[0:00] Good evening. I'm going to call the meeting to order. We'll have roll call

[0:09] here.

[0:40] and designed to be represented to dust here.

[0:45] And we'll have the adoption of the agenda.

[0:51] Yes, we need a motion.

[0:56] All in favor? Motion passes?

[1:01] Over view of the purpose and meeting in ordinance requirements from our Director of Code Implanting Wayne Marshall.

[1:20] Hello. So when we first wrote this ordinance back in 2007, one of the things we didn't really contemplate all that much.

[1:29] This is how you go about putting 14 to 15 people across the front of a room and how inconvenient that would be to actually try and have a meeting.

[1:36] So during the course of this meeting, we're probably going to break up a couple of times.

[1:40] I think that since the applicant is actually going to be using boards to make their presentation,

[1:45] we'll probably ask the planning board and council members to join in the audience.

[1:49] So the public and the board and everyone can see everything at the same time.

[1:54] When it comes time to actually talk about the deliberations or the council and board consideration,

[2:00] and the design we can consideration, we're probably actually going to rearrange the room,

[2:04] put the tables together, so that board members, council members, and such can actually look at each other,

[2:09] instead of trying to shout each other down the across what maybe 60 feet or so.

[2:15] Understand that maybe a little bit inconvenient for folks where we think that that's the best way to try and have some real conversation among the board.

[2:22] Tonight was the purposes of tonight's meeting the city for the first time since it amended its code back in 2007.

[2:30] For this particular property is actually received an application to develop what we refer to as the bear property.

[2:38] this located on Route 3.

[2:41] The amendments that the city adopted back in 2007,

[2:44] for once there really came about after a long period

[2:48] of discussion and many actions over years

[2:51] with the council, the planning board,

[2:52] and others that had to deal with

[2:56] how to address the issue of larger retail and Belfast.

[3:00] Those who may be aware,

[3:01] I will do the Cliff Notes version.

[3:04] 2000 Walmart made an application to come to Belfast.

[3:07] the U.S. expressed interest, the city adopted a moratorium, the city said ultimately adopted

[3:13] ordinances, said no to larger retail, that could 2000. 2004, there was a citizen initiative

[3:19] to allow larger retail on two properties on the east side. It was known as a special commercial

[3:25] district. That was adopted by the voters about fast by a vote of 53 to 47. So in 2004, you could

[3:31] actually do a larger retail store in Belfast, larger retail being greater than 75,000 square feet

[3:36] provided it occurred on the east side.

[3:40] In 2005, 2006, the Council established what it called the Retail Review Commission,

[3:45] they looked at options.

[3:46] One of the options that was thought about was this particular property.

[3:50] Ultimately, things kind of moved a little bit further ahead

[3:54] when the city was actually received or developed an application from Lowe's

[3:58] to put a Lowe's on the same property that the Council is looking at the

[4:02] on the planning board and the design of your committee

[4:04] are looking at this evening.

[4:06] The council at that point in time after a lot of discussion,

[4:09] voted three two to say no to the loaves.

[4:13] It wasn't unanimous, it was a three two vote.

[4:15] At the same time what the city did is it started

[4:17] a process of saying, what do we perhaps think it could be OK?

[4:22] The council back in 2007 said it would be A.O.K.

[4:25] to use this property for a larger retail store,

[4:29] a store again, greater than 75,000 square feet,

[4:31] provided a sole groceries, General Merchant Dice, and clothing, you can interpret what that means.

[4:43] To me, that sounds like a Walmart, and or potentially a target, a store of that nature.

[4:49] So the city, back in 2007, said it was city policy, my ordinance backed up by the comprehensive plan to say that this was an AOK property to allow larger retail.

[5:01] Again, since 2007, there's never been a proposal coming forward.

[5:05] This is the first one.

[5:07] And this proposal tonight doesn't involve a larger retail store.

[5:12] Tonight's proposal is for a smaller retail development,

[5:15] a tractor supply, as well as a master plan that deals with some other potential uses.

[5:21] So what's the purpose of tonight's meeting?

[5:23] The purpose of tonight's meeting is really an introduction of what this project is.

[5:28] this is an opportunity for the applicant to make a presentation so that folks are aware

[5:32] of what their proposal involves. This is also an opportunity, the first opportunity of there

[5:37] will be many for the public to make comment to Council Planning Board about what your concerns

[5:44] may be with the project. After hearing the public comment, the Council Planning Board as well as

[5:58] about how to look at this potential project and what concerns may kind of rise to the top that need to be done.

[6:04] And at the end, what we had expected is to wear the council and the planning board in such would identify the overall process that would be the next steps for reviewing this application.

[6:16] So, when you look at this process, trying to why did it come about.

[6:20] The first thing is that the root 3 commercial zoning district where this proposal was located allows a wide variety of retail uses.

[6:30] What exists in the root 3 commercial zone today, you folks live here, you know what it is.

[6:34] This has Haniford, this has Ocean State job loss, the two largest retailers in Belfast, just down the road from where this project is located.

[6:42] you now have a Hammond, which is a EBS. You have running as mall, which has been a bell

[6:48] fast for a long period of time. This is the area that has been the prime retail development

[6:52] center in bell fast for a long period of time. Some things on this property that we say that

[6:59] this property is unique and different from all those other stores and a lot of it is separated

[7:04] by the type of process that the city council identified back in 2007 for the review of this project.

[7:10] That type of review said that, again, this property is the only one in Belfast could be used for a larger retail store in something greater than $75,000 square feet.

[7:19] This property is the largest undeveloped property in the root 3 commercial district, not by a small amount, but by a large amount.

[7:28] It's 84 acres in size, which is one of the reasons why I was selected.

[7:32] And when you look at this, it also is subject to some unique review procedures that don't apply to any other project in the root 3 commercial district.

[7:44] There's three of them. The first process is this project will be reviewed subject to contract rezoning.

[7:51] What is contract rezoning? Some people know by the other word which is spot zoning.

[7:55] What does it mean is you actually develop an agreement for a single property.

[8:01] It doesn't matter what the property next door could do or the property on the other side.

[8:05] It is an agreement for that specific property as to how it could be used.

[8:08] The city has used contract rezoning for such projects in town such as the Front Street Shipyard.

[8:13] It's used for the redevelopment of the Crosby Center.

[8:16] It's used for the Master Steater going into the former church and behind the Crosby Center.

[8:22] It's now under review for the Paul Nare and Waterfront Development Project.

[8:26] It's not a project that this council in this planning board haven't done in the past,

[8:30] but on this one is...

[8:31] The only property in the root 3 commercial zoning district that is subject to contract rezoning, and why is that again, is because of the unique features of this property, 84 acres and size, and the only one that would allow larger retail.

[8:45] The second one that comes in is about what's unique as far as the development review process for this is an applicant is required to submit a master plan. The master plan is to give everyone a better sense,

[8:56] the city officials that have to act on a proposal, a better sense of how this property

[9:01] would be used, not just for instance, small piece of it that a larger piece of it because

[9:05] it does have such great value as potential redevelopment options because of its size, again,

[9:11] of the 84 acres, and to get a sense of what could occur, particularly looking at the master plan

[9:15] for such issues as how you do a traffic, because traffic impacts on route 3 as far as the

[9:22] other rows that tie in route 3 are one of the key issues that would be looked at.

[9:24] As well as something that is optional for this particular project that the Council of Bordeaux

[9:32] we're looking at tonight, but which is mandatory, if there is a larger retail store greater

[9:38] than 75,000 square feet, is the preparation of what's known and say community economic impact

[9:45] assessment.

[9:47] That community economic impact assessment is tailored after what was a requirement of state law that

[9:53] adopted by the legislature back in 2007, 2008, there was known as the Form Growth Act,

[9:59] which Governor LePage, I think it was, is fourth act after we became governor, which

[10:03] he eliminated from the law, and then Form Growth Act applied any larger retail store and

[10:10] Maine that was greater than 75,000 square feet.

[10:12] Regardless of where it was, if you had to prepare, they had to provide money to the municipality,

[10:17] or to the state, either one, provide an impact study of what the impacts would be of that

[10:22] potential development coming in.

[10:24] Even though the state eliminated that provision back in 2007, 2008,

[10:28] the city of Belfast decided to continue to preserve and to keep that as a provision of its ordinances.

[10:35] Again, it's a mandatory requirement for if it's greater than 75,000 square feet

[10:41] of development.

[10:42] But if there's a store greater than that, then it's an optional issue with the city council and planning board.

[10:48] I'll be one of the things that the Council and Board and the design of your community

[10:52] will be discussing this evening.

[10:55] Under contract rezoning, I'm going to go briefly through those three provisions a little

[10:59] bit more information.

[11:00] Contract rezoning.

[11:01] Again, the end of that is that there would be a development agreement in between the city

[11:07] and the applicant, that would particularly identify exactly and govern how use of that property

[11:12] could occur.

[11:13] where the parking would be, the number of parking spaces,

[11:16] how much green spaces you would have,

[11:19] where the access roads would be, how lighting would work,

[11:22] but it's actually done on an agreement basis

[11:24] as opposed to looking at just the standards and the ordinance.

[11:29] In the ordinance itself, it uses what we call goal statements

[11:32] instead of specific standards,

[11:34] meaning it doesn't say you need to have one parking space

[11:36] for each 200 square foot of retail for example,

[11:38] but it gives greater flexibility to the city

[11:40] as about how we look at those issues.

[11:42] It gives flexibility on such things as the amount of setback off of root 1, which is root 3, or the amount of setback from adjacent property lines.

[11:50] And the intent there is to have more flexibility in the ordinance, rather than simply applying definitive development standards.

[11:58] Flexibility sometimes works well for the applicant and works well for the city as well, because it allows us to better look at the unique aspects of a particular property.

[12:07] Under this process, the planning board really has a lot of the role to do so in what we refer to as the heavy lifting.

[12:13] They do a lot of the putting together the draft agreement, but in the end, because a contract rezoning agreement,

[12:19] is the same as an ordinance amendment, only the council has the legislative body for the city of Belfast

[12:25] as the adopted contract rezoning agreement.

[12:29] The process should go forward and go through the planning board that ultimately goes through the council.

[12:33] The second component of this project, which mentioned was the master plan approach.

[12:39] The master plan, the fingers a little ripped up tonight, so the intent is, again, to look at how

[12:46] development of the...

[12:53] And to make such things as off-site improvements, off-site improvements to these such things, it's what it may do to a road when they need to do as far as I want, when they need to do as out-of-time as they can do as far as it's done.

[13:06] And also to get tenure

[13:11] throughout the better days, the impacts.

[13:16] Thank you.

[13:18] Better gauge the impacts on the site itself from the looking at the overall development rather than just looking at singular development.

[13:26] Master plan isn't something that we require anywhere else, but it's something that can be optional for project developments that come in under what's known as a plan unit development.

[13:36] We've had a few of those envelopes one out that many.

[13:38] The impact study, as mentioned it was based on what was the informed growth act, the city

[13:44] kept it in its code.

[13:46] It was originally designed for larger retail, but it's one of where it's optional for

[13:51] a project like this, and unlike most impact studies under the informed growth act, the responsibility

[13:57] was for the applicant to provide money to the municipality, or to the state, in this case

[14:03] would be the municipality, the city, and the city itself would do the impact study, rather

[14:07] within the applicant doing the impact study,

[14:09] then the city doing a review of that study.

[14:12] So it's one that's really directed at the local level.

[14:14] It's really focuses on two different things

[14:16] under the impact study, under the code.

[14:19] The first is it looks like the impact on the local economy.

[14:23] It looks like the impact such as,

[14:25] when a new project comes in,

[14:26] the amount of impact on existing retail development,

[14:29] it looks as such things as the availability of,

[14:32] amount of vacant retail space in the community

[14:34] the present time, it looks as such things

[14:37] is the amount of job creation or job loss that may be associated with a new project coming in.

[14:42] It looks at such things such as the amount of retail sales that would be going to this project

[14:50] and captured from what may be existing retail developments within the community.

[14:55] And it looks as such things as when this project comes in as the amount of revenues

[15:01] that would perhaps be reinvested within the community.

[15:04] The second thing it looks at, so the first is the impact on the local economy.

[15:09] The second is the amount of impact on municipal revenues and services.

[15:15] So you look at what new revenues may come into the city, as a result of this project occurring.

[15:20] You look at what are the costs associated with it.

[15:23] What is it going to come into place for the cost on municipal infrastructure, such as a new road,

[15:28] a new sewer line, you look at such things as cost on municipal services.

[15:32] doesn't ever result in need for more police, more fire,

[15:37] more people, never in the COVID-19 Plain Department, but along the way,

[15:41] but services that are delivered by the municipality.

[15:44] It also looks at the ideas of any public subsidies

[15:47] are part of the project.

[15:50] For example, if you look at this pretty rare,

[15:53] we've only done one credit enhancement agreement

[15:55] in Belfast to date for tax income and financing,

[15:58] which is for the front street shipyard and even that was kind of...

[16:01] We have a really fuzzy agreement meeting where we didn't really give up revenues. We only use it as loan guarantees.

[16:07] But if there were any public subsidies involved in this project going forward, this is an opportunity under that impacts

[16:13] study to be able to identify what the impact, assess what those impacts would be on municipal revenues.

[16:19] It also looks on the capacity of city infrastructure such things as sewer services, water services, and such.

[16:26] But the real intent here is to give information to decision makers to get a better sense as to what the total impact of this project would be.

[16:37] Again, the impact study is optional at the Council and Planning Board discretion for a project of this nature because there is no retail store that's greater than 75,000 square feet.

[16:53] It is only mandatory when it is greater than 75.

[16:57] I'd also note that today, the city has never done an impact study on any project that's ever come to bell fast.

[17:07] The project review process involves four basic steps.

[17:12] Step one, the nice meeting, which is a sketch plan review.

[17:16] sketch plan review is exactly what the term kind of implies.

[17:20] You don't have complete detailed information on everything the applicant is proposing,

[17:27] because the intent is to get a better sense of what the overall picture of the application is

[17:32] and to identify perhaps big picture issues.

[17:35] So tonight, I don't really envision someone talking about, you should move that parking space

[17:39] 10 feet to the right or 10 feet to the left.

[17:41] Because that's why something that comes out more of the preliminary and final plan reviews

[17:45] it's not at the sketch plan review.

[17:47] Oftentimes things you would try and address

[17:49] are the number of per pet you may have,

[17:52] what the amount of setbacks may be for buildings overall.

[17:55] For example, I know what I'm going to be talking about

[17:57] the night is now a setback from Route 3,

[17:59] but it is really to try and address bigger picture issues.

[18:02] Should the council and planning board decide

[18:04] that the sketch plan review should be accepted?

[18:07] The next step is to go to preliminary plan.

[18:10] The preliminary plan will not involve both the board

[18:13] and the council together.

[18:14] The preliminary plan review involves only the planning board.

[18:18] The planning board is responsible for, again, reviewing all of the issues that are becoming

[18:23] forward.

[18:24] The planning board says, yes to the preliminary plan, it goes to the final plan review stage

[18:30] before the planning board.

[18:31] If the planning board says no, the recommendation of the planning board is pumped up to the

[18:36] council, and the council then has the opportunity to make the decision about whether or

[18:40] not we should honor the recommendation of the planning board or to have it go continue

[18:44] to go through the contract rezoning process.

[18:47] Final plan review is this kind of indicates.

[18:50] That's when you try and wrap up all details on a project.

[18:53] We will be talking about should the parking space

[18:55] be 10 feet to the right or 10 feet to the left.

[18:57] What type of signage should be in place?

[18:59] What is the actual wattage that's going to go in

[19:01] with the lights on the light, on the light poles?

[19:04] What's the height of the standard of the light poles?

[19:07] Again, it's a very detail oriented review by the planning board

[19:10] because those are what would then be the final design and conditions that would apply to the project.

[19:17] Planning board, in this case, most projects of the planning board has the final authority,

[19:21] but because this is contract rezoning, planning board puts its recommendations in a bundle,

[19:26] sends that package off to the council.

[19:29] The council then has a review through the ordinance process, both the first reading and second reading,

[19:35] and decides whether or not that contract rezoning agreement should be adopted.

[19:40] In summary, what I'd noticed a couple things, that first, this is the start of a process,

[19:49] at least four steps.

[19:51] No final decisions this evening.

