Shoreland revisions slated for annual meeting

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is allowing Maine communities to make changes to shoreland zoning ordinances, which can enable some town zone statutes to be adjusted to become less restrictive if town officials and citizen so choose.

    “This is, I think, some good news,” Town Manager Jack Clukey said during a Jan. 27 selectmen’s meeting. “The state has presented a chance to make some of areas less restrictive than they are now.”
    In October the Dover-Foxcroft planning board approved an amendment to the shoreland zoning ordinance rezoning properties placed in a resource protection district as required by the DEP back into limited residential zone designation. During the meeting comments from the public favored the change, as one property owner said he would be able to harvest some wood and another said he would be able to expand on his house.
    “They have moved it forward with a recommendation to put it on the June ballot,’ Clukey said about the planning board’s decision. “As part of that process there are additional hearings,” he said, as sessions will be held on the town meeting warrant. The selectmen voted to put an article concerning the shoreland zoning ordinance on the warrant.
    Another possible item for the town meeting are amendments to the Dover-Foxcroft Land Use Ordinance concerning impact fees and contact rezoning. An impact fee could be used to cover and/or assist with the costs to a community related to development costs, such as roads and sidewalk improvements, with the developer funding a portion or all of the expenses, while contract rezoning can make conditions easier for developers to work with a town on projects provided certain conditions have been met.
    “What the plan is now is to send these to the planning board, so they will have these back in a draft format,” Clukey said, as at the previous meeting the selectmen decided to proceed with the potential ordinances by sending draft documents to the planning board for further review.
    “We will have an opportunity to do the public hearing process and then a town meeting if that is the direction we want to go,” he said.
    The town meeting, which includes a session on the last Saturday of April to approve the articles for a referendum in June, also features a number of financial articles making up the Dover-Foxcroft budget. The Budget Advisory Committee will soon be starting its work on the spending plan and the selectmen voted on a half a dozen committee positions.
    Deborah Davis, Marc Poulin and William E. Thomas were all reappointed, with terms running through the end of June 2016. New appointments are Roger Kaufman and Sean Letarte through the end of the current fiscal year, and James Annis through the end of 2014-15. The six will join the three other returning individuals on the nine-member Budget Advisory Committee.
    Selectman Paul Matulis said in years past the committee has had alternate members, and this could be an option to involve other members of the community who may wish to serve. The selectmen said they would consider possibilities for committee alternates and bring these names to the next meeting.
    The town of Dover-Foxcroft is responsible for a portion of the Piscataquis County budget and for 2014 this figure will be $406,040. “At the last meeting we talked about a draft number, it was not final but now it is,” Clukey said, with the town’s share up by about .7 percent from the previous year.
    In other business, the board voted to name a road intersecting with Grove Street as Cricket Lane — the first choice of three options. In order to comply with E-911 standards, travel ways with multiple residences need formal names to provide emergency responders with precise directions.
    In his report, Clukey said during the previous week he attended a hearing in Augusta held by the appropriations committee regarding preserving the current funding levels for the municipal revenue sharing program. Clukey said he was among a number of speakers — he estimated the total may have been over 150 — testifying before the committee.
    “It was a strong message; our message was we should be looking at other ways to solve the problem and not take away property tax relief,” Clukey said. He added the appropriations committee could make a decision next month.
    Select Vice Chair Cindy Freeman Cyr suggested the town’s Legislative delegation be invited to one of the February meetings to discuss the municipal revenue sharing program.
    Clukey told the board the Piscataquis Valley Adult Education Collaborative is planning to move from the Morton Avenue Municipal Building across town to the Penquis Higher Education Center in July. “I think it is a good direction vs. underutilizing the space up there,” he said, as the adult education programs would be housed under the same roof as offerings of Eastern Maine Community College, the state’s university system and others.
    He said the Eastern Maine Development Corporation is also looking to move from Morton Avenue to the Penquis Higher Education Center. When asked about the vacant suites, Clukey said discussions were held with a number of agencies several years ago about renting space at the town complex and these same groups would likely be approached again.