The Damariscotta Planning Board granted conditional approval Jan. 3 for a change-of-use application that will allow a Bremen woman to open a restaurant and theater space in the former home of the Christian Science Reading Room.
Grace Goldberg plans to open the currently nameless restaurant by summer 2011. “It’s this wonderful space and it’d be nice to see it get more use by the community,” she said.
At least two neighbors, Dick McLean and Rob Gregory, objected to the proposal, citing concerns about parking and traffic.
McLean, chairman of the Damariscotta Board of Selectmen, lives on Cross Street opposite the restaurant site.
“I would welcome you as a neighbor and Rob Gregory has said the same thing to me,” McLean told Goldberg. McLean proceeded to list his concerns to the planning board.
“There is no parking on either side of Cross Street. There is no parking on that immediate stretch of Water Street,” McLean said.
“It isn’t just parking of theater customers or restaurant customers,” McLean said – parking for delivery trucks also presents a challenge.
Goldberg said she expects only one large truck to make regular, early morning deliveries. Due to Goldberg’s hope to use local products, other vendors will likely arrive in pickup trucks or other, smaller vehicles.
If Goldberg doesn’t provide adequate parking for restaurant patrons, many patrons may choose to park in the nearby municipal parking lot, McLean argued.
“That municipal parking lot is probably one of the biggest problems we already have in this town,” McLean said. “That parking lot is inadequate for its task over a growing portion of the year.”
Other patrons may park illegally in the Mediterranean Kitchen lot, McLean said. “You and I would find ourselves not with a good relationship every time I had to complain about people parking on Water Street,” McLean told Goldberg.
McLean said he would ask Damariscotta Town Manager Greg Zinser to “redo the signs” in the area in order to clarify where parking is and is not permissible.
The office of Damariscotta attorney Robert Gregory overlooks the building. Gregory expressed his concerns to the planning board in a Jan. 3 letter.
“I have more intimate knowledge than any man alive of the traffic patterns that control the coming and going of automobiles up the town parking ramp, up and down [C]ross [S]treet, up and down Water Street,” Gregory wrote.
According to Gregory, he and the church had a “gentleman’s agreement” allowing the church to use his parking lot during Sunday morning and Wednesday evening services.
The restaurant’s hours, however, will differ from the church’s hours. “I am certain that “restaurant” traffic will observe my empty parking lot on evenings and weekends and the “parking wars” will begin,” Gregory wrote.
“Traffic flows coming out of the Town Parking Lot have come to a full stop on many occasions, and I have become an unpaid constable trying to direct traffic,” Gregory wrote. “I am asking that this not become my full-time assignment with a change of use that may overwhelm the parking capacities of the Town and of this small lot in particular.”
Damariscotta Planning Board Chair Fred Sewall said, “It’s not just [Goldberg], it’s all the other places that overburden [the municipal parking lot].”
“I want to be sensitive to the parking and I will do everything I can, including putting signs on the door,” Goldberg said. “I want to be a good neighbor and I don’t want parking to be an issue.”
Goldberg also said she will direct employees not to park in the municipal parking lot or in three parking spaces next to the building. She may add a fourth parking space, but must apply for a permit from the Dept. of Environmental Protection in order to do so because the parking space “falls within 75 feet [of] the water,” she said.
McLean expressed some conflict between a pro-business stance as a selectman and his concerns as a resident of the neighborhood. “I, like anybody else, trip into the NIMBY [Not In My BackYard] piece,” he said. “I want to be on record as having said up front I think it’s going to be a real problem.”
McLean and planning board members briefly discussed possible, future methods of relieving the burden on the municipal parking lot – a burden that contributes to significant congestion in the twin villages, especially during the summer months.
McLean said the construction of a parking garage on the Water Street side of the municipal parking lot “can be done in a practical manner without obscuring the views of the harbor.”
Following lengthy discussion, the planning board voted 3-0-1 to approve the application pending the approval of the Office of the State Fire Marshal, the Damariscotta Road Commissioner (Zinser) and pending Damariscotta Police Dept. review. Sewall abstained and planning board member Paul Stevens is recovering from an accident and did not attend the meeting.
Goldberg, a caterer and the former owner and operator of the High Tide Snack Bar at Pemaquid Beach, has also been employed as the Wellness Manager and General Manager of Rising Tide Community Market in Damariscotta and as a chef at an inn on Isle au Haut.
Her new restaurant may also host occasional functions, such as small wedding receptions or parties, she said.