[19:53] The intent is to try to get a sense of what the application involves, and whether or not

[19:57] you should go forward and so how.

[20:00] This meeting is really an opportunity for the council, planning board, and the design

[20:05] of your committee provides some direction to the applicant, and also for the public to provide

[20:10] direction to the folks sitting in the front of the room, as well as the applicant about

[20:15] the project.

[20:17] And in the end, this is an opportunity for folks of the front to identify the major concerns

[20:23] that are regarding the project.

[20:25] In this, I would envision a minimum to this project continue.

[20:31] There would be at least four, that's not more public hearings associated with this project.

[20:39] And so I think each of you for coming out this evening, what we'll probably do with the applicant presentation

[20:45] of have all you folks trying to move to the audience, so that they can turn their boards around

[20:51] and be talking to everybody at the same time and everybody can see the same thing.

[20:57] Madam Mayor, may I ask Planner Marshall, one further point of clarification.

[21:01] Could you just give us a few local examples of what the 75,000 square foot or more building looks like here in Belfast currently

[21:12] and what a 20,000 square foot business looks like currently?

[21:16] We have no retail stores in a single building as a single user that is 75,000 square feet.

[21:27] The largest retail assembly you have in Belfast today is Hanoffer and Ocean State job

[21:34] lots together.

[21:36] Hanoffer is coming in about 56.58, maybe 59 with the improvements that they did 10 plus

[21:42] years ago now. And Ocean State comes in at just around 44. So put them together, so around

[21:50] 105 to 110. Probably the closest, and you don't recognize it because it's in multiple

[21:57] buildings is if you look at what gets to be a Hammond where you now have the two big storage

[22:03] buildings on Hammond, together with their main office up front. Or if you look at some

[22:08] of the multiple buildings that are associated with Viking, they probably get fairly close

[22:12] to a 75 as a total package, not as individual buildings.

[22:17] 20,000 square feet, what's your best example is something that's fairly similar to a

[22:23] tractor supply, it is O'Bashon hardware.

[22:26] O'Bashon hardware without the greenhouse is 20,000 square feet.

[22:30] With the greenhouse is about 24 to 25.

[22:33] Their outside display area probably comes in about another 4,500 square feet.

[22:38] Try to supply food proposals was coming in about 19,000 to 20,000 with an outside display

[22:44] or perhaps 10 to 15.

[22:50] That's why you're best example of him.

[23:59] Just test?

[24:02] I'm just going to put

[24:09] my foot on the ground.

[24:19] I'm

[24:31] going to put my foot on the ground.

[24:39] My name is Bob Barry, I'm with Mainland Development Consultants. I am an engine bearer. I represent the sellers of the property, the bears.

[24:53] All right, percussion maintenance, I love it. So, I represent the bears, they are the owners of the property looking to sell some property to track a supply company in order for that project to happen.

[25:05] As part of this project, the master plan was required by the ordinance and we wanted to show everybody

[25:13] as part of a concept master plan what the current thinking is for development on this property.

[25:19] And I want to go through that with you step by step.

[25:22] I do want to stress.

[25:23] This is just our current thinking.

[25:25] It is nothing in the master plan other than the tractor supply is currently proposed.

[25:30] And we'll get into more details on that later.

[25:31] This plan right here, can everybody see it?

[25:35] That's root 3, right there, at the bottom of the plan.

[25:40] Bank of America is across the road.

[25:41] That's their entrance drive.

[25:43] A proposed drive is proposed right across directly across

[25:47] that the lanes line up.

[25:49] And then that drive would go up the hill this way.

[25:51] And as everyone knows, it's a little bit of a high spot

[25:53] right in the middle that goes downhill in all directions

[25:55] from that high spot here.

[25:58] And then this drive would come up far away up that.

[26:01] that hill. We are currently thinking that they on the left there would be a bank and a couple

[26:08] of retail, envisioning multi-unit small retail in these two locations. There's a restaurant

[26:17] proposed, or at least that's what we're thinking right there, and then a hotel here. Multi-story

[26:23] most likely number of rooms is unknown at this time and a hotel there.

[26:30] On the right multi-family is proposed or is thinking we're thinking of that here in four

[26:37] different billing blocks with units for rent or sale at that location.

[26:44] And then on the last thing on the left and assisted living center of some kind.

[26:49] That is the master plan as currently conceptualized by the bearish and B&G properties on this site.

[27:00] Currently there are no talks or proposed plans to do any of that.

[27:07] The tracker supply would be that first lot on the right and that is the only part being proposed at this time.

[27:17] With that, I'll turn it right over to Goro Poir.

[27:40] Good evening.

[27:41] I'm Dan Bacon with Goro Palmer.

[27:43] I'm joined by Lucas Anthony.

[27:46] Also of Goro Palmer and DMK development,

[27:49] who is the Director Supply applicant.

[27:52] I'm a planner by practice in Lucas's an engineer,

[27:56] and we're at the concept planning and sketch plan stage.

[28:00] So I'm going to provide a quick overview of the Director

[28:03] a lot of tractor supply site planned,

[28:06] but if you have engineering questions,

[28:07] look at some pop-up and answer those.

[28:10] And I know that Chris from DMK is going to provide

[28:12] some remarks on tractor supplies operation

[28:15] at the conclusion of my presentation.

[28:18] So as Bob introduced, there's the large master plan

[28:23] designed for this site with really this user,

[28:28] being the only one identified and designed for.

[28:30] And the tractor supply is proposed on the first six acres of the master plan, up along Route 3.

[28:40] And it would be the first slot on the right coming in off that proposed road across from Bank of America.

[28:49] So the proposal is for a six-acre site to accommodate tractor supply, which is more than enough property for the use.

[28:57] And it's intentionally large to provide a generous buffer from Route 3.

[29:02] There's a 200 foot vegetated buffer proposed from Route 3 to provide some screening to maintain the natural wooded area that exists today.

[29:16] And to set the treacherous supply site back from the street.

[29:20] The proposal is for traction supply to be in a 19 to 20,000 square foot building.

[29:27] 19,000, I think, 97 square feet is the foot print.

[29:34] There's an outdoor display area, and that's been cited behind the building, if you will,

[29:42] from at least from the proposed access drive, off of Route 3, the parking is proposed in front

[29:49] of tractor supply, but to the side of tractor supply, if you will, as you look at it from

[29:54] the access street, we're proposing 77 parking spaces per the town ordinances. This is a

[30:02] site that would be served by public utilities, so water and sewer would serve this site. We're

[30:08] beginning to think about storm water and think there's a place for storm water management up

[30:14] long root three in an area that's currently long area so wouldn't be much

[30:19] clearing to accommodate that strong water really because of grades this site will

[30:23] be about 15 feet higher than root three given the topography of the site as you

[30:30] all know the site from root three in terms of traffic and those implications we

[30:39] have not conducted a traffic study yet.

[30:42] We wanted to have this workshop for this initial meeting

[30:45] before we dive into a traffic study.

[30:49] But following the outcome of this meeting,

[30:52] a traffic study will be performed,

[30:53] which is required by ordinance in the site point of view

[30:56] process, and that will be part of the planning board process

[30:59] to look at the traffic implications along with three.

[31:06] And in terms of kind of general layout, we've tried to orient the building fairly close to the proposed street, coming in, the setback from the new internal street best proposed is 40 feet, and we've started to building close to that setback, thinking that as this develops is about presented,

[31:31] be nice to have the building fairly close to the street so that there can be sidewalk connections

[31:37] as the development evolves over time. And that's my missing Lucas. Those are the high points

[31:49] and I'm sure there will be questions as the meeting progresses and will all be available to

[31:55] to answer questions as we go.

[32:02] I'm sorry.

[32:08] I'm sorry.

[32:16] We are showing a proposed sidewalk along this proposed street. And we're still at that fixed plan stage. So the intention is ultimately to have sidewalks. I think that's a good discussion with the planning board.

[32:39] Initially, there's not going to be a lot of other uses to walk to.

[32:44] There aren't sidewalks.

[32:45] Obviously, along the route three right now.

[32:48] So, and that's one of those items that we want to talk through.

[32:52] The playing board process, and you turn them at what point do they make sense?

[33:00] Of course, you haven't even remarks before.

[33:10] Good evening, everybody.

[33:11] My name's Chris Katner.

[33:12] I'm with DMK Development, where the contract purchaser under contract to purchase

[33:17] the 6.08 acres that you see here from the bears and B&G properties.

[33:26] When I say developer for tractor supply, what that means is, we'll actually acquire the property

[33:30] at least the building two tractor supply, sign of 15 year initial term with four or five

[33:35] year options to renew. As far as tractor supply has an operation, generally they have four

[33:47] is going to be seasonal lawn and garden.

[33:49] The front right is outdoor workware, work boots, work clothing,

[33:54] the back left will be automotive, and the back right

[33:59] is their largest sale component animal health and animal feed.

[34:04] They also have three distinct outdoor areas.

[34:06] The first of which is directly adjacent to the building 15,000 square feet

[34:11] is meant for anything that's too large to fit under roof, fence posts,

[34:15] Um, livestock gates, 3. equipment, and the sidewalk display is proposed in front of the building.

[34:25] Uh, you know, generally what you might see at a home depot, tripers, mowers,

[34:29] shredders, things of that nature.

[34:31] And then the third area that's proposed is a trailer and equipment display.

[34:35] And that is in front of the parking field.

[34:38] And it's meant for 5 by 8, 6 by 10, 6 by 12 flat bed utility trailers.

[34:45] So that kind of gives you a background of trackter supply, I'm sure you may all be familiar with them at this point.

[34:51] 21 stores in Maine.

[34:55] And yeah, so I think that kind of rounds out what we wanted to say about the project initially.

[34:59] So obviously here to answer any questions about trackter supplies, operation or the site in general.

[35:06] Thank you.

[35:09] The point in the post where you mentioned about that?

[35:10] Yeah, so one of the reasons is just simply from a separation to surrounding stores, they generally look for about 25, at least 25 minute drive time, two surrounding stores, also their internal to their company, they have a marketing department who does a lot of studies as far as, you know, demographics, and it spits out a report to them and it would be a sales projection for the market.

[35:40] And that takes into account surrounding stores and how it may cannibalize those stores.

[35:45] And based on those things, and the, you know, the lifestyle of folks in Belfast,

[35:51] tractor supply supplies products to hobby farmers, ranchers,

[35:55] tradesmen, do it yourself.

[35:58] You know, people that live, they call it the out here lifestyle.

[36:01] And there's a high percentage of those customers here in Belfast that would benefit

[36:05] from tractor coming to the market.

[36:07] I hope I touched on that for you.

[36:15] Yes.

[36:16] And our seller is graciously amended the contract and made it 6.08.

[36:23] And the main reason for that when we first started this process, we had everything pulled closer.

[36:28] And so this probably amounts to about two acres here, backed it up to create that vegetative buffer.

[36:35] And so it is a 6.8 is the contract purchased now by way of amendment.

[36:39] And

[36:42] that too, right, this will be...

[36:46] It's proposed as green.

[36:48] Yeah, right now, there's the reason we position the stormwater,

[36:52] where we did is there's not much vegetation there,

[36:55] so the idea would be to work with planning board in the city council

[37:00] to understand what in this area stays,

[37:03] what goes as far as if there's dead trees or shrubs that don't make sense

[37:07] and what may need to be added in that area for vegetation.

[37:21] I'm sorry, can you ask that again?

[37:24] The maximum height of the cut will be required to make those glass box for the pattern working on.

[37:32] The Lucas, we have a, we're showing a finished for our elevation of 230.

[37:37] How much are we cutting?

[37:41] Yeah, Lukas Anthony, I'm an engineer with Goro Palmer here on behalf of the applicant.

[37:47] The towards the top of the site, it's quite a bit higher than it is down here.

[37:53] So in this area we'll be cutting on the order of 3 to 5 feet and in this area we'll be filling

[37:59] probably on the order of 3 to 5 feet.

[38:05] There may be some short retaining walls but we are trying to avoid them.

[38:24] We're actually maybe misspoke we're not contract to where the contract purchaser for the 6.08 acres so we'll actually hire a general contractor to build a building and we're acting as developer and representative for tractor supply

[38:37] We'll hire a general to build a building and then the lease it back to tractor

[38:45] supply

[38:52] That's myself Chris Keller from DMK development and only in that they're leasing they we have an agreement with them at this

[38:58] stage, not a sign lease, but a letter of intent to lease for that, you know, for that

[39:04] term.

[39:05] So eventually, if we get through this process and we're able to have our application approved,

[39:12] then we'll move to a sign in that lease with director supplies.

[39:14] You can hear us,

[39:27] Matthew, and Matthew.

[39:29] Yeah.

[39:29] The units that he gained was trapped,

[39:32] so far into that little group.

[39:35] It's seven.

[39:35] Yeah.

[39:36] So I wonder if there was something happening.

[39:40] Just by chance, and the fact that Mr. Bear owns a considerable amount of property has understand.

[39:48] Yes. Yep.

[39:52] All the 6.08 acres correct.

[39:57] That's right.

[40:02] We've built about 35 stores for them now across the country, anywhere from Wyoming to Maine.

[40:08] A big push in Maine started back in 2007.

[40:11] And a lot of the push-in main was previously occupied buildings,

[40:16] lease space for buildings that were already out there.

[40:19] In the case of Belfast, we don't have that luxury.

[40:23] And in the case of many other markets in Maine,

[40:25] Brown's Wake, Windham, Calis.

[40:28] We didn't have the opportunity to lease space.

[40:31] So the decision was made to do a ground up construction.

[40:39] There's 21 stores, press skyl, well, not Alaska, press skyl,

[40:45] Foulton, I'm going to miss a few, millenocke, Louis Dinn, Augusta, Oxford,

[40:55] Scarborough,

[40:56] Sanford,

[41:00] I think we're getting close,

[41:04] yeah, elsewhere, yep, and they took over a portion

[41:08] of the Martin's, Martin's, at least a portion of their space and downsize

[41:17] in Elworth.

[41:20] Go ahead.

[41:21] Go ahead.

[41:21] I'm not familiar with the track engine products, so there are any different than what

[41:26] would be found already locally in the last time.

[41:29] Yeah, I believe so.

[41:31] I mean, they are interesting retailer in that they don't fit within the mold of a typical

[41:40] hardware store.

[41:40] They don't carry a lot of nuts and bolts, you know, you're probably going to go to your

[41:47] Albrachon to get some of that stuff.

[41:50] So the biggest section of their store is animal health and animal feed, and it will be somewhere

[41:55] between 40 to 50 percent of their product sales will be in animal health and animal feed,

[42:03] both large and small animal dog food, but also goat feed, horse food.

[42:10] But yeah, I think they differentiate themselves on product mix and that's part of the reason why they'd like to see themselves in Belfast.

[42:18] Wayne Marshall indicated that an impact study is not required to have something that is a developer willing to take on.

[42:27] We will have to defer to what the city council asks of us.

[42:31] Certainly if that is a condition of our approval, we won't have a choice.

[42:36] You know, the stipulation is that over 75,000 square feet is when it's required, otherwise

[42:43] at the discretion of Council or Planning Board, our use is 20,000.

[42:49] So to answer your question, if it's asked of us, certainly.

[43:05] I don't have any of the actual figures about what the percent candleization is, but they

[43:12] will assign a percentage to it, which is, you know, they'll have

[43:16] an extra number of dollars lost sales.

[43:19] In this case, probably, there'll be some to Tomiston and probably

[43:24] some to Ellsworth.

[43:26] Yeah, I think he was referring to cannibalizing their

[43:28] attractive supply, but not taking business from the

[43:33] editors that made sales some of products.

[43:35] Yeah, thanks for clearing.

[43:36] Yeah, I'm talking about they look at their own stores and what

[43:40] of sales, they may take, if any, from surrounding stores.

[43:44] Better on my country.

[43:49] Do you have the products, lumber and construction units?

[43:53] No lumber, but general products for the general contractors or tradesmen's.

[44:02] Air compressors.

[44:05] What else can I say, welding gas, minimal spray paints.

[44:12] Yeah, not a whole lot of law and garden or power tools, I mean, they do have seasonal chainsaw.

[44:28] Thank you.

[44:30] I have a whole list, but not directly in front of me.

[44:33] If you have six in your stand, who wants to rest of the ADP, what else is that being?

