The public will be able to weigh in on proposed new boundaries for the town’s designated growth areas at a community meeting 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 4, in the Town Hall auditorium.
This will be the second of four meetings hosted by the Planning Board, Comprehensive Plan Committee and Planning Department seeking public input for suggested changes to local ordinances. The changes are being proposed to comply with a state law expected to go into effect July 1, although the town has asked for an extension of that deadline. (see related story)
The new state law, LD 1829, requires towns to increase housing densities in selected parts of town designated as “growth areas.”
Planners will draft a proposal for adjusting existing growth area boundaries defined in the 2024 Comprehensive Plan. The Planning Board at its Feb. 25 meeting recommended expanding the growth area in some places like the Route 236 corridor and shrinking it in others by taking out areas like Agamenticus Estates and Old Mill.
The Planning Board, after reflecting on public comments from the first community meeting in February, directed Town Planner DeCarlo Brown to draw up a map for the community to discuss at the March 4 meeting, using the public feedback, the Comprehensive Plan future growth criteria, and common smart growth elements like water and sewer access and walkability.
“This is consistent with feedback from the last (community) meeting,” said Planning Board member Aaron Rouse. “Let’s stay conservative, stick with what people seem to want.”
Planners in Maine have been working to understand the complicated new law and how it will alter local ordinances and comprehensive plans.
One of the two residents who spoke at the meeting last week, Brad Christo, of Old Fields Road, supported growth on the 236 corridor and suggested taking the downtown out of the growth area.
The other resident, Nina Maurer, of Academy Street, was concerned the process was changing too much, too fast and suggested citizens weren’t being adequately consulted.
“It’s too hasty, too capricious,” Maurer said. ”Decisions are being made tonight about what will be the growth area” even though people hadn’t heard about the law until recently.
Since he has been working in South Berwick, Brown said, he has received close to a dozen inquiries about the law from developers and property owners interested in development opportunities that could be created by LD1829. Though decision-making is moving quickly, Brown said, he wants residents to have the opportunity to change ordinances to better guide growth after the July deadline.
In other business Feb. 25, the Planning Board approved the second merger of two adjacent parcels with the same owners off Blue Heron and Dover-Eliot roads. The properties had been merged in 2013 and taxed by the town as a single property for 12 years, but were separated by the Town in 2025 because there was no deed of record documenting the original change. A new deed was registered by the owners in September.
After approving the merger, the board voted unanimously to repeal its policy requiring anyone requesting a lot merger to come before the Planning Board. Brown and the town attorney advised the board it didn’t have the authority to assign itself to be the regulating body for mergers.
