're a monopoly, yeah, right, hotel, yeah, so i can throw four units up
[59:39] Speaker F (unidentified): and not have to even go to planning board, it's
[59:46] Speaker H (unidentified): gonna be interesting, it's gonna be a
[59:48] Speaker J (unidentified): world was, i haven't seen jim in a while, that's all he does is those little
[59:58] Speaker F (unidentified): pea shooter projects.
[1:00:02] Speaker G (unidentified): accessory dwelling units refer to a single accessory dwelling unit for her house,
[1:00:09] Speaker B (unidentified): dwelling units accessory is, yeah, i think they define it as it has to be 90 small of the size.
[1:00:27] Jake Bullier: Of the, yeah, three total or three additional? So including the principal house would be four. And there's, there's companies, there's a company down in like Brunswick called Backyard ADUs where you can just buy a pre-built unit and they drop it off the back of a trailer and you hook up power and water and sewer to it. Yeah, but there's something about
[1:00:54] Speaker B (unidentified): the wonderful ones that don't hit code. Supposedly they aren't quite code compliant. They don't have to comply. I don't know, that's Miles. The only good thing is Miles is mobile home and their
[1:01:07] Speaker C (unidentified): showcase and all that, they don't have to go by it. They bring them in, drop them off, they don't have
[1:01:11] Speaker H (unidentified): to go through inspections. So because they're all inspected prior. Well, as long as they have
[1:01:17] Speaker B (unidentified): this stamp or whatever it is, that's that. So now we won't be seeing any quad fluxes. Yeah, right there, I mean, just validate. Next page: must allow at least one accessory dwelling unit to be located on the same one as a single-family dwelling unit or two-unit or three-unit residential structure. So now these duplexes can have, so I don't
[1:01:57] Jake Bullier: understand why that's called out, because isn't that covered in these other areas?
[1:02:02] Speaker F (unidentified): is that there can be four I think because units for an ad you okay you can add it to a two or three unit to make it a quad huh okay yikes [Speaker H (unidentified): So I can] buy a duplex and then throw an ADU in the back and pop my cash flow. Give
[1:02:44] Speaker D (unidentified): Curtis more to do. I need less to do. Let's make it harder.
[1:02:53] Speaker B (unidentified): Says municipalities must comply with the requirements of the section by July 1 of 2027,
[1:03:03] Jake Bullier: and that's not proposed as to changing.
[1:03:07] Speaker B (unidentified): So it was this year they crossed that out, as you can see, because they don't have it finalized.
[1:03:13] Jake Bullier: Yep, but if LD 2173 passes, it's July of 27.
[1:03:24] Speaker C (unidentified): So interesting. So there's no
[1:03:29] Speaker D (unidentified): limitation in here on putting, so like Bangor would require somebody to add a sprinkler to a building if they wanted to add a unit, so there could be some limitations based on that, right?
[1:03:41] Speaker B (unidentified): Yes, that would be all done through the code office, but that is probably going to be a limitation for some people financially, that would.
[1:03:51] Speaker C (unidentified): They're going to put sprinkles in that code anyway. I could see it coming. Yep.
[1:03:59] Jake Bullier: I just found out the other day that you can't have natural gas in Boston anymore. No gas, period, in Boston, inner city. Gas, no gas in the buildings, other means of heat, electric. Yeah, no gas, no explosions. One of my friends is a, they design all the fire
[1:04:33] Speaker D (unidentified): suppression systems, and it was a big thing. I could be wrong, I could be
[1:04:50] Jake Bullier: blowing smoke, but that's what they were telling me. Right, let's do it. Can't do the grid now, let's
[1:04:55] Speaker J (unidentified): Keep at it. Holy crap, man, you could, you could retire right underground power, right? Wow.
[1:05:07] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, okay, he's seeing money bags now.
[1:05:13] Jake Bullier: And then parking requirements, that was a, I saw that one change down here, section 5, municipality may not require more than one off street motor vehicle parking
[1:05:26] Speaker B (unidentified): space per dwelling unit, and again,
[1:05:55] Jake Bullier: because the way of the comp plan was written, everywhere is group the
[1:06:05] Speaker D (unidentified): good news is we don't have public transportation, so there's no smart developer who's gonna put in less parking. Again, not every developer smart. Yeah, it Ron was just saying in the in
[1:06:34] Jake Bullier: the affordable area you need two parking spaces for every three dwelling units. Yeah, in affordable housing, yeah.
[1:06:47] Speaker I (unidentified): Nightmare. So what do you do about that? You require like I
[1:06:53] Speaker G (unidentified): mean, that's okay on a bus route or in an urban area. What are you going to do with like building a portal zone? Yeah, but
[1:07:00] Speaker H (unidentified): I need parking spaces for three brother units. That's crazy. There's one in three people, that's
[1:07:07] Speaker J (unidentified): apparently in New York, but that metrics gathered on a family of three anyway. Yeah, we'll
[1:07:30] Jake Bullier: see next month plan for another workshop to start going through the details of it, because we'll know if it passed or failed, hopefully, by the next one.
[1:07:43] Speaker H (unidentified): That's what I'm hoping, yeah.
[1:07:44] Speaker B (unidentified): And, yeah, tonight I just wanted to introduce you guys to it, really.
[1:07:49] Speaker I (unidentified): So you had a meeting this past Monday with other towns about this?
[1:07:52] Speaker B (unidentified): It was a webinar, yeah, it was like the planning commission. They had three other towns that have already kind of interpreted it, and their zoning ordinance go over it. But I think population-wise and comparable, we're more comparable with Waterboro, so I can review how they, I mean, South Portland were not even well.
[1:08:15] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah. What was kind of the vibe?
[1:08:22] Speaker B (unidentified): They, well, like, Waterboro was just kind of doing the bare minimum as to what they had to do. South Portland kind of went above and beyond and even had different tiers of the extra square footage for extra dwelling unit, and the vibe was it's hard and it takes a lot of time but
[1:08:54] Speaker H (unidentified): they had very specific growth areas, right, that's where we're who or where is driving this
[1:09:05] Speaker B (unidentified): so the main office of community of faith we're
[1:09:27] Speaker I (unidentified): having our or does it make sense I guess not, but it makes sense to do it I
[1:09:58] Speaker B (unidentified): mean I think we're almost there, like in my time here there's been two planners. I think it is a good idea. I don't know, I don't know, so like the last comp plan was supposed to be every ten years and I think we went 15 years so
[1:10:26] Jake Bullier: And we just did that so last year your poor life it's eight years away will what we have last eight years I
[1:10:44] Speaker B (unidentified): mean
[1:10:56] Speaker J (unidentified): you say that but every single
[1:11:07] Jake Bullier: application that comes across my desk gets fed into Claude with all ordinances that we have. I have a folder on my laptop that has every single ordinance that we're you know we oversee and it gets reviewed right like yeah it probably uses a gallon of water but if I sat there and read every single page I'd probably drink a gallon of water but at the same time like there's a lot to be said about the use of AI and comparing you know hey what are some similar towns what does everybody do maybe we find somebody that just redid theirs and to leverage some of that it's not great on drawings but you know text-based comparison contract yeah-huh anyway anything else on LD 2173 any anything else period I'll second that motion all in favor Good night.