Selectman Phillip DiVece apologized to voters at a meeting of the Wiscasset Board of Selectmen on May 19, for a failure in procedure that will force the town to disregard an upcoming vote on the formation of the proposed Village Waterfront District.
Because ballots are already printed for the June 8 town meeting, many voters will undoubtedly choose a side, but that doesn’t matter, according to DiVece.
“This is embarrassing to me,” DiVece said. “Here we are again, making apologies.”
According to an email from town planner Jeffrey Hinderliter, “the [Village Waterfront] ordinance cannot be adopted, even if approved on the ballot, because the planning board did not provide public notification of the selectmen’s public hearing on the ordinance. Because I advise them [planning board], I accept responsibility for this and I sincerely apologize.”
The delay will give Wiscasset officials time to review “major legal problems” in the ordinance outlined by town attorney Dennis Jumper in an email to Hinderliter.
Jumper’s concerns cover two pages of single-spaced text. In the email, he points out that the ordinance gives the planning board broad power “to approve of any and all uses in this District…without criteria on which to base its decision.”
The ordinance also grants the planning board the ability “to waive any” of a set of “very specific performance standards for each property use in the District,” an ability that essentially disables the intent of the standards.
The ordinance also states “architectural standards… shall be appropriate and not incongruous to the Village Waterfront District… and will respect major design elements…”
Jumper questions the congruity of the District’s architectural design, noting the presence of Red’s Eats (“a shed-style take-out food establishment), a sewer plant, and Le Garage (“a large garage converted into a restaurant”) within the district.
Finally, Jumper uses a hypothetical situation to demonstrate the impracticality of “Landscaping Standards, which apply when an activity in the District requires a building permit.” Even a small shed on private property would need such a permit, Jumper says, setting off a lengthy list of requirements.
“The owner would now need to hire a landscape architect, landscape designer or landscape contractor to prepare a landscape plan in conformance with the standard. The plan would need to illustrate the location of proposed construction including driveways, parking areas, curbs, sidewalks, utility lines, utility easements, structures and landscape areas, and the landscape areas would need to indicate the dimensions of all proposed trees and illustrate them at their full canopy spread.
“The plan would need to show that at maturity of 25 years the minimum tree canopy would be 20 percent of the owner’s lot, and the plan would need to be accompanied by a schedule of plants proposed, the number proposed, their height, caliper or gallon size, common and botanical name, and the amount of tree canopy area credit and percent diversity.
“All of this appears to be a bit much for my hypothetical shed,” Jumper concludes.
In other business, selectmen set their next meeting, June 1, as the date for a public hearing on a Special Amusement Permit for Doug White, owner of the Wiscasset Raceway, to hold a concert July 31.
In a letter to the board of selectmen, White said, “The concert will have a positive economic impact on… retail sales throughout the community.”
Local Health Officer Rick Lang provided the selectmen with a list of suggested requirements for the event, including the coordination of security with local and possibly county and state police, the provision of adequate restrooms and trash clean-up, “not only at the site,” but in the surrounding area, including nearby roads.
Complaints from vendors regarding placement of their businesses on the Main Street (or Creamery) Pier have been resolved, chairman Bob Blagden said.
A meeting was held and only one vendor did not attend. The vendors have all been “assigned better spots,” Blagden said.
Don Jones, a former chair of Wiscasset’s Waterfront Committee, said his committee chose the original spots for a reason. “A lot of people had concerns about the view and about the aesthetics,” he said.
During the citizen comment period, Lang brought the selectmen’s attention to the Hart property. Lang said, “The place is vacant and they left us some parting gifts. It’s an automobile graveyard, a junkyard.”
There’s also a great deal of household trash left behind, and “as the warm weather gets here, it’s getting worse,” Lang said.
Jumper weighed in as well, calling the property an “atrocious mess.”
“The town has filed a lawsuit,” he said, but co-owner Rick Hart is in the Philippines.
Richard Hanson asked the selectmen what they intend to do with this and other vacant properties they possess or plan to seize for back taxes. Blagden said he would like to auction them off as soon as possible in order to resume collection of property taxes.
