While Pyro City was renovating the interior of their new home in the old Super Shoes store on Rt. 1 in Edgecomb on March 21, Edgecomb Planning Board member Jarryl Larson was saying she was the lone dissenter in a debate approving the business’s move to the community.
Larson recapped her concerns with the process in a telephone interview about the previous planning board meeting on March 15 when the board voted 4-1 to waive an “application use” section of the land use ordinance, in favor of applying the “purpose” section language as justification for not requiring Pyro City to have a site plan review.
She said, “The planning board chose to ignore their own land use ordinance and to waive any need for a site plan review, by using the purpose section and not the applicability section,” Larson said. “To do a waiver, you are supposed to look at the applicability to see what applies. They simply waived…”
Larson further called the action a “fairly serious decision” because she claims when deliberately waiving the site plan review requirement, the planning board, “understand[s] that if you do that, it is potentially precedent-setting for any commercial use. The issue isn’t Pyro, it is ignoring the town-voted ordinances,” she said.
Calling the board’s role “quasi-judicial” in Edgecomb town government, Larson said the board can’t take a stance. “With respect to the ordinance, [selling fireworks] is an acceptable use; there was no issue from my point of view. The town had voted no restrictions; that’s in the ordinance,” she said.
However, she claimed, the town voters also approved site plan reviews, requiring it especially in a facility that has not been opened for retail in four years, as is the case with the Super Shoes building.
Larson said there’s no question the Pyro City business is defined as commercial under Edgecomb’s land use ordinances, but “if that had just closed last week, or six months ago, there would not have been an issue,” Larson said, no site plan would be required.
“The board has zero authority, except what the town gives it, and they ignored what the town gave it,” Larson said.
As a rebuttal, Edgecomb Planning Board Chairman Jack French said during the contentious March 15 meeting, there was heated discussion over the issue.
However, according to French, while the Edgecomb Land Use Ordinance clearly states the requirements for site plan review, there are three paragraphs with language of exceptions for “certain items.”
“In the third paragraph, it says all existing land uses and developments” would require a site plan review, “except where physical and significant expansion is proposed,” French said. “These people [Steve Marson of Pyro City] aren’t changing the building.”
French also said Edgecomb has only one building category, “and that is commercial.” He also said the difficulty the municipality has in Edgecomb is classifications. “We don’t have retail, grocery, professional…we only have commercial, and that’s the problem,” French said, and expressed concerns about the inconsistencies in the land use ordinance.
“The site plan review procedure is for new proposals. That’s not a new proposal, it is already commercial,” French said of Pyro City.
“Jarryl’s right, though. There are inconsistencies,” French said.
Back at Pyro City, company man Tom Stevens is in the Rt. 1 location and his crew has completely emptied the building and workers are installing a state of the art sprinkler system, and readying the floor for covering.
“We plan to be in here by the first week in April,” Stevens said. “After the floor, the shelves come in.”
Stevens was the overseer of the recently-opened flagship store in Manchester, outside Augusta. After the opening of the Edgecomb location he will move on to projects in either Winslow or Presque Isle.
Pyro City is owned by Central Maine Pyrotechnics, in Hallowell. For more information, contact Steven Marson, president or Carole Marson, event coordinator at 623-9285 or email: centralmainepyrotechnics1@myfairpoint.net, and visit www.centralmainepyrotechnics.com.