[44:39] Correct.

[44:44] Go ahead.

[44:44] The exciting of just building, given the potential of what might be built around it, is that similar to what you're used to building around?

[44:56] Or the most of the stores were in a large complex of three-tailed buildings such as Wal-Mart or antifrogym?

[45:04] That involves the fact that it's set up in the past.

[45:08] Generally speaking, when they're building from the ground up, it's normally a freestanding,

[45:13] stores standing on its own where it would not, it would be not like ocean state in

[45:18] Hanofford in that they're in one shopping center together. They, they do take

[45:23] existing space, obviously, a lot of news of seers and came out so they're focused

[45:28] on, on those stores and they will take, you know, lease an end cap to one of those

[45:32] stores with their front shared, directly adjacent to it, blanking on where that may

[45:39] take place and oh, Ellsworth, man would be a good example, but generally speaking, and normally

[45:44] they're freestanding locations.

[45:57] How is it?

[46:03] Well,

[46:06] market demand will dictate, you know, what else goes there in the future.

[46:10] I will say from tractors perspective, it works out to be a great site in that it's, you know,

[46:21] but there is ease of access because of the where the curb cut will be located opposite the bank of America.

[46:31] So the nature of their customers truck and trailer can get into the site easily.

[46:35] So those are some of the things they look at when they're considering a site.

[46:49] I mean, it wouldn't be the first time that there's commercial in front with residential in the rear.

[46:57] And so I'd say, you know, they're comfortable, they don't have any issue with that.

[47:02] And you know, the market, like I say, will, if there's demand for residential in the rear, then, you know, I don't know exactly.

[47:09] I'm

[47:15] sorry, thank you, thank you. Here's the traffic supply coming on the right. There's the traffic supply. There is some multifamily housing plan on the back on the right. It is suggested it's not proposed. Someone said proposed. It's not proposed at this time. It's part of a master plan of what we think might work here.

[47:45] It's based on market demand and what we think

[47:49] bell-fast might want or need for spaces to build.

[48:05] I think that's a great question for the city council.

[48:08] And for Wayne later, we had many discussions about that.

[48:11] And there was some desire for that.

[48:17] That's something that you can

[48:20] do.

[48:23] Can you talk more about how that's going to actually work with that space?

[48:26] Yeah, sure.

[48:27] So the traffic study would be performed by us, by the consultants,

[48:32] that work for DMK and it's that's fairly typical for any project of this nature, any site

[48:39] plan approval that requires a traffic study would generally be performed by the consultants

[48:44] for the applicant.

[48:47] And then the city, all these of its traffic studies of this nation, here we view as well, by

[48:55] an engineer hired by the city.

[48:58] And what phases, this is, you know, phase one?

[49:01] I mean, is that one?

[49:02] There are a variety of traffic studies in the 45 days of the decision that there's a decision

[49:08] made tonight.

[49:09] There are requirements for their studies in the 45 days.

[49:26] When we discuss this with the bears, and we talk to the city, and we talk to other retailers in the area, we talk to some other businesses, what with their needs to see what might work on this site.

[49:39] A number of things were identified, potentially for a bank, small retail, the restaurant

[49:44] out the hotel, and the housing, and maybe an assisted living center.

[49:49] Those were the items that we came up with that said, that might work here.

[49:54] And we developed a master plan based on that.

[49:56] It took up that front half.

[49:59] There is no plans for the back half.

[50:02] There's no, no, we don't know what if anything ever would have been there.

[50:09] I think at this point will move to the public hearing where you can also share comments to the council and the planning board.

[50:20] Everybody has had an opportunity to ask one question if you have a question you haven't had an opportunity to ask a question before.

[50:27] Is there somebody that hasn't asked a question that has a question?

[50:29] I

[50:32] just have a quick question. It's a long cannibalism line. I'm really concerned about

[50:37] the blue companies being in this area. I'm really excited about the ones I have.

[50:42] I have forty sheep, five horses, five cats, whatever, and chickens.

[50:47] And I feel really well served by this area, so I can't even notice the comments.

[50:51] So the question is, what have you done in terms of understanding the impact on businesses that are already serving?

[51:00] Are we guarding a tractor supply?

[51:06] The answer is not much other than all I can say is that tractor, you know, we visited

[51:13] some of the, like the Albusian hardware and EBS, there's definitely crossover product,

[51:19] but what I can say is that they co-exist in other markets, not only in Maine that would

[51:24] be similar, and they seem to co-exist, you know, just fine.

[51:28] Do you have similar size areas?

[51:31] Right.

[51:42] As I mentioned before, we haven't started the traffic study yet,

[51:47] but track or supply, but we would anticipate

[51:50] is 80 to 90 PM peak hour trips.

[51:54] And it's probably on a Saturday versus a weekday.

[51:57] And that would be in and out, so, you know,

[52:02] 30 to 50 cars.

[52:03] Do you mean the customers?

[52:05] Cars.

[52:09] No, no.

[52:12] Yeah, no.

[52:13] Certainly not that many deliveries.

[52:18] Yeah, good.

[52:35] So to answer the first question, I'm in generally speaking, depending on the stormwater requirements.

[52:39] We're three and a half to four acres.

[52:41] In this case, with the added buffer in the front and also because of the site grades,

[52:47] there's a lot of moving dirt to be done here.

[52:50] We need to spread out a little bit, so we need a little bigger site.

[52:53] Second question on triple net, you may be getting at what's the maintenance responsibilities and the answer to that is we're responsible as landlord for roof structure integrity of the paid surface

[53:08] And the tractor supply is responsible for anything you know under the roof outside of those things including payment of their taxes

[53:15] is insurance is a negotiation between us.

[53:21] There's no common area maintenance,

[53:23] it's either tractor, doesn't or we do it.

[53:25] There will be shared maintenance of the access road.

[53:33] Right, thank you very much.

[53:35] And we'll move to the public hearing

[53:39] if planning board members and council members

[53:40] want to move back to their seats.

[53:42] That would be great.

[54:43] So we will move to...

[54:45] The public hearing on the sketch plan application hearing pursuant to section 1, 2, 1, 3, 8, 5 of the city code of ordinances, chapter 1, 2, zoning, article 10, contract, rezoning, division 2, office park, root 3, commercial and serious poor avenue, commercial zoning districts.

[55:03] There is a question for planning board members and council members about length of time for a comment.

[55:13] We have usually accepted three minutes of comment from as a council.

[55:20] It's that acceptable with the possible extension of three minutes for this hearing.

[55:28] It says three to five minutes on hearing.

[55:30] We preferring five.

[55:32] Okay.

[55:36] Okay. So it sounds like we asked a person who may comment to limit their comment

[55:42] to five minutes and please offer a comment directly to the council in the board. There's

[55:48] a microphone and it should work if it doesn't. We will help you.

[56:00] I'm just come forward to

[56:01] comment. And the public, the planning board and the council will not make any response to the

[56:10] comments. At this time, we will follow up with deliberations.

[56:21] Hello. Please state your name and

[56:23] that's in your front. Thank you. I'm Denise Pendleton. I live in Belfast on Crocker Road. And as many

[56:30] You know, our words about part of the upper lot, the one that has no development at all

[56:38] going on in it, but there is, you know, full disclosure.

[56:42] We are, and this is in our backyard,

[56:46] and I'll just make a note that in those words, if

[56:50] you don't already know, there's a trail we use a lot for skiing, and it was created by my father

[56:55] for the cross-country ski team decades ago, and that's so that's all part of the mix here.

[57:04] And I just want to say thank you to the city council in the planning board for your, for being

[57:09] here and listening.

[57:12] So my concerns are number one about traffic and I learned a little bit tonight and glad there's

[57:16] going to be a traffic study, but pulling out of Crock Road in the summer is, you know,

[57:21] is a bit of a wait, and I'm imagining that with this sort of development or concerned that

[57:28] traffic will be backed up to Crocodone beyond and wondering how we will, well, we'll

[57:34] go down Marshroad, and that will be fun for Marshroad residents. And perhaps that will lessen

[57:40] that moral, you know, where the gateway tomorrow, so perhaps for fewer people will come down

[57:45] Crocodone, it'll be better for me. I'm looking at both sides of this, but I am concerned about

[57:50] traffic impact. And years it, well, whenever this was being proposed for Walmart, I was at a

[57:59] Grossmart conference and having a at a breakout session with traffic engineers and they said,

[58:05] there would be such a snarl there, they didn't see any solution. You know, if that property were developed,

[58:10] perhaps it was with Walmart in mind. But I do wonder what solutions there are, where we're all the

[58:17] and outs, all the stores between Crocker Road and Rennies Plaza.

[58:22] So I just hope the traffic study does take all those considerations.

[58:28] All those factors into consideration.

[58:31] And I don't know if the traffic study takes into consideration

[58:34] summer traffic versus winter traffic.

[58:38] You know, why are the traffic patterns you around there?

[58:41] And they are considerably greater in the summer.

[58:48] I, you know, this is, this is the gateway to Belfast that piece of properties.

[58:52] So I do hope the property development that happens is, is out of sight as much as possible for people coming into Belfast.

[59:01] I hope the City Council and the Planning Board really thinks about that.

[59:05] What do they want people to see as they're coming into Belfast?

[59:09] We don't want to see another sprawl going on.

[59:12] I, in terms of the master plan, I just wanted the City Council in the planning board to hear.

[59:23] I'm hoping the master plan actually does include housing and varying in mind what Mike Hurley said at a meeting a little while ago.

[59:31] Belfast population is expanding.

[59:34] It's going to be expanding, you know, increasingly nobody kind of forward to living downtown.

[59:42] How does this address any of those problems?

[59:52] So that's something I'm hoping you can think about.

[59:55] And in terms of retail businesses that are needed in

[59:59] Belfast, probably the number one is competition

[1:00:01] to hand-offred.

[1:00:03] So this sort of business tractor supply,

[1:00:08] as one audience member said, many of her needs are already met.

[1:00:12] track just apply may not be needed, but what really is needed is a competition for the local grocery store.

[1:00:25] So I guess that's my primary concerns.

[1:00:28] Thank you.

[1:00:28] Thank you very much.

[1:00:44] I'm Alan Gibson, Edge Cameroon, Belfast.

[1:00:48] I would encourage the City Council and the Planning Board to think about the vision they want to have for

[1:00:52] Belfast in the future for the next generation.

[1:00:55] And while on its face at 20,000 square foot retail store is not terrible, I see it would have

[1:01:02] negative impacts on other retailers doing similar things that are locally owned.

[1:01:07] But I see it as at the start of a potentially much larger development that will help

[1:01:14] to create or produce what you see at every interstate highway interchange, the retail, the

[1:01:22] a big box retail store at the chain motel, the sea of asphalt.

[1:01:28] And I don't think the bell fast, which has been,

[1:01:31] which has been growing based on its creativity,

[1:01:35] its vibrancy, its art scene,

[1:01:39] has anything to do with this sort of development.

[1:01:41] And it's in my mind, a development disease that's been spreading.

[1:01:45] I've seen it happen in Thomiston,

[1:01:48] Rockland, Ellsworth, Waterville.

[1:01:51] It's all around us and I would urge you at this point to nip that disease in its infancy.

[1:02:01] Thank you.

[1:02:04] Thank you very much.

[1:02:11] Hi.

[1:02:11] My name is Riley Pratt of a property owner on Crocker Road.

[1:02:15] And there isn't a bell fast. And generally speaking, I agree with Allen's comments that, you know, urban sprawl is something that I think we've all come to understand is not a good thing for development.

[1:02:32] And where is I, and I do have certain things about the proposed master plan that I like largely the residential component. My big concern is it's not clear to me what the purpose of the master plan is.

[1:02:45] If none of the proposed uses have any binding effect down the road, I don't understand how we can approve a proposed master plan that has no impact on future iterations of that plan.

[1:02:59] So as we consider the potential uses of that site down the road, you know, can the applicant simply submit a change of proposal and what impact does it have on the process.

[1:03:13] Because I do think that there is a need in Belfast for affordable housing and certainly in the assisted living center.

[1:03:23] My concern is that we're opening the door to a different type of development that we don't see on the paper right now.

[1:03:31] As our resident on Carcarot, I also have concerns of traffic backing up to Carcarot, and I would like to see a solution to that for posed by some kind of traffic study.

[1:03:44] And I'm also would be curious to understand what limitations the council would place in terms

[1:03:50] of the amount of grading or the amount of paved areas for those developments I'm just

[1:03:56] looking at the amount of proposed parking and impermeable surface and being someone that works

[1:04:02] in the design profession I understand how engineering can solve those problems but I would

[1:04:08] encourage the city to think hard about the standards they're holding the development to, and I would hope that they would

[1:04:15] you know use like the latest and progressive development standards in terms of judging this particular project.

[1:04:22] Thank you.

[1:04:33] Hi, I'm Chris Blink.

[1:04:34] I'm the the avatars on the property.

[1:04:37] I guess you could call me the low avatars, because my property sits downhill from that property.

[1:04:42] So, I'm really concerned with the rainwater runoff and so forth.

[1:04:47] I know when I built my new building in town, we had to go through all kinds of hoops

[1:04:51] because rainwater runoff on the neighbors property and all that stuff, this property is definitely

[1:04:56] a lot higher elevation where they're showing the front pond right now.

[1:05:01] There is no pond there, that's all good land.

[1:05:04] And when you look at the big schematic that they gave you where the housing is and they're

[1:05:09] and two prawn ponds down on the low side and there's no way to drain them unless they come across

[1:05:15] my piece of property because I'm down hill from them and everybody knows the spring run off

[1:05:20] and all that stuff that there's no way the imponds I'm going to overflow. So there's got to be

[1:05:26] some type of drainage really looked at on this project because it is definitely all uphill from my

[1:05:32] land and from Kathy Stewart's land. And from the soup kitchen, it's all uphill so they'll

[1:05:38] be, unless they do something really drastic with the drainage, they're going to be put in water

[1:05:43] on three different landowners that sit down below them. That's one of my biggest concerns.

[1:05:49] It starts tracks to fly, I own goose river farms so you can imagine I'm in tracks fly all the time.

[1:05:55] So I'm kind of glad to see something like that coming developed fast because they carry a lot of

[1:05:59] things that EBS and Obesha and all of them don't carry such as tractor prats and stuff

[1:06:05] of that nature, but my main thing is just drainage on this.

[1:06:11] So thank you.

[1:06:13] Thank you.

[1:06:27] Just hold.

[1:06:28] My name is Mike Bird.

[1:06:29] I live on Bayview Street in Belfast.

[1:06:32] My husband and I moved to four years ago, largely, because we knew the main coast intimately

[1:06:39] we've been coming up and down at for 50 years.

[1:06:43] We chose Belfast to retire too,

[1:06:46] because it was the one place that didn't have sprawl.

[1:06:50] Going through a canton as a nightmare,

[1:06:52] the outside of Rockland as a nightmare,

[1:06:54] runs with Thomson, Thomson,

[1:06:59] we just hope I hope he would be here too,

[1:07:03] if he could, that you consider what everyone else has said,

[1:07:08] that the character of this small city.

[1:07:12] I think there are really intelligent ways to develop

[1:07:15] and there are probably ways that are not looking

[1:07:20] to the future, the kind of future we want here in Belfast.

[1:07:25] And I hope you will.

[1:07:30] Thank you.

[1:07:47] Hi, I'm Sikirat, I live in the Spring Health Complex

[1:07:51] off of Crocodile Road.

[1:07:53] And in the summer, I always go March Road already.

[1:07:56] And I do agree with the traffic concerns.

[1:07:59] And even some days when it's not summer,

[1:08:01] I go on March Road if I'm going downtown

[1:08:03] because it's a lot easier.

[1:08:06] Not mentioned is I assume the street light

[1:08:09] at this intersection where a bank of America

[1:08:12] and this new entry is because, you know,

[1:08:15] you're talking about crazy intersection, otherwise.

[1:08:20] And I agree with Denise.

[1:08:21] I think we need a shopping store, a grocery store like Trader Joe's or a whole, whatever

[1:08:29] that other one is the natural store to bring some competition to Hanifords.

[1:08:37] If tractor supply works there also, that's fine, but I really like to see the grocery

[1:08:42] competition.

[1:08:44] Thank you.

[1:08:47] Thank you.

[1:08:59] Hi.

