Planning board gives its support to impact fees and contract rezoning

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — For the last several months Dover-Foxcroft officials have been examining the possible implementation of impact fees and contract rezoning. During a March 6 planning board meeting the board voted to recommend to the selectmen that amendments to the Land Use Ordinance concerning the two items be placed on a town meeting warrant.

    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 based on a list of criteria and then held in escrow for up to 10 years.
    Contract rezoning can make conditions easier for developers to work with a town on projects, provided certain conditions have been met. 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.
    During the meeting’s public hearing, a question inquiring about whether impact fees would be assessed to single-family homes. Code Enforcement Officer Connie Sands said she is able to give approval to both single- and multiple-family homes without an examination by the planning board, which looks at projects requiring a site plan review and could then be subject to impact fees.
    Attorney John Pottle of Eaton Peabody was in attendance and said when the planning board is conducting a site plan review “you are going to have to do what I am going to call a preliminary determination.” Pottle said if the determination indicates an impact fee may be needed an independent consultant, paid for by the site plan applicant, could be brought in to help determine the fee specifics.
    Planning board member Cynthia Johnson wondered about how an unanticipated expense in the future might be handled. Earlier in the meeting the scenario of the town paving the end of Harrison Avenue, to handle the new bus exits, after the elementary addition to the SeDoMoCha School was brought up.
    “You are going to have to plan and anticipate,” Pottle said, saying once a permit has been granted it cannot be opened up simply for a new impact fee possibility.
    During the public hearing on contract rezoning, Town Manager Jack Clukey said this would be a tool for when a “business is almost in conformance with that zone, but not 100 percent in conformance with that zone.”
    He said presently the town has two options to work with developers on rezoning, either doing nothing or rezoning the entire area of the community. “It’s a mechanism for rezoning, but it’s more particular for that property,” Clukey said, as contract rezoning would still have to fit within the guidelines of the comprehensive plan and cannot have an adverse effect on abutters. “The town can have more control and it also gives the property owner more flexibility.”