12/13/2013

Committee will take more time for Town Center Plan recommendations

The Town Center Plan Committee will have an extra six months to finish its work and submit recommendations for an updated plan to the Town Council.

Councilors at their Dec. 9, 2013 meeting voted to extend the deadline for the committee's final report to June 30, 2014.

The nine-member committee began meeting in May to review the existing, 20-year-old Town Center plan and to recommend updates. "We have made a great deal of progress," said Town Councilor David Sherman, one of two council representatives on the committee. The group has gathered input through a public forum and a questionnaire, "but have found that we are not yet done with our work," Sherman said.

Jamie Wagner, the other councilor on the committee who also has business interests in the Town Center, said the committee has reviewed the 37 recommendations of the existing plan, which was adopted in 1993. "We've updated some of those, we've struck some of those and we're going to come back to the council with recommendations," he said. "We also are poring through the comments from 80-plus survey respondents, in a lot of categories, and we've decided we're going to deliberate further on those because there's a lot of material, a lot of data contained in them," he said.

"What we've learned is there's a tremendous lot of difference of opinion," Wagner said. Desires to improve the town center include more sidewalks, a lower speed limit and a modest increase in restaurants and shops. "Not to make it South Portland or Scarborough but just a little something more, and to consider what our options are," he said.

There are others who like the town center just as it is, he said.

Jon Donnelly, a Pearl Street resident who spoke at the meeting, reminded councilors of the community's commitment to preserving rural character, and questioned the makeup of the committee with members having backgrounds in development and planning. "So my question is this, why are we moving forward with a committee of very potentially incentivized people to further something that the town has said over and over that they are not in favor of?" Donnelly said.

Councilor Sherman, however, reminded councilors that the committee is only advisory, and that its makeup is part of the charge approved by the council in February. "It was intentional on the council's part to have the committee comprised of individuals with a direct interest in the town center," he said, adding the makeup has provided for "robust" discussion. "I think we can recognize the potential for conflicts, and to the extent that anybody feels that's an issue, in the report we can do our best to point that out. Or members of the public can," Sherman said.

The committee has completed about two-thirds of its work, Sherman said, and the rest of the council agreed that it should be allowed to complete it with current membership. "They'll present us with their recommendations, we'll have workshops, we'll have a hearing," said Jessica Sullivan, council chair. "We'll have plenty of opportunity to review everything and there will be plenty of opportunities for comment, but I'm certainly in favor of letting them finish their job," she said.