[1:08:59] I can't leave a treat as I live in Belfast, and this is all new to me, so these comments are just based on what I've heard tonight.

[1:09:08] Number one, I am in favor of tractor supply. I had a friend visit me when I lived in Albany, New York, and the first thing he said is, I want to go to tractor supply.

[1:09:18] So that's where we went. So it's good to see what up here in Maine. He lives in Maine. So he came all the way to Albany, New York, for a tractor supply.

[1:09:26] But I also agree with the person that commented that Route 3 is where people come in and see our city.

[1:09:35] I'd like to see perhaps that two acre buffer zone made into something like a park.

[1:09:41] It looks really pretty and appealing naturally.

[1:09:45] That's something for you to consider and have a nice signage, you know, maybe looking like an old wooden fence or something.

[1:09:53] So it would be attractive, and then it points the way to the stores and whatever else is developed eventually.

[1:10:00] And I'd like the Planning Committee and the City Council as well as the planners for this project to consider sustainability.

[1:10:08] I know they've developed like driveways that have percolation.

[1:10:14] So you don't have a lot of runoff in terms of like on top of solid concrete,

[1:10:23] or solid back top.

[1:10:25] So I think we do need to be aware of runoff and keeping green spaces

[1:10:29] for the city of Belfast and future projects.

[1:10:33] Thank you.

[1:10:35] Thank you.

[1:10:50] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this better.

[1:11:00] Could you please sit your name and this in the city?

[1:11:03] Yes, my name's Keith Howard. I live off the profit road in Springbrook.

[1:11:10] And I'm a property owner there, butting property owner.

[1:11:14] First I'd like to say I don't envy any one of you because it's not an easy decision.

[1:11:21] I'm not going to rehash some of the very salient points already made by a lot of my neighbors.

[1:11:28] I will echo them. I haven't heard one yet that I disagree with.

[1:11:33] I need a pro for no con. At this point, I'm here to gather information.

[1:11:38] I found this corn to be very useful for that, and at good beginning, I appreciate that.

[1:11:46] My question is really one of the contract zoning, and I would ask each of you to remain

[1:11:58] good stewards that you are, will build fast, best possible future when you make this decision.

[1:12:12] We like the master plan maybe, but the big question behind that is the 50 odd acres behind it.

[1:12:22] And as a residential community, which traffic aside,

[1:12:29] Crocodile Road is still residential community.

[1:12:35] There's a need for development here.

[1:12:38] There's a need to business here.

[1:12:41] We just trust you to make sure that it's done the right way

[1:12:45] and then the best interest of the neighbors

[1:12:49] that we're going to have and be.

[1:12:51] Thank you.

[1:13:10] My name is Suzanne Howard.

[1:13:12] I live in Springbrook.

[1:13:14] I own property adjacent to the budding proposal.

[1:13:17] I have some concerns with regards to the traffic, and I'm very thankful for the council

[1:13:25] and for you to be able to have that traffic study conducted.

[1:13:29] As someone who troubles quite extensively,

[1:13:33] I have not seen the amount of traffic back up that we do on at the Procar Road from the summer.

[1:13:44] There's just never a time that we don't have a large amount of traffic.

[1:13:50] In the summer time, it is absolutely horrible.

[1:13:54] I walk quite extensively.

[1:13:55] I do a little bit of running and it is very, very unsafe already from leaving my home once

[1:14:02] I hit the Crocker Road.

[1:14:04] As most of you know, we've tried to get this edeliment lowered but most people use the Crocker

[1:14:10] Road as a shortcut from moral into bell-fast.

[1:14:15] I personally have almost been hit several times and I'm walking where I'm supposed to be again,

[1:14:23] We don't have any sidewalks there, or what have you.

[1:14:27] So that is a concern, again, as someone who does go and walk again as a

[1:14:32] land, as a property owner too, what that extra additional amount of traffic will

[1:14:41] cause for our road and that sustainability.

[1:14:45] Also, a concern would be with the overpass that we have already that connects going into

[1:14:53] Camden.

[1:14:54] There is no light there that have been several accidents already, which I'm sure you

[1:15:01] folks know, that do occur quite consistently.

[1:15:04] My daughter was in a pretty bad car accident there at that intersection as well.

[1:15:09] So imagine the extra amount of foot traffic from the Crocker Road to downtown, along with, as you know, with the United Bank of America, and when they come out of work from four o'clock to six o'clock, how do you explain that additional, you know, that impact and where those resources going to be, who's going to handle accidents and what's going to have you.

[1:15:35] That's a very big concern for me.

[1:15:38] Also, I'd like to know a little bit about light pollution,

[1:15:43] how that can be taking care of as well.

[1:15:46] My husband does some astronomy.

[1:15:50] He has a telescope.

[1:15:51] He goes out.

[1:15:51] He looks at the night sky.

[1:15:53] Those are things that we are very fortunate

[1:15:56] to be able to take advantage of as residents in springbrook.

[1:16:01] And that's a concern as well.

[1:16:03] with the complex and how big it's going to be on the amount of lighting that is going

[1:16:10] to be omitting. The other thing is the noise, it will there be some sort of noise,

[1:16:18] you know, ordinance or deliveries. How does that all impact such as someone as myself or

[1:16:26] our neighbors who could hear trucks and deliveries and what had he depending on the type of

[1:16:34] proposed.

[1:16:38] I already have a large amount of noise several times a week with the airport.

[1:16:44] I'm not trying to have more noise come into my home at night. The other thing is,

[1:16:53] I do enjoy sometimes sitting on my deck. I enjoy seeing the turkeys, the wild life,

[1:16:59] Sometimes I've gone out back and walked the trails.

[1:17:03] How is all of that going to impact some of our local people who enjoy those trails and enjoy the wildlife and what is.

[1:17:15] The proposals, you know, sustainability with regards to that wildlife, because we do have a ton of wildlife

[1:17:25] that do roam through our complex. And I know that they're coming from that property on to ours,

[1:17:33] because I see it nearly every day.

[1:17:47] That would be it for me. Thank you. Thank you.

[1:18:01] David August, fell fast, see what I can fit in about five minutes.

[1:18:08] One thing I noticed about the sketch plan is it seems to be very sprawling.

[1:18:13] The reference Hanford and Ocean State Jailbot before two uses that combined more than

[1:18:17] 75,000 square feet.

[1:18:19] Those two businesses seem to exist on less than 10 acres, so reserving 50 plus acres in the

[1:18:26] rear of the property for large retail seems to be a giant waste of space and also seems

[1:18:31] to contradict goals that the city has in terms of pedestrian, concerns, climate change, concerns,

[1:18:38] type of things that we talk about and you can't go a week without reading about and major newspapers

[1:18:44] or on TV. And so that kind of stuff, I think, starts in the community and I think if we're not going

[1:18:51] to think about this when we develop a new large sprawling development that the city has never seen,

[1:18:58] We don't take those things into account and ask for changes that are going to make this

[1:19:02] I think more suitable to long-term goals, not for just me, but for future generations that

[1:19:09] are going to live in this town.

[1:19:14] So I kind of, but Mo and I think somebody else touched on this that we were kind of missing

[1:19:20] mixed-use traditional use patterns that, you know, you look in town, Belfast, you tend

[1:19:25] to have light industrial commercial, residential, all mixed together in compact neighborhoods,

[1:19:29] And we've kind of gone away from that as a society where we're putting large single uses,

[1:19:35] we're spreading them out, we're making them uninviting the pedestrians, we're making them

[1:19:39] car-dependent places, and we're kind of going further and further away with the way that we've developed

[1:19:44] land historically and traditionally in New England.

[1:19:47] Kind of represents to me Midwestern sprawl patterns.

[1:19:50] So I'm just hoping that we don't get a development that represents that.

[1:19:54] I'm not here for anything bad about track or supply of no kind of concerns

[1:19:58] or against them, I think if they fit the zoning, they fit the zoning and they can do what they need to do.

[1:20:06] And the one last thing is, I don't really like to see such a large buffer because I've looked up in down with three

[1:20:11] and we can, you know, in the other woods coming in, not a bell fast.

[1:20:15] And what you see is, next time you take a drive or walk, look out close all the retail, non-residential operations are to the road.

[1:20:23] they tend to be 50 feet, 100 feet, 150 feet, and now here we have a puzzle when it's 400 feet

[1:20:31] way back. And from what I heard is that that was not really track a splice idea. If I was business,

[1:20:37] I think, you know, with all these other businesses, I want to have that as close to the road as possible

[1:20:41] for visibility and advertising and having a good display out front showcase. So I don't see the

[1:20:53] to see that anywhere else in Belfast

[1:20:55] and that just kind of goes against everything

[1:20:57] that, you know, this city is seeing for development.

[1:21:01] So I'm just asked you to take those things

[1:21:02] on the consideration.

[1:21:03] Thank you for turning off.

[1:21:04] Thank you.

[1:21:14] Sorry to announce here to speak at the public hearing.

[1:21:24] Good evening.

[1:21:25] Peter Wilkinson, I live in Belfast

[1:21:27] and I must say, this is pretty amazing.

[1:21:29] Perfect attendance at a meeting like this

[1:21:31] where that city comes on planning board.

[1:21:33] And I really thank you all for coming out

[1:21:36] in the audience too.

[1:21:37] My reason for speaking is just really I want to repeat a couple of things I said at the

[1:21:43] City Council meeting last week and my primary concern is not about the nature of the business

[1:21:50] of track to supply. They obviously have done their homework to get to this point of issuing

[1:21:57] a proposal to site a store here in in Belfast, the greater Belfast area I should say. They obviously

[1:22:06] will serve a much bigger market than just downtown

[1:22:09] Belfast.

[1:22:10] We've got a lot of communities here between here in Rockland

[1:22:13] and elsewhere.

[1:22:14] They will provide a valuable service for.

[1:22:19] But again, on the economic front,

[1:22:23] I would encourage the planning board and the city council

[1:22:26] to look at possible sales projections of this company here.

[1:22:33] And how it might impact existing enterprises,

[1:22:39] again,

[1:22:40] attract a supply, does feature a product line,

[1:22:43] which is different than most retail outlets here.

[1:22:49] But there is a crossover too.

[1:22:51] And I would be very curious to know what that crossover is

[1:22:55] and what the sales projections might be,

[1:22:58] whether it's $1,000,000,000, $1,000,000, $5,000.

[1:23:02] But you can be sure that whatever it is, it will impact your local retailers, your local service providers and, you know, again, if other businesses come along, restaurant, so it tells that will have an impact. This is a relatively small market and it doesn't take too big a drop to make a serious ripple. That's my comment and I'm just putting it here on the record.

[1:23:27] It's similar to what I said last week for the city council, but I wanted the planning board to hear it as well as the audience for this hearing.

[1:23:35] Thank you.

[1:23:36] Thank you.

[1:23:45] Anyone else here to speak at the public hearing?

[1:23:52] Hi.

[1:23:52] I'm son in the can.

[1:23:53] I live in Belfast.

[1:23:55] This is not literally in my backyard, but I feel like all of Maine is in my backyard.

[1:23:59] And right now, at least this is.

[1:24:01] I want to just encourage you.

[1:24:03] Thank you all for being here for giving us this opportunity.

[1:24:06] I want to encourage you as you go forward looking at this property or any of these properties around

[1:24:11] Bell Fest to be thinking 50 years ahead, 100 years ahead, you know, at least just not 10 years

[1:24:18] ahead.

[1:24:19] And look at what's happening with chain stores around the country, tap places like Rose Smart

[1:24:24] Main, Main Center for Economic Policy, look at the local multiplier effect, I think it's

[1:24:30] like, you know, investing in your local, locally owned stores as a, as a consumer.

[1:24:37] I think there's some, I saw a quote here that says, money spent at locally owned businesses

[1:24:41] in the Greater Portland area, it generates 76%.

[1:24:45] More economic activity than spent at a national chain. This is a national chain. What are we really investing in? I would say that I've been in tractor supply. And again, I don't have anything. I have animals. I need vaccines. You know, I'll occasionally go to a tractor supply, but really there's one, twenty miles away in one direction, forty another, thirty another. No matter where you go from bell-fast, if you're driving anywhere, it's pretty easy to get to one.

[1:25:13] And I guess I just really don't like the idea of

[1:25:17] Belfast having a strip like this.

[1:25:20] This is one of the places that has so far held off,

[1:25:24] and I hope that we'll hold off a little bit longer until

[1:25:27] what's happening with chain stores around the country

[1:25:30] becomes more of a known blight, if you will.

[1:25:35] And this is a special place I have my kids here.

[1:25:37] I hope to be here for a long time, and I really am not

[1:25:40] I'm against growth, I'm against growth with large national chains in a town like this.

[1:25:48] Thank you.

[1:25:56] Seeing no one else, we will move to...

[1:25:59] The Council and Board deliberations regarding the sketch plan application. We will rearrange the tables. So, yep.

[1:26:25] Alan Gibson, January 2nd, Kathy Hixon, December 22nd, January 7th, Beth Whitman, December 13th, Eleanor Allen from Springbrook on January 8th, David August on January 8th.

[1:26:43] I'm Jay Crow from January 9th, Riley Pratt from January 8th, and Amy Bird from January 8th.

[1:26:53] Obviously, the email from MJ wasn't from January 9th was from January 8th.

[1:27:00] And so those are the copies that have come to the record.

[1:27:03] Well, I say they have all been provided copies to both board the Council and to Jim from the Design Review Committee.

[1:27:12] Thank you, Wayne.

[1:27:13] So we'll take a few minutes to rearrange tables so that we can have a conversation and of course

[1:27:21] the public, you're all. We would like you to stay and you're welcome to stay, it just

[1:27:25] will be a different arrangement of the tables for the council and a fan important.

[1:32:07] Do you?

[1:32:08] Who goes for the party in?

[1:32:13] Do you think it's like a party in the middle?

[1:32:15] Yes, we are.

[1:32:17] We have to.

[1:32:19] There are a lot of that.

[1:32:22] I'll pass this one.

[1:32:24] I'm going to.

[1:32:26] I'll pass it.

[1:32:28] I'll pass that one over here.

[1:32:30] I'll take that right now.

[1:32:32] There's a way to get it.

[1:32:56] Okay, I'm going to call the meeting back to order.

[1:32:59] I first off want to apologize to the public.

[1:33:04] This may not be the most ideal set up, but if you are having trouble seeing and you want

[1:33:09] to move your chair to a different location, you are more than welcome to do that.

[1:33:15] And this is the first, maybe, I don't know, the planning board in the Council has met years ago together.

[1:33:26] Council of Plenty Board of Bents, here you are.

[1:33:28] Historically in work sessions, this is the first time there has ever been the planning board in the council, was so

[1:33:35] in from the designer committee sitting in a developing group.

[1:33:41] So in that case, I'm asking as the chair of the meeting for some patients and if I haven't recognized you and you want to speak, it's not because I'm ignoring you, there's a lot of people around the table.

[1:34:03] So I think what the format will be will be to generally, first, the goal is provide direction

[1:34:14] to the applicant to determine if the applicant should be required to prepare a comprehensive

[1:34:19] economic and community development, a community impact assessment, and then following that

[1:34:25] if the applicant can proceed to the preliminary plan stage of the application process.

[1:34:30] So I think we should consider for both of those items separately.

[1:34:37] It's so good.

[1:34:39] Typically what the planning board does.

[1:34:41] This is the first time you folks have had an opportunity to look at the application.

[1:34:44] This is the first time you've actually had the applicant sitting in front of you.

[1:34:48] Some of you had an opportunity to ask questions during the initial discussion.

[1:34:52] But perhaps it's good to go around the room.

[1:34:55] You know, see if there's questions that people may have in the applicant

[1:34:59] about what's been proposed and see where things are at.

[1:35:02] Something that's on your mind.

[1:35:04] I know Paul had his hand up earlier,

[1:35:05] where we didn't get to his question.

[1:35:08] If there are questions,

[1:35:09] you may have a close to trying to help you along the way

[1:35:12] and considering his application.

[1:35:15] So, in that case,

[1:35:17] if we went around the table and each member of the planning board at the

[1:35:22] designer room committee or the council had had questions,

[1:35:25] we could do that first,

[1:35:26] and then following that, consider it to items before us.

[1:35:32] Does that sound like a reasonable plan?

