Changes to new town ordinances should do more to encourage development in the downtown growth area and reduce existing incentives for building out rural areas, the town planner told members of the Planning Board.
Board members last week studied methods to help guide them as they review and update land use ordinances to prepare for requirements of a new State law mandating increased housing density.
Town Planner DeCarlo Brown on March 18 introduced the board to specific tools for rewriting ordinances to steer future growth alongside a process for protecting South Berwick from unguided growth on July 1, when the law is scheduled to take effect.
The law, LD 1829, throws out elements in the existing zoning ordinances such as single dwelling lots that limited residential growth in South Berwick.
Lawmakers on the Housing and Economic Development Committee voted last week to send an emergency bill to the full Legislature for a vote on a new housing density law that would extend the looming July deadline by a year and double the minimum lot size. The move was precipitated by pushback on the original provisions from many communities, according to a Portland Press Herald report.
The measure would need two-thirds approval in the House and Senate because it was drafted as emergency legislation that would take effect immediately, according to the Legislature’s website.
Brown, presenting more than an hour of detailed information at the board meeting on ways to steer development, said a deep dive is necessary so that a broad group of people are well versed on land use ordinances.
“The land use system (in the town’s ordinances) will no longer function as intended, and I cannot be the only one who understands this stuff,” Brown said
To illustrate problems with existing regulations, Brown referred to three loose general categories: downtown, which is the targeted growth area; suburbs, which include anywhere multiple houses are closely spaced on larger lots; and rural, where houses are spread apart and preservation of the environment is the top priority.
One example of an ordinance that no longer works well is the subdivision option of clustering houses closer together and setting aside communal open space, Brown said. The ordinance has acted as an incentive to developers to add suburban sprawl into the rural areas, he said.
High minimum road frontage requirements of 150 to 300 feet for multiple units in one of the business districts and two residential districts close to town also push growth outside of town as the space available for development in town rarely can meet that standard, he noted.
Downtown South Berwick and the growth areas should be the most attractive places for business development and increased housing density, and updated ordinances should encourage growth there, Brown said.
The Planning Board will work through three development scenarios at future meetings and propose new zoning regulations for multiple units in one building on one lot; multiple buildings on one lot; and traditional subdivisions of multiple lots with buildings on each lot.
“The town is growing,” said board member Clay Curtis at the end of the meeting, “and it isn’t that we don’t want it to grow, but we just want it to still be South Berwick.”
