The South Bristol comprehensive plan, eight years in the making, will languish indefinitely as voters rejected the document in an Aug. 8 referendum by a nearly 2 to 1 margin.
The final tally was 153-80.
Roughly 35 people met at the South Bristol School after the vote. If the town had adopted the plan, residents would have voted on the creation of a comprehensive plan advisory committee and the make-up of the committee. Instead, residents discussed why the plan didn’t pass.
South Bristol Planning Board member John Harris, holding a copy of the 341-page plan, said “90 percent of this is excellent” but said some voters, including himself, felt “backed into a corner” by some language in the plan.
Harris specifically referred to a statement in the plan’s introduction: “the adoption of this comprehensive plan by the town necessarily carries with it the people’s mandate to enact land use ordinances which implement those goals and policies.”
Selectman Chester Rice, meanwhile, said the Comprehensive Planning Committee’s decision to force a vote on the creation of the advisory committee “turned the selectmen off.”