[1:35:35] Should we limit how much each person,

[1:35:37] how much time each person has for questions,

[1:35:40] or are we generally okay with going,

[1:35:43] I mean there are many of us,

[1:35:44] and I did not sure how many.

[1:35:52] So general, please be mindful of the time that you're using,

[1:35:57] to ask questions, yes.

[1:36:01] And first, we do need to use microphones every time we speak,

[1:36:04] so that the people that folks at home can hear us,

[1:36:08] so that maybe a little bit of an inconvenience to pass

[1:36:10] the microphones around, but please be conscious of that as well.

[1:36:13] No, very good.

[1:36:15] I wanted to get a clarification on who we are speaking to.

[1:36:19] So there's a number of parties here who have all been lumped

[1:36:22] in together with the name title applicant.

[1:36:25] So, who are we directing?

[1:36:27] Are we talking about the entire plot?

[1:36:30] Are we talking about tractor supply store?

[1:36:33] Where are our recommendations going to go?

[1:36:35] What are we really trying to develop for this important first step?

[1:36:41] Great.

[1:36:41] I'm going to go to both.

[1:36:45] The main recommendations regarding the tractor supply development are going primarily to tractor supply.

[1:36:51] comments regarding the necessity of the impact statement and the master plan are really

[1:36:58] going as well to being NG properties.

[1:37:09] When I say you try to supply, I take the owner, the least agent, as well as girl farmer engineers.

[1:37:22] Okay, Mary, would you like to start?

[1:37:26] Okay, first question, you can show a sidewalk coming in from Route 3, and it runs parallel

[1:37:31] to the access road coming into the property.

[1:37:34] However, there is no turn in the sidewalk heading to the front of the store or any of the

[1:37:40] display areas.

[1:37:49] So, your question is very well, there's, you can see the connection that's not showing here.

[1:38:06] Okay.

[1:38:07] Thank you.

[1:38:13] Can you pass them a mic, can you pass our consultants a microphone?

[1:38:19] Please.

[1:38:20] Thank you.

[1:38:22] I have another question.

[1:38:25] Three spaces shown in the parking diagram.

[1:38:27] There are three spaces and they're long, like maybe for an RV or I'm not sure what.

[1:38:38] That would be for vehicles to trailers.

[1:38:43] And tractor supply stores, I've only seen the ones that are in this 45-minute circle around us,

[1:38:51] is the parking always in the front of the store.

[1:38:54] Between the main access, road highway, and the store itself.

[1:39:00] Yeah, it is always located in front of the store.

[1:39:03] In this case, we have two kind of front yard, so as Dan alluded to earlier, it's partly

[1:39:11] in the side because of the road that is coming in, but yeah, it's generally situated

[1:39:19] as they're building faces forward in the front as it's shown here.

[1:39:25] Thank you.

[1:39:28] Pass to see.

[1:39:30] And just another thought, if we could each introduce ourselves

[1:39:33] before we speak, there are so many of us.

[1:39:37] And it's not, I'm not sure that the folks at home

[1:39:40] can see our name plates in front of us.

[1:39:45] Well, maybe I'll even clarify what I'm going to try and do

[1:39:48] with my pre-minutes or so, because I don't have

[1:39:53] clarifying questions, but I have initial impressions.

[1:39:56] I would like to share with this entire body, and so is this a good time to do that?

[1:40:03] Should we get off of that?

[1:40:04] Because I think the details about parking inside walks and all this things will have to be tackled.

[1:40:10] But I think we're talking about the master plan.

[1:40:12] We're talking about general guidance for the applicant, and so I would like to be more broad.

[1:40:20] That, okay, with everyone to use this time to ask questions, and also it looks like

[1:40:25] has a comment, could send me past the?

[1:40:32] I don't have any problem with that.

[1:40:33] I'm just wondering if Samantha, it makes sense to have you mentioned those two points that

[1:40:39] you were about to mention in the beginning that is supposed to maybe be the outcome of this

[1:40:44] because it seems like there's some question about what the point of this is and that might help people in there.

[1:40:50] Okay.

[1:40:51] So I will repeat the two items.

[1:40:56] So the goal is to provide direction to the applicant.

[1:40:58] To determine if the applicant should be required to prepare a comprehensive economic and community

[1:41:04] impact assessment. That is the first item. And following that, if the applicant can proceed to the preliminary

[1:41:10] plan stage of the application process. So with those two items in mind, we'll use this time going around the table to make

[1:41:19] maybe general comments in addition to what questions you might have.

[1:41:23] Thank you. I think part of my initial reaction is driven by a poor understanding or a lack of clarity about the city's rules for this unique proceeding.

[1:41:44] The fact that it had come up in some of the public testimony and certainly my impression

[1:41:50] is that this doesn't give me much certainty, much to really speak to in terms of approving

[1:42:02] and moving forward if it's only concrete component is the tractous fly store.

[1:42:09] So we're required to have this master plan, we have maybe a third of it sketched out with absolutely no commitment to any of the elements except to supply being what actually happens.

[1:42:26] And so there's just a 90% degree of uncertainty about moving ahead with this larger proposal.

[1:42:34] That's my first impression is I will have a very hard time judging the appropriateness of this proposal.

[1:42:44] The second thing is that the layout that is in front of me, I have to say it doesn't seem very progressive.

[1:42:52] It seems at the very 1980s, and so I would love to hear from the applicant, the larger

[1:43:02] applicant of a B and G, but also maybe they're trying to supply folks about whether they're

[1:43:10] all alternative looks, alternative models.

[1:43:14] We certainly have seen large national chains adapt their appearance for the characteristics

[1:43:20] six of the local community, and so it doesn't look like every other,

[1:43:24] track to supply store, or every other assisted living facility,

[1:43:29] so what kind of flexibility can we try and build in here?

[1:43:33] And with the overall design, I think somebody who testified

[1:43:36] said something that appealed to me about truly integrated community

[1:43:43] feel, you know, what does a small village feel that we can create here?

[1:43:49] That still has the same components, but just looks and feels a lot more livable, because,

[1:43:56] indeed, if I wanted to, if I was a senior, going into assisted living facility, I probably

[1:44:02] want to live next to some more

[1:44:07] daily supportive services like little bodega and a shop for

[1:44:15] something or other, and, you know, a gem, as opposed to a

[1:44:22] track-justice store. So, not that it can't be there, but I

[1:44:27] think we need to think a little bit about a planned village type

[1:44:31] community if we're trying to build something like this and

[1:44:35] not just throw in a bunch of elements and not really expect any

[1:44:41] to them to be happening.

[1:44:43] So that goes back to my puzzlement about what the plan and master plan

[1:44:47] is supposed to do, how it's supposed to help us.

[1:44:53] The technical accounting board, I echo what Steve said.

[1:44:58] This is vague.

[1:44:59] It doesn't seem to be going anywhere, certainly.

[1:45:02] The only certainty seems to be attractive supply.

[1:45:05] But I've got a couple of more specific questions.

[1:45:09] I talked to the hardware stores on Tom today,

[1:45:12] and I talked to the people that run the hardware stores.

[1:45:14] They have no fear of track display, track supply is more business,

[1:45:18] it's going to bring more people.

[1:45:20] In general, they serve a different customer base

[1:45:24] and their common totally was that track supply

[1:45:28] sells good stuff.

[1:45:30] So as long as they don't sell junk, it was still a fine one.

[1:45:34] But the intersection that we're going to create

[1:45:37] with the old MBA and a scooty drive

[1:45:40] And then crossing over onto this double driveway is going to be quite dangerous and the traffic

[1:45:47] study is going to be doubly important because of the impact it's going to have on cracker

[1:45:53] road.

[1:45:54] As you leave EBS and head west and root tree, the road rises and you go on the bend and it

[1:46:01] is a nightmare as it is.

[1:46:04] don't think more cars in from the tracks supply and whatever else development goes on back there

[1:46:10] plus in B&A without a traffic light. It's going to be crazy. I heard talk about a sewer

[1:46:18] that there was going to be a city sewer. There is no city sewer out there at the moment.

[1:46:25] Similarly sidewalk, if you create a sidewalk here right now or there is no sidewalk linking to the city,

[1:46:33] It's a sidewalk and over and it just doesn't seem make any sense.

[1:46:37] We do need the sidewalk over here and if this development does happen,

[1:46:40] then I think we have to reach down and we have to extend the surrout there and we have to extend the

[1:46:50] sidewalks. I believe that tracks supply could be this orientation is awkward and it's

[1:47:02] And the buffer, I don't think is enough, and putting the parking in a front of the building

[1:47:06] is contrary to what we do in the rest of the city.

[1:47:09] And tracks, fly buildings, I think they can be more customers, I think the whole thing

[1:47:15] can be more customers to create a more pleasing and more adaptable building just in case for

[1:47:22] some reason tracks supply doesn't survive.

[1:47:25] That's for it.

[1:47:25] Thank you.

[1:47:29] I would echo everything that my fellow board members have said.

[1:47:34] First of all, I wouldn't really consider this to be a master plan,

[1:47:36] because it's really just a plan for a tractor supply store on 84 acres.

[1:47:42] So we a master plan implies a coherent ground up plan for the entire area,

[1:47:48] and most of this plan is imaginary.

[1:47:51] So I think it's premature to propose anything

[1:47:54] anything until there are actually other components.

[1:47:59] Other businesses that are willing to buy land.

[1:48:02] And then we would know what we're actually looking at.

[1:48:06] Again, the amount of paving relative

[1:48:11] to actually businesses and people

[1:48:15] seems at a proportion and inefficient.

[1:48:18] Our town has vacant retail space downtown,

[1:48:27] this is good land outside of town.

[1:48:29] On the edge of things, and I think in order to pave prime, prime land soils, and cut into an intact wildlife habitat, we need to get some serious benefit to the people of

[1:48:43] Belfast and the surrounding communities as well. And I'm not sure that I have seen anything like that yet, so I would definitely advocate for an impact study as described.

[1:48:53] because I haven't heard from our applicants anything about, but is really going to happen to the other stores, will they be in town, will they be benefited, will they be impacted negatively, job creation and loss, retail wages, benefits, the kind of questions that the town has written down for any kind of big development, those haven't been answered by this master plan.

[1:49:20] So we need to hear a lot more before we can know really

[1:49:24] what the impacts are going to be.

[1:49:27] And yeah, I would like to see some real residential possibilities.

[1:49:37] Maybe some real, just yeah, a real progressive,

[1:49:41] plan unit type development plan first.

[1:49:47] The day bond planning board, the thing that stands out to me

[1:49:51] that 50 acres were nothing on it and the back part of the lot. What kind of a master plan

[1:49:58] is it that has a big open spot like that? I think if this is going to be developed, the

[1:50:06] developer needs to sell us on the master plan that covers the whole lot.

[1:50:12] It's pretty vague

[1:50:12] as everybody has said, only tractor supply is perhaps going to happen and who knows if anything

[1:50:19] else will ever be built there.

[1:50:23] I looked at the expanded site plan and I saw it would look

[1:50:27] like to be a sewer and water easement crossing this property. If that exists I'd like to know

[1:50:33] more about it and how it's going to be dealt with. Would you like an answer to that question now or

[1:50:39] you? Yeah, who would know? The sewer goes through the condominiums, up back I guess. Apparently exists.

[1:50:49] Yes, the desk, my name is Bob Barry, with Mainland representing B&G properties.

[1:50:55] Yeah, that's where we're lying is there.

[1:50:57] I know from heart experience because one time I backed up, and I found it, it does serve

[1:51:04] spring work, condominiums, and our attention there is unknown.

[1:51:11] Again, the master plan, we talked about that a lot already, and I'd like to talk about that

[1:51:16] we can talk about later. But we haven't approached anybody the neighbor yet. We haven't

[1:51:22] approached as far as as the master plane goes. Or dealing with that sewer easement because we're

[1:51:29] not sure what's going to happen there for sure. This is our best guess. This is our best guess based

[1:51:34] on the market conditions as we see today. And the sewer easement can be built on top of B&G properties

[1:51:43] owns the land. There's an easement there for sewer line. We can build on top of it. We can't

[1:51:48] impact it or destroy the line or interrupt their service. We may work with them to see if we

[1:51:55] can do something that's a win for both parties. Because right now, they actually have to maintain

[1:52:01] all the way down through.

[1:52:05] So we'll go around with questions. Follow a question about the sewer.

[1:52:13] Can you hold on?

[1:52:15] We need to use everybody needs to use the microphone.

[1:52:21] I was hoping the director could give us some clarification about what the law, what the ordinance

[1:52:26] requires of an applicant in the master plan.

[1:52:29] Because it's been mentioned by everyone that their little unclear about the nature of the master plan.

[1:52:37] Can we do that?

[1:52:42] The intent of the master plan was to identify what potential development could occur in the property.

[1:52:47] how you'd be servicing the property with such things as road access.

[1:52:51] How you'd be looking at trying to address such things as overall stormwater management,

[1:52:55] something that's been alluded to on the plan about where some of the things would go.

[1:52:59] And if you have any people agree to sense it about how the development would potentially occur.

[1:53:03] Clearly, the initial drive for the master plan was focused on the idea that there would be a larger retail store,

[1:53:09] such as Walmart, much larger in size, and to try and see what

[1:53:18] Ansley developed want to be associated with this.

[1:53:23] It is not uncommon for plans as well to identify undeveloped area or future land

[1:53:30] to be developed, and as such is something that we looked at as being potentially

[1:53:34] appropriate for this one to not identify all uses that may be occurring on the

[1:53:40] This may as to plan maybe a little bit shy, as far as the commitment to some of the things

[1:53:45] that were originally envisioned, and it's one that may warrant some discussion as this is

[1:53:53] after we hear from everybody as to about how to potentially go forward.

[1:53:58] Thank you.

[1:54:05] So, I'm Jeff, Jeff, I'll request from the Planning Board.

[1:54:09] So, I'm sure I'm processing what Wayne said.

[1:54:11] I have some of the same thoughts that other people have had.

[1:54:13] I mean, I think what wrapping my brain around it, I sort of see as the tractor supply development review, which seems simpler to me, I mean, that's a development review that we're used to doing.

[1:54:26] We'd had a bunch of questions about it and concerns about it, but for me it's important to separate out that applicant from the master plan, the whole property.

[1:54:35] And despite what Wayne said, it seems to me that it almost would be really useful to,

[1:54:41] it would have been helpful to my brain to have seen them in two stages of the first

[1:54:44] proposal being the master plan.

[1:54:45] And the second one being applicants coming forward to fulfill the part of the master plan that

[1:54:50] they might be interested in.

[1:54:52] So putting them together makes it really confusing for me.

[1:54:55] What am I approving?

[1:54:56] What am I talking about?

[1:54:59] So I guess that's kind of what my brain is right now.

[1:55:05] Wayne Quarry, planning board, probably have a question for Wayne and a question for Bob

[1:55:13] too.

[1:55:14] I'll start with Wayne.

[1:55:17] So if Wayne maybe you can help us a little bit on deciding about the impact study.

[1:55:24] If you take lots one, two, three and four, can you give us some idea about the traffic count,

[1:55:33] the square footage, and the people count, do you think it's going to be greater than a 75,000 square foot retail store, or do you think it's going to be less than a 75,000 retail store?

[1:55:51] And blah, the one that asks you a question too.

[1:55:56] It appears like you're selling off the lights.

[1:55:59] And I'm wondering whether there will be a condominium association, or whether you will take care of the roads, the lights and the utilities, and how that's going to work.

[1:56:49] out into separate ownership groups, like a subdivision. That's not being proposed at this time,

[1:56:56] but that's how we figured it would eventually go. And so we were showing those lots as

[1:57:02] saying, well, look, if you're an assisted living developer, you would want that parcel. And

[1:57:07] if you're a retail hotel person, you would want that area. And if you're a multifamily, you

[1:57:13] want that area. And so that's how the lots were shown on the plan, just to show how those

[1:57:22] property lines might go. As far as an association, there would have to be some sort of

[1:57:29] road association up until the time if the city, if they decided to take it on as a public

[1:57:35] group.

[1:57:40] Again, identify specifically how much traffic would be associated with proposed development,

[1:57:43] that I will take with track to supply says, which is a Coral Palmer Army.

[1:57:47] I will have a track to supply.

[1:57:48] It's there looking about 80 and 90 vehicle trips in a peak hour.

