Click here for links to Town Center and agricultural amendments draft texts and related documents

The Town Council will hold a public hearing at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, April 12, 2010, on proposed amendments to the zoning ordinance governing the Town Center. The council is planning to take public comment on the amendments, then wait until their May meeting for final vote.

The amendments primarily propose an increase in density of residential development in the Town Center, and are among several recommendations for zoning updates provided in the 2007 Comprehensive Plan.

"The changes would allow a greater density of multi-family uses and allow more than 50 percent multi-family in two-story buildings (in the Town Center), as long as the first floor is nonresidential," according to memo from the Planning Board, which voted to recommend that the council consider the amendments at their September 2010 meeting.

The current ordinance allows one multi-family unit per 7,500 square feet of lot area. The proposed revision reduces that minimum to 3,000 square feet.

These same two concepts have already been incorporated into the Business A Districts as part of recent amendments approved by the Town Council, the memo says.

The amendments have been proposed to make development of property in the Town Center more viable. "So by making the density requirements more intense, ie, making the ratio to 3,000 square feet of land for one residential unit within a building, we're actually allowing properties in the Town Center district to have more apartment units in them," Sherman said.

He cited as an example the project that was planned for the lot next to Town Hall at 316 Ocean House Road. Instead of four apartments on the second and third floor, the proposed regulations would allow twice as many residential units, Sherman said.

The council's ordinance subcommittee voted 2-1, with Frank Governali opposed, to forward the proposed revisions to the full council.

Sherman said the subcommittee is hoping to get additional information from some owners of Town Center property as to how the changes might affect them. If the committee gets more information that would change their views, they will make that known to the council before the hearing, Sherman said.

Agricultural amendments to the zoning ordinance referred to committee

In other action, the council at their March 8 meeting referred to the ordinance subcommittee a set of zoning-ordinance amendments designed to encourage and support local farming and agriculture.

Councilor Penny Jordan, also president of the Cape Farm Alliance, lauded the amendments and said that Cape Elizabeth is the envy of the farming community statewide. "We actually walk the talk," Jordan said

The agricultural amendements are also recommended in the Comprehensive Plan.