The Town Council last week voted to amend South Berwick’s zoning ordinance to allow municipal buildings to be located anywhere in town and at the same time places them under the purview of the Planning Board.
This change makes official a practice already in place informally. Because municipal buildings previously were not specifically listed anywhere in local ordinances, they fell under the state’s “home rule” provisions that allow towns to make decisions where the state has no specific law. In this case, said Town Manager Tim Pellerin, it allowed the town to place buildings wherever it wanted without oversight.
The ordinance revision means that all new buildings, including municipal buildings, will have to go through the usual channels, which could include Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals approvals and possible citizen input before being located, said Pellerin, who called it a clearer and fairer way to go.
A citizen at Tuesday’s meeting asked why the ordinance was being changed, and specifically, why now. Paul Steinhauer questioned whether a recent outpouring of citizen response to the possible relocation of town hall had prompted the change.
The discussion around the change initially started with the question of the future of town hall, Pellerin said, but quickly moved beyond that to become an issue of reviewing and correcting ordinances.
“We could always say we are doing things by ‘home rule,’ but I have heartburn over that because it makes it look like the town is disparaging its citizens” since the town would not have to follow the same steps as its citizens in terms of official scrutiny, he said.
During public comment, Steinhauer asked how the new police station, completed in 2019, wound up on Route 236. John James, the only one of the councilors in town government at the time, said he could not answer that question, nor could anyone else. Pellerin said that in reviewing the history, “I couldn’t find how you got the police station over there.”
Council Chair Mallory Cook added, “There’s some other work happening with town staff to take a look at all of our ordinances to figure out where there are places that we need to make some updates.”