[1:57:51] If you're looking about 24 or a single or a multi-family houses, you're looking at probably

[1:57:57] 235, 240 trips per day, which is about 35 and a peak hour, because you're going to take

[1:58:06] somewhere between 15 and 18 percent of your trips and spread them out on what the peak

[1:58:10] hour time happens to be.

[1:58:11] The hotel really is going to be dependent upon the number of rooms.

[1:58:16] The restaurant is really a lot of it's going to be dependent if it's a fast food restaurant.

[1:58:19] Versus what's going to be a sit down restaurant, as far as being able to come with the trips.

[1:58:25] What we would like to try and do is on a traffic study for the long term,

[1:58:29] is to try and identify what high ranges for those would be,

[1:58:33] and to identify what the amount of traffic associated with such with each one of those potential would be.

[1:58:37] And the big thing to me really gets to be then where you have a single point of access, at what point in time does it create what M dot refers to as the warrant to put in a signalized intersection at what is the Bank of America scooty drive entrance with this project, and that's what you're really trying to get a better sense of from the traffic study.

[1:59:01] You know, there are very few intersections in Belfast that have ever come close to reaching

[1:59:09] the warrant levels with MDOT, so folks need to keep that in consideration.

[1:59:15] Even where most folks, if you'd asked them, root 141, the Descent Intersection that clearly

[1:59:21] warns a light, MDOT is determined that that intersection doesn't warrant a signal light, even

[1:59:27] with the long ways that people have to make a left turn,

[1:59:31] which sometimes approach more than three minutes

[1:59:33] to make the left turn to go north.

[1:59:36] So, kind of keep that in mind,

[1:59:38] but that's something that we're going to depend upon

[1:59:40] with the applicant's taking a look at what traffic is

[1:59:43] is about where a singleization comes into place.

[1:59:46] And that impacts study as well.

[1:59:48] The traffic study is really separate from the question

[1:59:50] of the impact study on looking at what's in the comprehensive

[1:59:54] economic and community impact study.

[1:59:56] That's not an issue with that study.

[2:00:06] I mean it's Paul Dean, Belfast City Council.

[2:00:09] I just have some general statements, no questions,

[2:00:13] after listening here for a while.

[2:00:15] This master plan basically is just one development permit

[2:00:18] from what I can see.

[2:00:20] The other three lots are just proposed,

[2:00:22] uses for the area.

[2:00:26] My personal feeling is I like to see retail

[2:00:29] and rentals being different places.

[2:00:31] this is my preference. I also wanted to speak to the planning board, is that there are

[2:00:39] some trails on this property and I hope there's some discussion on a public trail use

[2:00:45] for that property. That's important. This root 3 commercials owning district has been

[2:00:52] here for 11 new years and that's what it was designed for. Commercial grow. And

[2:01:02] if

[2:01:02] to supply comes in here. I would look at other commercial entities also. This was picked

[2:01:12] out of the entire town of Belfast, serving on the comprehensive plant committee. We reviewed

[2:01:19] 11 other places in Belfast and this was the only one that was acceptable. When you look at

[2:01:25] the traffic flow patterns and so forth, all throughout the city, you know, these are just some

[2:01:30] points I wanted to make. The other thing, too, is both asked, been working had on climate change.

[2:01:38] And I'm looking at track to supply, I'm hoping that there's a little bit of wiggle room

[2:01:42] here that you could talk to them about solar and possibly working on buildings that don't have

[2:01:47] flat roofs. That's an important thing for this community. The drainage, you know, heard Chris

[2:01:57] Forget as last name, speak about the drainage, coming off this site, quite an elevation.

[2:02:04] Once those ponds fill up, that water will go somewhere.

[2:02:08] So it's important to identify where that water goes.

[2:02:11] The some streams that go down to salt water along with the water system that we have in place.

[2:02:17] So it's something the planning board will be addressing with these people that are coming forward with this development permit.

[2:02:28] drainage, grocery store. If you ever get a chance to talk about that, we need another one

[2:02:33] in Belfast. And the other thing I'm hearing too tonight is the screening of lights, noise,

[2:02:41] a wild life corridor in that area. It's something to keep in mind. You have a spring book that

[2:02:46] is to the west of this site and it's important to keep that integrity of those woods as best

[2:02:52] as you can to keep some division between the two.

[2:02:57] Also, tractor supplies were useful to me in a little bit of a country.

[2:03:01] There are things I can buy there that I cannot buy anywhere else in Belfast.

[2:03:06] Three point hits, I mean there's a lot of things I have a couple of tractors, and I can't

[2:03:11] buy that unless I go to Bangalore or something.

[2:03:14] So I look at this development to be spot on for this area, for what we have on, you know,

[2:03:21] a cold enforcement at this time, and thank you very much, have a good evening.

[2:03:29] My early city council,

[2:03:35] a couple of years ago, we martial as just could you imagine, bellfast, with 20,000 people, and we all kind of laughed at the idea,

[2:03:45] but bellfast is growing, it's continuing to grow, and it's not going to, I think, bellfast is a really nice place in a really nice place, and we're going to see these things that want to come here.

[2:04:02] I was glad to hear the word smart growth.

[2:04:05] I've really taken issue with local citizens for smart growth as if they own smart growth

[2:04:12] because smart growth is something I've believed in studied and followed for 40 years.

[2:04:18] And I've seen a lot of it and I've seen a lot of bad growth in other places,

[2:04:24] as well.

[2:04:29] I'm glad we're talking about the impact study. Number one, because I could, you

[2:04:36] know, for instance, when they built Springbrook or Bank of America or EcoVillage or two restaurants

[2:04:42] now proposed before a death plan board or a second farmer's market or a corner spring or

[2:04:48] were trillion caters, or a front-street shipyard,

[2:04:52] or Bank of America, well, that's MBNA.

[2:04:56] And a whole bunch of other places,

[2:04:58] we've never asked anybody to do an impact study.

[2:05:01] So I'm really opposed to the idea of an impact study.

[2:05:06] And specifically, when it talks about competition,

[2:05:10] and if not, if the planning board,

[2:05:12] and I hear a lot of people saying they're in favor of it,

[2:05:15] then we should have an impact study for every single new business

[2:05:18] that comes into Bel-Fast, which I oppose, but I'm sorry to hear people asking for that.

[2:05:26] This property was specifically identified as a really great site for smart growth.

[2:05:37] I think when people say, you know, think of all the stuff that's in sterod drive.

[2:05:44] what if that was all up and down Route 1 and 3? That's where it would be if we didn't have

[2:05:51] stare at drive. Where would tractor supply who could go over by the way tomorrow and by a

[2:05:58] place on Route 1 and you know that is sprawl that is bad growth. This is a I agree I want to

[2:06:11] to say,

[2:06:15] from 2000 and even way before that, we saw the growth of big retail. And we also saw

[2:06:24] it die. It died on our watch. It's not coming to bell fast. This property with the proposal

[2:06:33] that is being proposed. So in it off now, while we're hearing in small lots, is the end

[2:06:39] of big retail. That's what it is. So if people were afraid of Walmart coming, all you have

[2:06:48] to do is really follow what these big outfits are doing and they're dinosaurs and they have

[2:06:55] a real problem on their hand, which we do not and which the developers have now suggested a way

[2:07:04] to do this. The other thing is, the idea that they should come in with every property

[2:07:12] itemized, what's going to go on this thing? If you want opposition, that's a great way

[2:07:17] to get it, because that would be like, oh my god, now it's too big, all 90 acres. To me,

[2:07:25] I think what you're going to see here is just as we saw on Stair at Drive. You're going

[2:07:30] have a tractor supply, then something over here, three small stores, and then something

[2:07:39] behind it, and eventually it just gets built out, and it becomes an extension. I don't

[2:07:43] think most people when they drive on stare at drive, do not feel like they're driving

[2:07:49] through the apocalypse. It's what it is. It's a Chinese restaurant, et cetera.

[2:07:58] So, as far

[2:08:00] the impact study.

[2:08:03] Unfortunately, it's a relic from something we put in place because we

[2:08:09] are afraid of what might come there. That's not coming here. This is one small thing after

[2:08:15] another. So I don't see the need for an impact study other than traffic. I'm not going

[2:08:22] get into best practices, drainage, lighting, trails. I absolutely think you need a super

[2:08:31] high quality pedestrian bike access that connects to downtown, you know, as far as

[2:08:41] Randy's in all that. And I think that we can sharpen greatly the best practices in

[2:08:50] of how it looks, how it, how all those problems that get solved by planning boards and engineers.

[2:09:04] So, I think that's it. Thank you.

[2:09:14] Thank you, Eric. Neil Hartniss, Elfest City Council.

[2:09:19] to respond to something Mike said, I do feel like that when the city passed the contract

[2:09:27] zoning on this property back in, I think it was 2007, that was an appropriate response

[2:09:33] at the time, but I think it is handcuffed the city ever since, and I think the city is handcuffed

[2:09:40] on this now.

[2:09:41] And I look at this, and I see the Wayne said that the contract

[2:09:45] zoning master plan requires that they identified potential uses.

[2:09:51] And they've done that here.

[2:09:52] And I want to ask you, if the worst case scenario is,

[2:09:56] they build a tractor supply, and the rest of it remains as is what's the problem.

[2:10:03] And if they move forward on this, so we have to separate,

[2:10:11] as you said,

[2:10:11] plan. The master plan from Wayne's description is, has identified potential uses. I'd like

[2:10:16] some clarification on whether or not they can add other potential uses in the future. And

[2:10:21] I'd like some clarification on what's to be done on this back area. As far as I'm concerned,

[2:10:27] I'm going to accept this as a master plan. It says, that's it. That's the back area. It's what's

[2:10:32] done. Okay. I think that would go a long way with a lot of people. A couple of things I wanted

[2:10:37] to bring up somebody mentioned they didn't think anyone would want to live behind the

[2:10:44] development like that. Who I want to point out, if you go to Penn Bay Hospital, you drive

[2:10:49] through their parking lot around the back, pass the emergency room and up the hill. There are

[2:10:54] people who live up that road and some pretty nice houses.

[2:10:58] I don't think that's a detriment to too many people. As far as the impact study on other businesses,

[2:11:04] to me, there's a very gray area because I don't know that it's my place to protect any particular

[2:11:12] business from competition. As long as it's done fairly, and I think in this case, we heard that a large

[2:11:19] percentage, and I'd like to know a little more about that, of things that they sell, are not duplicable

[2:11:25] in other businesses.

[2:11:27] I've heard several people around the table say

[2:11:29] they buy things there that they cannot get elsewhere in town.

[2:11:32] I think that's a very important.

[2:11:35] But again, I don't think it's up to me to say,

[2:11:38] you can be in town, you can't.

[2:11:40] I think at some place the market makes that decision.

[2:11:43] And I think that if business is here,

[2:11:46] one thing I think that if there was one business in town,

[2:11:51] they're gonna be with, I'd be really concerned

[2:11:54] because I think they may very well kill that business, but the impact is going to be

[2:11:57] spread among a number of businesses. So they all may make some, it takes some hit from it,

[2:12:04] but it will not hit one business alone. I didn't want to point out some people talk about noise,

[2:12:10] it doesn't have a noise ordinance. I'm hoping sometime in the very new future, the city has a light

[2:12:15] pollution ordinance. That's something I like to see us work on. The two things that I heard

[2:12:20] that I really think we need to hear a lot more about is run off, I think that needs to

[2:12:26] be addressed, much greater detail and much greater concern we have here.

[2:12:30] And of course, traffic.

[2:12:31] There's no question that we need to identify as the traffic problems.

[2:12:36] And to me, I'm not as worried about Crocker Road and I certainly appreciate the concerns of

[2:12:40] the neighbors here.

[2:12:41] What I really worry about is one and three.

[2:12:44] And the effect of more traffic trying to turn there because, you know, and I drive for a living

[2:12:50] believe me, nobody turns left off a root 1 on a root 3 if they can figure out an alternative.

[2:12:57] And they can figure out alternatives, they can go through handover sparking a lot, they

[2:13:00] can go through bank of America sparking a lot, they can go over to Edgecom Road and it's

[2:13:05] a real mess, and something's going to have to be done, and that's not in our hands, but

[2:13:11] I think, and I also think that talking about the future, I do think there's a lot of other

[2:13:18] land between the intersection there and this proposal, there's a lot of places other businesses

[2:13:27] can go. And at some point will. And then we're going to have a real nightmare of people

[2:13:32] coming up from North Park Lincolnville, I wanted to turn on there to drive and something

[2:13:38] on to a group three to go to those businesses. I think this is tip of the iceberg. And I think

[2:13:48] Get another battle with D.O.T about, so.

[2:13:51] Thank you.

[2:13:56] It's deferring.

[2:13:57] Eric Sanders, good evening.

[2:13:58] Sorry I was late.

[2:14:01] I worked at Bank of America, so I can tell you that I've spoken with a lot of people that work there that don't live in Belfast, and that do go to tractor supply, and they're all...

[2:14:14] Getties are wrong word, but there is a unique.

[2:14:17] A lot of people shop at tractor supply for various things.

[2:14:19] I've never been in one yet.

[2:14:22] But I would worry for the workers safety at Bank of America,

[2:14:25] at lunch hour crossing the road from our exit

[2:14:29] straight into the parking lot and back and forth.

[2:14:33] So there's traffic studies, and then there's

[2:14:35] reality studies.

[2:14:37] And I would have to say that, and everybody in the show

[2:14:42] if you don't know it, I'm not a supporter of big boxes.

[2:14:45] I'm just not.

[2:14:46] I've campaigned on that 10 years ago.

[2:14:49] I look at South Thomas Donner, or whatever it is,

[2:14:52] beyond Rockland, with the development.

[2:14:55] And we almost bought a house down there in 2004,

[2:14:58] but then we chose to move to Velfast instead.

[2:15:00] And there's reasons for that.

[2:15:02] And what they've done down there is not anything remotely

[2:15:05] like I would like to see up here.

[2:15:07] I've done the trek across Maine for 10 years in a row.

[2:15:10] And every time you enter a farmington from the route,

[2:15:13] you pass a Walmart and the parking lot.

[2:15:15] And then you get into the store town.

[2:15:18] And I think change is good.

[2:15:22] But I think that Belfast is a unique town

[2:15:24] with unique people.

[2:15:26] And some of the letters that I've been reading

[2:15:28] talk about any town USA.

[2:15:30] And I don't think the citizens of Belfast

[2:15:32] may consider themselves just any people USA.

[2:15:37] And I think that's why we're having a healthy discussion.

[2:15:41] Master plan, I'm personally would really like to know or have in writing that the back

[2:15:48] acreage would be just left alone if that's the case.

[2:15:51] I think there's a large contingent of people out there curious about further development,

[2:15:56] potential.

[2:15:58] I think that it would be negligent to do an impact study since we don't know the competition

[2:16:05] of the stores since we don't know anybody besides tractor supply coming.

[2:16:10] That's just those are my thoughts, I'd like to see the process, I'd like to go through it with a neutral even mind, I'm not against it.

[2:16:19] I just don't have enough detail at this time.

[2:16:23] I really admire and look forward to the planning boards work on this and I don't think it's going to be an easy one.

[2:16:29] My final thoughts and just bear with me because I'm a more of a visual person.

[2:16:34] I do not mind Rene's Plaza at all.

[2:16:39] I do not mind Rene's Plaza at all.

[2:16:41] However, if you were proposing to build that today,

[2:16:44] I probably wouldn't think that would be a great idea for looks, for et cetera.

[2:16:51] But here it's already here and we happily shop there and go and go in and out and all of that.

[2:16:59] And behind Rene's, there used to be the grandstands in the horse racing and all of that's gone.

[2:17:04] But 100 years ago, it was a very important component of the town.

[2:17:08] So I do think things change over time.

[2:17:11] They have inflow.

[2:17:13] And therefore, I think it's important to keep an open mind

[2:17:15] about the process and what could happen here

[2:17:18] and how it might not be the end of the world.

[2:17:21] It might be a good thing for many, many people.

[2:17:24] And those are my thoughts.

[2:17:30] I'm shootouts with the Flying Board.

[2:17:33] Lottery comments have been made about the master plan.

