Board sets hearings on impact fees, contract rezoning

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Since the start of the new year, town officials have been discussing the concepts and possible implementation of both development impact fees and conditional and contract rezoning. The next steps were taken during a Feb. 6 meeting of the planning board as public hearings on both were scheduled for the board’s March meeting, and a recommendation was made that an amendment to the Land Use Ordinance concerning impact fees be placed on a town meeting warrant.

    Town Manager Jack Clukey introduced the idea of both impact fees and contract rezoning to the planning board at the January meeting. “The ideas kind of came about back in December when some of the board of selectmen had an opportunity to attend a workshop,” Clukey said, where they learned about different tools municipal officials have available.
    He said one such tool is “the ability to look at those impacts and come up with fees that would put improvements to infrastructure on the developer.” An impact fee could be used to cover and/or assist with costs to a community related to development expenses, such as the installation of a traffic light by a new housing development or an increase in water and sewer usage by a new or expanding business. Under the proposal, impact fees would be assessed early on and then held in escrow for up to 10 years.
    Clukey said contract rezoning can make conditions easier for developers to work with a town on projects, provided certain conditions have been met. He said contract rezoning can help enable economic development in areas of town where such projects would otherwise not be permitted or could only be allowed with an entire larger area rezoned.
    “You can make a change to that particular part of a zone but not to the rest of the zone,” Clukey said, saying any proposed contract rezoning would have to be approved by the planning board and then residents via a town meeting vote. “There is a lot of stipulations,” he said, as contract rezoning changes cannot have an adverse effect on abutters.
    “The consensus was we should move ahead and put something concrete on paper,” Clukey said, with language being drafted to amend the Dover-Foxcroft Land Use Ordinance on impact fees and contract rezoning.
    “I think the keyword is may, not every project would require this,” Clukey said. “Right now we have a checklist.” He said projects for the town come before the planning board for approval “and it’s a decision the planning board would have to make, that this project would require improvements and some of the costs should go to the developer.”
    Planning board chair Tom Sands wondered if other Maine communities have impact fees, and Clukey said many of the larger towns and cities do. “It’s really being prepared if and when,” he said.
    Board member George Barton was asked in his eight years how many projects may have met the impact fee criteria, and he mentioned the Moosehead redevelopment and possibly the Foxcroft Academy dorms.
    The planning board passed a motion to recommend the selectmen put on the town meeting warrant a Land Use Ordinance amendment concerning impact fees. They also scheduled a public hearing on the matter for the meeting on Thursday, March 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Morton Avenue Municipal Building.
    The planning board opted to make no recommendation on a contract rezoning amendment, but they could choose to do so after the hearing on this topic also scheduled for March 6.
    During the open session portion of the meeting the fact that the comprehensive plan is nearly a decade old was brought up. After a discussion, the planning board voted to ask the selectmen look at starting the process to update and/or revise the document.