|
BLUE HILL — It’s a daunting task, usually
undertaken by a committee of volunteers.
But residents in communities throughout Maine
who have worked three years, on average, to
draft a comprehensive plan often discover that
selling the plan is an even greater task.
Selling the plans, which are considered
guidelines for enacting local laws that govern
development, is especially tricky because the
same product must appeal to two often-disparate
groups.
On the one hand, a comprehensive plan must
receive approval from the State Planning Office.
The same plan also must win approval from local
voters.
Earlier this year, the State Planning Office
approved a comprehensive plan from Surry that
had been four years in the making.
At a special town meeting in July, Surry voters
soundly rejected the plan.
In Stonington, voters approved a comprehensive
plan at the annual town meeting in March, but
the state sent it back, saying it was
inconsistent with the Maine Planning and Land
Use Regulation Act.
A committee in Blue Hill spent nearly three
years crafting a comprehensive plan.
The plan will go before voters next March. The
State Planning Office has reviewed the plan and
found nine inconsistencies with state goals.
At a meeting earlier this month, Blue Hill’s
comprehensive plan committee addressed the
inconsistencies cited by the state. The
committee expected to have a draft response by
its next meeting on Sept. 21, which was attended
by Stacy Benjamin, a senior planner with the
State Planning Office.
Members of the Blue Hill committee and its
adviser, Tom Martin, director of the Hancock
County Planning Commission, agreed that some
inconsistencies cited by the state could easily
be corrected by adding information.
But they also agreed that one area of the plan
inconsistent with the Maine Planning and Land
Use Regulation Act poses a sticking point:
protecting rural areas.
Most comprehensive plan committees get strong
messages from their fellow residents to protect
the town’s rural character. But the means they
choose to do that, such as zoning or
districting, often turns voters against the
plan.
At the same time, the state requires
comprehensive plans to identify rural areas and
growth areas, and to recommend ways to protect
the former and encourage growth in the latter.
According to the State Planning Office, land use
in Maine is regulated at the local level.
According to a report prepared by the planning
office, comprehensive plans are not mandatory.
If a town decides to undertake land use
planning, the report says, “it must do so in a
way that meets state goals — goals like
preventing development sprawl, promoting
affordable housing and safeguarding prime
farmland soils, forests and access to the coast
for marine uses.”
Benjamin said a town that wants to enact zoning
laws other than shoreland zoning, or growth caps
or impact fees, must base those laws on a
comprehensive plan that has been deemed
consistent with Maine land use goals.
The state has approved comprehensive plans from
241 municipalities. Local voters in 200 of those
communities have adopted the plans.
The state currently is dealing with 75 plans
that have been cited for inconsistencies.
Benjamin acknowledges that one of the most
difficult aspects of planning involves “a
balancing act between what a community will
accept and what is good planning — planning that
is consistent with the Land Use Act.”
Martin said some 15 Hancock County
municipalities are at various stages of drafting
or updating comprehensive plans and most towns
in the county have had plans done in the past 15
years.
“One of the big issues quite often is the state
pushes to recommend more restrictions and
policies regarding land development, which are
not accepted by towns when voters don’t want to
impose too may restrictions on the right to
develop property,” Martin said.
He said each town has its own unique issues and
identifying critical issues in each town can
help sell the plan locally.
“People tend to feel differently when something
they don’t like goes in next to them,” he said.
A recent land use summit in Orono sponsored by
the State Planning Office attracted more than
100 participants, Benjamin said.
The summit is part of a program evaluation being
done by the planning office that could lead to
changes in the comprehensive plan process.
Benjamin said the state is looking at paradoxes
in the process, such as that balancing act
between the state and local voters.
When the state passed the Growth Management Act
20 years ago, she said, planners envisioned a
much greater investment at the state level.
“Because many communities are faced with growth
that they don’t feel ready to deal with, we need
to help them,” she said. “That’s the balancing
act. That’s the tricky part, and we hope to
improve that.
“We need to be positioned to respond to the
needs of communities. We also need to work
within the Act. If changes are needed there, we
must work on that, too.”
The Legislature charged the planning office with
submitting recommendations for better planning
by next February. The summit in Orono last month
was a first step in gathering public opinion on
improving land use planning in Maine.
In Orono, more than 100 professional planners,
local and state officials and residents from
throughout Maine identified more than 60
proposals, most fitting into one of six
categories.
A straw poll indicated that the group believes
regional planning is the highest priority among
the six categories, followed by greater local
flexibility.
The planning process may get easier. In the
meantime, local committees and advisors will
wrestle with paradoxes. |