[2:17:36] I like to propose that the owner look at the entire property, sort of not so much in terms

[2:17:44] of this type of development of that type of bill, but just look at what the site offers,

[2:17:49] what its limitations are, environmental limitations, how you might address the various things

[2:17:55] we talked about, storm drainage, trail, all the different factors, the neighbors, the tree buffers,

[2:18:02] all these things and maybe create a series of overlays that ultimately leads to perhaps a variety

[2:18:11] of development sites that could be filled in a variety of ways depending what the market

[2:18:15] really says is needed.

[2:18:18] Track to supply seems like a really good business for the site from what I've heard.

[2:18:24] And maybe there are other businesses that could be more attracted to this site by knowing.

[2:18:28] Having more about the site itself than what we know right now, seems like most of the information is built around what happens with the trackers supply or proposal, which is fine.

[2:18:40] But for the whole site, it would be better to know more about the whole property.

[2:18:45] That could lead to discussions like, hey, maybe part of it shouldn't be developed at all because of various environmental considerations or whatever.

[2:18:53] On the other hand, it may open up other opportunities that we can't see without more information.

[2:18:56] So, I'm

[2:19:01] Jim Duff, and I'm a member of the Design Review Committee.

[2:19:06] I just want to pose a brief question to the applicant.

[2:19:09] How was it determined that the building would be 19,000 square feet plus a few?

[2:19:32] I believe the question was, how did you determine the size of the building, which is just a few square feet more than 19,000?

[2:19:40] The size of the buildings dictated by tractor supply, they really have two models.

[2:19:46] They have a 19,097 square foot model, and really that comes from just the dimensions.

[2:19:51] It's 125 wide by 150 deep.

[2:19:54] They're doing 90% of their stores.

[2:19:57] That size.

[2:19:58] They do have a prototype out west where they do 21,930 square feet because they have interior

[2:20:07] structure for hay sales as much hay sales in the eastern part of the U.S. as there is in the western

[2:20:12] so that's how they arrived at that particular size.

[2:20:17] Are there other tractor supply stores of this size 19,097 square feet?

[2:20:22] All their new builds that they build from the ground up will be 19,000 yeah the 19,000 square feet.

[2:20:30] Thank you.

[2:20:31] Sure.

[2:20:33] I don't have any additional comments but I'm wondering if you want to talk about what to

[2:20:37] do next.

[2:20:37] I have a comment, Samantha Paret here, Mayor.

[2:20:44] So, in a couple of other comments, I heard people speak about smart growth.

[2:20:50] And I just wanted to clarify that the 10 principles of smart growth include mixed land uses,

[2:20:56] taking advantage of compact building design, creating a range of housing opportunities and choices,

[2:21:02] creating walkable neighborhoods with a variety of transportation options, fostering distinctive

[2:21:09] and attractive communities with a strong sense of place.

[2:21:14] Preserving open space farmland, natural beauty and critical environmental areas, strengthening

[2:21:19] and directing and direct development towards existing communities, providing a variety of

[2:21:26] transportation choices, making development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective,

[2:21:31] of an encouraging community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions.

[2:21:39] I've heard that it may be negligent to do an economic impact study by a fellow counselor.

[2:21:47] My concern here, and I think someone else comment on this as well, is that it seems like this

[2:21:53] is just a proposal for a tractor supply on the face of it, but I worry about doing

[2:22:02] and proceeding with that only in mind when we're looking at an entire parcel of land, you

[2:22:10] know what?

[2:22:11] And this master plan is important in that we're thinking about Belfast and 50 to 200 years.

[2:22:21] And if we're just reviewing this on the concept of tractor supply, I worry that we're selling

[2:22:25] off like individual, as you said, you're selling off individual lots.

[2:22:29] and then what becomes of the bigger hole.

[2:22:34] So that is, that's my thought.

[2:22:39] I'm just wanting to clarify what this Mark Grove principles were

[2:22:44] and agreeing that it does seem like if a face of this

[2:22:49] were just approving a transfer moving forward with the idea

[2:22:53] of a tractor supply.

[2:22:55] But I'm wanting us all to keep in mind that the master plan,

[2:22:57] the larger master plan is very, very much importance.

[2:23:03] And with that, so we have two items.

[2:23:08] The first item we need to consider is, should the applicant be required to prepare a comprehensive

[2:23:14] economic and community impact assessment.

[2:23:18] And I'm wondering, Wayne, if you could, give us a brief outline of what that would entail.

[2:23:23] And did you please use the microphone?

[2:23:26] I'm going to read right from the ordinance.

[2:23:29] Thank you.

[2:23:30] And again, the intent here is that the applicant

[2:23:35] would be required to provide funds to the city.

[2:23:39] The city would then go hire a firm to do the impact study.

[2:23:45] And then the council with recommendations from the planning board

[2:23:51] would review the impact study and make the decision is about whether or not the project did not create an adverse impact to the fact that it should be able to go forward.

[2:24:06] The reason why we put the impact study up front when we wrote the code in 2007 is that if the council, I'll get into that in just a moment, made a decision that the impact study would create an adverse impact

[2:24:18] that where we wanted to not have the applicant have to go forward with doing all the

[2:24:25] site plan work that they need to do because that's how critical it was and again

[2:24:30] when that impact study was largely envisioned it was for the larger retail store

[2:24:35] When the code was written as well the onus was put on the council to make the decision on the impact study

[2:24:41] more so than the planning board the planning board was a recommending body because it was viewed that the impact

[2:24:46] study was largely focusing on economic impact, as well as impact on municipal services, and that

[2:24:53] the council was in the best position to make that call as opposed to the planning board.

[2:24:58] That sort of some background.

[2:25:00] So the two things that are comprised of the study itself, the first is analysis of impact

[2:25:04] on local economy, that it identifies six criteria, and this is mostly used in it says,

[2:25:10] is using existing studies in data, and through the collection analysis of new data, the

[2:25:16] analysis show identify the following.

[2:25:19] One, the economic effects of the proposed development

[2:25:22] on existing retail operations.

[2:25:25] Two, sub-supply and demand for retail space.

[2:25:31] Three, number and location of existing retail establishments,

[2:25:36] where there is an overlap of goods and services offered.

[2:25:41] for employment, including projected net job creation and loss.

[2:25:48] 5. Retail wages and benefits.

[2:25:52] Recognize that there was not a minimal current,

[2:25:57] their own wage law didn't apply back there.

[2:25:58] So, the things have really changed. In seven, six is captured share of existing retail sales. In seven is sales revenue retained and reinvested into local area. A lot of those criteria were taken right out of the inform growth act. So, that's where a lot of that was the genesis a lot of where those were. When we took the inform growth act, we scripted out all the environmental considerations.

[2:26:29] because review those is being better addressed through site plan.

[2:26:33] Review, we would have more concrete data than the generic data that

[2:26:38] done before you had much of assessment.

[2:26:41] So the number one was the analysis of impact on local economy.

[2:26:46] Before I go on to the second, I just asked if there's any questions.

[2:26:54] B, analysis, municipal revenues, and expenditures.

[2:26:58] This is probably a more traditional impact study.

[2:27:00] Using existing studies in data, and through the collection analysis of new data, the analysis

[2:27:06] showed identified the following, one municipal revenue is generated, two municipal capital

[2:27:14] service and maintenance costs caused by the development construction and operation, including

[2:27:20] cost of roads, traffic control, and pedestrian bicycle amenities, three municipal capital

[2:27:28] service and maintenance costs caused by the development, construction and operation, including

[2:27:33] cost of police, fire, rescue, and sewer services, four amount of public subsidies, including

[2:27:42] tax increment financing, and five, public water, utility, sewerage disposal, and solid waste

[2:27:50] disposal capacity, and the cost of providing such services. Those are the two things

[2:27:57] who are really, through broad categories that are identified in the impact study.

[2:28:05] And Wayne, we are to consider the entire master plan when deciding whether to do economic

[2:28:14] impact study.

[2:28:16] Do you have any questions?

[2:28:17] I'm sorry.

[2:28:19] When you go up a little bit further, it talks about looking at, there's a lot of discussion about

[2:28:27] the impact of a large retail store in the code.

[2:28:31] And so that was a lot of the genesis of the study.

[2:28:35] And again, we took it out of the informed growth act.

[2:28:38] It is mandatory for anything, 75,000 square foot and greater

[2:28:41] and not for 20,000 square foot and less.

[2:28:45] And I think part of your difficulty in this case

[2:28:47] is to be looking at the impact from development

[2:28:52] that is not as well defined.

[2:28:55] Anything is truly well defined as the tractor supply store and not knowing what the type of

[2:29:01] restaurant would be, what the type of small retail would be, and then if you're looking

[2:29:07] at the impact of housing, that's sure that there's a lot of consideration.

[2:29:12] And on hotel, it would be, you need to take a look as to about what the impact would be

[2:29:16] on other hotels, primarily on the east side.

[2:29:18] So the economic impact study would take into consideration the entire master plan?

[2:29:24] It was really a challenge to look at the total amount of development on the site.

[2:29:28] So with the proposal before us as this master plan, it would take into account the entire master plan.

[2:29:37] Thank you.

[2:29:40] So we could move forward with the discussion on this item.

[2:29:47] I'm wondering how

[2:29:51] best to do that if we want to limit like a time we have two items before

[2:29:55] us in the 830 now.

[2:29:58] So we have a half an hour discussed for discussion and then hopefully move forward with some

[2:30:05] sort of motion.

[2:30:07] That's not okay.

[2:30:10] Is there someone that would like to speak?

[2:30:12] The

[2:30:18] Council has two choices.

[2:30:19] When I say the Council, I apologize.

[2:30:21] It's Council Board.

[2:30:22] You can either take action tonight on these two issues,

[2:30:26] or what you can do is basically continue to

[2:30:31] another joint meeting.

[2:30:33] But the decisions have to be by the joint bodies.

[2:30:36] That's the way that the code is set up.

[2:30:44] Is there a member that would like to speak for us?

[2:30:46] Yes, Neil.

[2:30:48] I think you, I would just like to ask Wayne a little bit about process.

[2:30:51] And the timeline that would be quite or how long with this process take to do this impact study.

[2:31:04] You told me this evening to do one.

[2:31:07] What we would do is we don't have to necessarily go through a request for proposal process.

[2:31:13] We can reach out directly to the few firms in the state who may even have the capability of doing it.

[2:31:19] My guess is it would take anywhere from three to four weeks to put someone under contract with a defined scope of work.

[2:31:27] And then it would probably be under the law if I recall they talked about 45 days to prepare the study

[2:31:33] and then it would be bringing it back to the council, another joint meeting.

[2:31:42] So here at 75, you're probably at somewhere in a range of 90 to 110 days.

[2:31:48] For the time period that you said, do the study to the time period where the study would be done and the results would come back.

[2:31:56] What I, I would want to, we would get a better sense of that timeline to actually do the analysis after actually speaking with firms who may be in a position to do the work.

[2:32:07] Some of the timelines were identified in the original and foreign growth act also considered environmental considerations that are not part of this review.

[2:32:15] And so maybe the time period may be a bit less.

[2:32:22] I think three to four weeks to put somebody on their contract will be really optimistic

[2:32:25] because we have to draft the RFP, it goes out to bid, right?

[2:32:28] We've got to bid for it.

[2:32:30] We don't have to go for it.

[2:32:39] Given that we're talking about the whole property, the master plan,

[2:32:44] how can they possibly do an impact study?

[2:32:46] We don't know how we're talking about.

[2:32:48] There's no, there are no defined businesses.

[2:32:50] So, and we don't, we're not comparing apples to oranges of bananas.

[2:32:56] We've got nothing compared to their milk particles.

[2:32:58] So, I don't know if we can do it.

[2:33:07] Potential approach would be to not have, and I think,

[2:33:12] I'll put things on the table, why not?

[2:33:15] Not having impact study done for the director's supply proposal.

[2:33:19] Should there be a development that has some degree of

[2:33:27] and then you have the impact.

[2:33:32] You could also

[2:33:41] consider a different threshold if there's some comfort level that people have, that they're okay with tractor supply, but maybe there's a trigger on the other side, maybe it's size, something like that, you could come up with your own trigger that you felt like was more appropriate for today.

[2:33:59] Wayne, this is a theoretical question for you.

[2:34:04] If we didn't go forward with an impact study on the first four lots, and they came back later

[2:34:12] with a big box store on March 5, would we then have a second chance for an impact?

[2:34:17] Yes, that's what I was suggesting, and I think that's what Sadie was suggesting as well,

[2:34:21] is that today is that the only decision you're going to be making is not to require an impact

[2:34:26] study for the tractor supply component of the project, and that you would reserve judgment

[2:34:31] on any other development on the site, and making that a basically as a condition of the

[2:34:38] approval that would be established by the planning board, and ultimately through the city

[2:34:42] Council on a contract rezoning agreement.

[2:34:44] So the only thing that you are saying, you don't have to do the impact study on is a 20,000

[2:34:51] square foot redevelopment.

[2:34:52] You are not making a decision on any other potential use of the property as maybe propose in the master plan or as maybe propose out of future date for any other portion of the property.

[2:35:09] And for me that would be a much easier decision to go forward with at this time.

[2:35:15] Daisy.

[2:35:17] Can you pass a microphone?

[2:35:25] My question is sort of speak to what the mayor was mentioning about,

[2:35:32] smart growth and erosion of a large property by gradual subdivision.

[2:35:41] So I don't know if an impact study is appropriate for very theoretical businesses,

[2:35:49] But what other means do we have to give the people of Belfass what they deserve as far as keeping the character of our town, of the feeling that the smart growth pencil is that sounds like there's a lot of agreement in the room and in town.

[2:36:06] So, what can we do to prevent that eating away a process that results in straw?

[2:36:18] So, what are alternatives?

[2:36:20] Because I think this poverty is unique.

[2:36:23] It's very large.

[2:36:24] It's undeveloped.

[2:36:27] It's got woodland.

[2:36:29] It's got potential agricultural land on it.

[2:36:32] And it's near town.

[2:36:33] And it's near, there are a lot of special characteristics

[2:36:36] about this site.

[2:36:37] And I think it does deserve special process.

[2:36:48] OK, Erica, something to say right now, Scott.

[2:36:51] 2007, after a multi-year process, the city of Belfast

[2:36:57] decided that this was the one site in Belfast

[2:37:01] that should be reserved for larger retail development.

[2:37:05] They'll fast as 22,000 plus acres, not all of those 22,000 plus acres need to be reserved for

[2:37:13] woodland, for farmland, or for other similar type of uses.

[2:37:18] This is a site that is compact, it's adjacent to the existing retail development in the city.

[2:37:25] It is inside the urban compact zone.

[2:37:28] There is public sewer right next door, at the Nixon pump station, there's actually sewer

[2:37:33] to this individual property through the easement that goes through.

[2:37:36] When you start looking at the area, I'm going to echo something at Paul Dinsett as well

[2:37:42] is that we looked from a traffic perspective back in like 2001-2002 with all different locations

[2:37:48] in Belfast.

[2:37:49] This was one of only two that made work.

[2:37:51] The other one didn't work because of control of access highway down on Route 1.

[2:37:56] This is one that we, certainly, went out and looked at any number of additional sites and

[2:38:03] they didn't have either the topography, the size to be able to support large development.

[2:38:09] I'm going to go back to something that Mike said because it's something I've also talked

[2:38:12] to Mike about.

[2:38:14] Stairer Drive is a major success story in Bellfast.

[2:38:18] If you would think about what it is to take a Dunkin Donuts in a Subway and to make all

[2:38:23] those individual crew cuts on Route 3 for a business that may be about 3,000 square feet in size.

[2:38:30] Because that's what those are.

[2:38:33] And you would line those up and down to be that as sprawling type development.

[2:38:38] When you take development on a site, put it on a single access drive, run it through a

[2:38:43] signal light, keep it inside urban compact, where there are services to be you're

[2:38:48] starting to make things work.

[2:38:49] Some of the things that I think were wrong that Bell fasted in the past is that they decided

[2:38:54] once before in the 1990s that development should all occur along the Searsport Avenue

[2:38:59] and we won.

[2:39:00] The city extended sewer services all the way to the Bell Fast Searsport line minus a few feet.

[2:39:07] And that was the idea of how to take development, put it on a 55 mile an hour highway with

[2:39:13] curved cuts all along the line before M dot put in what it gets to be access

[2:39:17] management standards. That to me is sprawling potential for sprawling development.

[2:39:22] If you look at that area, there is no depth to any of the development along those

[2:39:25] areas. This is one of the few places along Route 3 that we actually have a chance

[2:39:30] for some depth of development and not just one store sticking along the road and not

[2:39:36] having any connection to anything else. So I'm going to say right up fine. I reject

[2:39:41] the fact that the contention that this is not a good place for development. I reject the fact

[2:39:48] that where smart growth has to be looked at on each and every parcel, meaning on an individual

[2:39:54] basis, you need to look at it community-wide, and that's what smart growth really talks about.

[2:40:01] If you take where it gets to be, is that I'm going to pick up, I'm sorry, I take what comes out

[2:40:06] of the gateway one study, which Steve participated in any number of years in which the city participated

[2:40:11] These are the type of barriers where you're trying to have to think is what's the speed of highway in this area?

[2:40:17] 25 and 35 miles an hour.

[2:40:20] So I would suggest to folks that when you look at things, there's some controls in this area right now to be able to do things through contract rezoning to put additional particular stipulations on.

[2:40:32] There is the ability to have a look at the property, should any further development be proposed by having conditions,

[2:40:39] if you say that the impact study is required for the first but you may require for any future

[2:40:43] development and those are the type of tools the municipality is often trying to rest.

[2:40:48] Wayne, thank you for your opinion. However, I'm not sure that we got to the basis of Daisy's

[2:40:55] question. Do you feel like your question was answered?

[2:41:07] I think there's a certain kind of up, there's areas on here should be reserved for agriculture.

[2:41:13] No, I think her question was, if you want to question, if you want to clarify,

[2:41:16] all fast is zoned to allow agricultural uses.

[2:41:21] Wait, I understand that you have an opinion about it.

[2:41:24] I'm just a little opinion, is it a policy?

[2:41:27] Okay, Daisy had a question.

[2:41:31] Can you use the microphone?

[2:41:33] Thank you.

[2:41:33] If just to reiterate my question is about process, so what's appropriate process for this

[2:41:39] special lot?

[2:41:42] What are the alternatives to a full-on impact setting that looks at economics in environmental

[2:41:49] issues?

[2:41:51] And municipal impacts, and so what other methods are to understand with the impacts on

[2:41:57] public sewer, water, et cetera, and how they're balanced by tax revenue, et cetera.

[2:42:02] What's the next step if we reject the impact study?

[2:42:08] How do we shade it?

[2:42:14] Steve, are you wanting to?

[2:42:16] Steve has already asked the question.

[2:42:17] You've already spoken on this issue.

[2:42:19] Wayne, did you want to respond again?

[2:42:22] Or, it looks like-

[2:42:22] I think that the tool that was suggested to put on the table is that

[2:42:28] the only thing that we're waving an impact study on at this point in time

[2:42:33] is for a 19,000 square foot retail development.

[2:42:38] There is no decision being made by this council or planning board

[2:42:42] to wave of impact study for any future development

[2:42:45] to let occur on the site.

[2:42:47] To clarify, there's been no motion

[2:42:48] or no deliberation by the council or the group

[2:42:52] among us of council board to exempt this one development.

[2:42:56] That is a possible proposal.

[2:43:01] So I'll move to I see Neil, Declan and Mike, did not in this, not in this discussion

[2:43:13] after.

[2:43:15] So again, I'm going to ask for patients.

[2:43:18] There's a lot of us around the table, and I can't keep track of if you've spoken or not.

[2:43:23] And so please be respectful, and if you have used time, then deferred to someone else who has not asked a question.

[2:43:32] And we have about 15 minutes on this item.

[2:43:34] We agreed to half an hour.

[2:43:37] And so Neil, have you asked a question in this discussion?

[2:43:40] I just got to ask this question.

[2:43:43] So we'll go to Mike and then Declan.

[2:43:47] And I'm asking that we all, again, I hope you've already said.

[2:43:53] Thank you.

[2:43:54] And Daisy, I agree with you.

[2:43:57] It's a really special property.

[2:43:59] And I think it's special for exactly the purpose.

[2:44:02] That's being proposed for it.

[2:44:05] I think it's greatest value to the city and to the people of Belfast is that all of this stuff that wants to go there will go on and read three if we don't have this. It'll go on and read one.

[2:44:20] And I don't think it's our, it's not my mission to stop all, you know.

[2:44:25] I'm not in the business of saying, trying to manipulate this, to stop, track, or supply.

[2:44:31] So I think it's really that if you want to contain stuff, you want to keep it close,

[2:44:37] you want to make it so that people can get to it and by the way, thank you Mayor, I think

[2:44:42] that was really good reading those points.

[2:44:45] I do completely support the idea of maintaining the impact study for any large growth that

[2:44:52] exceeds sort of what's projected. Thank you,

[2:44:58] David.

[2:45:01] I'd like to know how this impacts contract

[2:45:05] rezoning. It looks like we're coming down to just talking about one small lot, one small business

[2:45:12] and yet we're here because we need to deal with contract rezoning on this whole pencil.

[2:45:19] So where are we? What are we going to do about contract?

[2:45:26] There are some opportunities to have the

[2:45:33] specific conditions of the contract to apply the specific development of this property, this

[2:45:38] individual tractor supply, with having general guidelines for the remainder, with I always

[2:45:47] fall back on this one.

[2:45:50] One street shipyard has a amendment 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 8, 8, 8, 8 to their contract,

[2:45:55] as things change, there's an opportunity to make additional, that's my follow.

[2:46:04] Additional changes to what the agreement happens to be.

[2:46:08] It's something that's going to be in flex over time.

[2:46:11] Particularly when you have a master plan, which is what a master plan is,

[2:46:15] that identifies broad uses for a site and not all the specifics of a site.

[2:46:20] So, through a contract rezoning agreement, you always, any planning board, who will really,

[2:46:27] you have the ability to have the project come back as any amendments may occur to the site.

[2:46:32] That's it.

[2:46:33] To me, is the number one to you?

[2:46:38] Do you have a question, or are

[2:46:43] you?

[2:46:49] How does the group feel about the applicant providing recommendation?

[2:46:56] Is there general consensus?

[2:46:59] Yes.

[2:46:59] Can we pass a microphone?

[2:47:08] Listening to the thoughtful conversation that you're having.

[2:47:12] It seems like it's some of the comments from more around maybe master planning principles

[2:47:21] or design goals for the master plan recognizing that the tractor supply is the only user

[2:47:28] that's known right now.

[2:47:29] So rather than kind of the impact study that seemed geared more

[2:47:35] for big box Walmart size establishments, perhaps in the contract

[2:47:42] rezoning, we come up with some design goals for the rest

[2:47:47] of the parcel that's more kind of narrative form around compatibility,

[2:47:52] around interconnections so that there's guidance to the owner.

[2:47:58] There's also guidance to the board and confidence by the council that moving forward, this is how a project will build out in a smart growth way and a compatible way, recognizing, we don't know yet, you know, what those other, those other uses are, so that could be a way to shape this, to provide guidance for everybody kind of moving forward and some confidence around how tractor supply fits into a lot of the picture power.

[2:48:28] Thank you.

[2:48:32] So, in keeping in mind that ten smart growth principles that the mayor read to us, in particular, some that really struck a chord with me, or maybe they weren't specifically stated, but full into those, would be in light of your comment, would be shared parking opportunities, would be very particular.

[2:49:01] industry and biking friendly opportunities because there's a good chance we're going to very

[2:49:08] shortly be entering into a common streets conversation and decision and also keeping in mind

[2:49:18] comments we heard about wildlife on the back of the property so possible wildlife corridors,

[2:49:26] trail corridors that weren't specifically mentioned in the ten listed items but certainly

[2:49:33] relate and come back to comments we've heard tonight. And I just want to make a separate

[2:49:41] comment and in our discussions the grocery store comment has not come up and of the things

[2:49:48] I heard tonight, this is something we've heard in this community for years, and it came

[2:49:55] back to the forefront tonight.

[2:49:57] It was the most repeated comment in this room from the public tonight, and if I were

[2:50:05] the owner of this property, I would want to be told very specifically that that was the most

[2:50:12] repeated comment that happened in this room tonight and possibly small retail and another

[2:50:19] bank lot when we have banks of the Yazoo and you know I look at this master plan that was

[2:50:24] presented with all good intention and and some really good parts to it but after listening

[2:50:30] tonight I'm thinking that a lot across from tractor supply should be a grocery store personally.

[2:50:38] Thank you, Mary.

[2:50:42] Wait.

[2:50:47] Just a little clarification.

[2:50:49] I know Bob represents the fear of families.

[2:50:53] And are there three of you together?

[2:50:58] Let me just continue.

[2:51:00] I know you're developing the tractor trail a lot.

[2:51:03] Are you going to develop the rest of the parcel, too?

[2:51:06] Is that?

[2:51:09] We have no intentions of being involved in any other part of the parcel.

[2:51:17] Well, working with tractor supply, I'm just giving guidance to everybody.

[2:51:20] doing Bob?

[2:51:22] I'm around working hard.

[2:51:32] Wave, can you pass the microphone?

[2:51:35] I

[2:51:39] guess I'd just like to make short comment.

[2:51:42] One is I don't think an impact study is needed for the tractor supply

[2:51:45] proposal.

[2:51:47] That's really all it's being proposed right now for this site.

[2:51:49] As Wayne said, if something else is proposed,

[2:51:53] you can revisit this issue.

[2:51:56] The second comment would be that I just think more

[2:51:59] piled master planning needs to be done.

[2:52:00] This is sort of a beginning, and Mary said it well, you know, it's like, okay, there's some good ideas, but there's something else that needs to be done.

[2:52:08] Smart growth, you know, all the conditions on the site, I think it's in the owners interest to invest in better in more master planning.

[2:52:17] It's in the city's interest to be participate in that.

[2:52:21] So that the city gets what the city believes to be the best outcome I'm also.

[2:52:26] I can imagine that a well-constructed master plan could be used as a really great marketing tool.

[2:52:33] I think as you intend to use this master plan for to attract businesses that might like to be in Belfast.

[2:52:43] And probably there are a lot of businesses that would like to be in Belfast, particularly if we explained it to him better in this case.

[2:52:49] So I would say no on the impact study for this specific proposal and yes to more master

[2:52:56] planning which might include some city involvement if that's possible but certainly an investment

[2:53:00] by the owner to do so too.

[2:53:08] Did you have a comment?

[2:53:09] No.

[2:53:12] At this point we've been talking about this issue for about 25 minutes or this item is there a member

[2:53:21] would like to make a motion to this item.

[2:53:42] Okay. Okay we got it. Paul Dean City Council. I'd

[2:53:48] like to make a motion to not need the impact study for the tractor supply company that's

[2:53:55] putting an appointment.

[2:54:00] Can we clarify the motion? Would that mean that any future development

[2:54:08] proposal on this site would be, would require a deliberation among the joint boards for an economic impact study.

[2:54:27] What I would suggest is an amendment.

[2:54:30] I'm not

[2:54:34] working, sorry.

[2:54:44] That microphone.

[2:54:46] So, do you accept that amendment to that motion?

[2:54:50] Do you want to amend your motion to include that?

[2:54:54] In my motion.

[2:54:56] What way into it?

[2:55:00] All right, we have a motion in front of us.

[2:55:02] Again, there are many of us around the table.

[2:55:05] So, I think I would like to move forward with hearing from somebody who may be opposed,

[2:55:11] versus hearing from somebody who is in favor.

[2:55:16] Yes.

[2:55:20] Is that my working?

[2:55:23] Oh, Ned's fixing it, I guess.

[2:55:27] All right, thank you, Ned.

[2:55:30] I'm not inherently opposed, but I feel as if this motion is not the focus for this group.

[2:55:38] And I feel that as you and Mary had said, the master plan needs to be the guiding framework here.

[2:55:47] and that it's not about whether the tractor supply will have this effect, that effect, this amount of traffic.

[2:55:54] We are under the contract rezoning and under the ordinance supposed to approve.

[2:56:00] If you look at some of the elements of the master plan, it says how much development and where it will be, these things are very important, even if it's allowed to be somewhat vague.

[2:56:12] So, I feel as if this might be a motion that we consider subsequently, but I feel that we need a motion that addresses the master plan at this time and gives guidance to the applicant, which is B&G.

[2:56:30] So it sounds like you may be in favor of tabling the motion for to hear first about a motion on the master plan.

[2:56:39] Is that something that you would consider?

[2:56:43] Can I just clarify that it does say on the agenda item that you are to provide direction to applicant about whether they need to provide an impact study?

[2:56:53] So I think that is maybe separate from what you're saying seed about whether they need to have the master plan of what needs to be on it.

[2:57:02] Can you pass a microphone back to seed, please?

[2:57:07] It goes back to who the applicant is and who we're trying to advise here because if we're talking the tractor supply,

[2:57:13] this is a conversation that is very doable. I think a number of people have already observed that.

[2:57:17] That's really very clear and compact.

[2:57:22] But I don't believe that's why we're here, I think that we're looking at a master plan that is going to be subject to contract rezoning for a very large parcel.

[2:57:31] And I'd rather deal with that.

[2:57:34] And that the issue about whether the track to supply needs to be equivalent of a 75,000 square foot store, I think he's moved.

[2:57:43] So I want the big picture.

[2:57:47] Is there somebody that's in favor of that would like to speak?

[2:57:56] Are you in favor of them? Are you in favor of them? Are you in favor of them?

[2:57:58] Are you in favor of them? Are you in favor of them?

[2:58:03] Okay, seeing no one, Daisy.

[2:58:07] I didn't see anyone raise your hand. Please, please, please, I'm asking for respect.

[2:58:12] There are many of us around the table.

[2:58:14] If sounds like Wayne is in favor of the motion I would like to speak.

[2:58:22] Because we have the option to come back and look at the impact study again for anything else proposed on the lot.

[2:58:32] I don't see what harm it would do to go ahead with this vote tonight.

[2:58:39] And then if there are other things proposed, Wayne is indicated, we can renew or come back and go over this again.

[2:58:48] Daisy,

[2:58:54] I think the best way to get a great result out of any development in this property

[2:58:59] is going to be through a master plan process.

[2:59:05] I think a lot of the problems that public identified in regards to and also council members

[2:59:10] in regards to excessive parking are due to the nature that this is a plan for a subdivision

[2:59:16] where each owner provides for their own services.

[2:59:21] And only with a planned comprehensive plan, rather for cluster housing, for a multi-use

[2:59:27] development, only with that holistic view where the parties are coordinated will there be

[2:59:33] the best use of space here.

[2:59:36] So the problem can't be addressed, peace, meal, and comfort the best result.

[2:59:41] And doing one at a time, saying yes or no to impact studies, saying yes or no to how it's developed one at a time,

[2:59:50] you can never get as good a result as if you coordinate from the beginning.

[2:59:55] And I think we need to figure out how that's going to happen.

[2:59:58] What's the master plan where there's efficiency of development and not just piecemeal?

[3:00:05] I saw Mike, that is in favor.

[3:00:09] Are you, you're also in favor.

[3:00:10] Can I have a comment today?

[3:00:13] The comment.

[3:00:15] You want to speak to this motion.

[3:00:17] You have a comment about how we're deliberating it.

[3:00:20] No, I'm in favor of the motion.

[3:00:21] Okay.

[3:00:22] Mike had a favor.

[3:00:23] He had raises hand for, so go to Mike.

[3:00:26] And then we'll go to somebody's opposed.

[3:00:30] So I agree on it needs a master plan, but I don't think we need to require it as I think we can do both of these things.

[3:00:45] I think this, but the problem with a part of that problem, especially if it comes with an impact study,

[3:00:52] And that's all we're talking about, I think right now, my current, that's the motion is not to do impact study.

[3:00:59] It's not a motion not to do a master plan.

[3:01:04] I think we need a master plan.

[3:01:08] I really like what Mr. Duff had to say about really looking at that entire property, so put back to the motion.

[3:01:20] It says we may require an impact study.

[3:01:24] It doesn't say we must.

[3:01:27] And I'll tell you, well, we said 75,000 square feet.

[3:01:31] No one ever said it was going to be 75,000 square feet.

[3:01:35] It was really much closer to 200.

[3:01:37] We lowered it to include the possibility of a supermarket.

[3:01:43] So,

[3:01:46] I just think to the motion of an impact study, that's why I support the motion, but I would also support a motion for a further development of the master plan.

[3:01:59] Are you opposed to the motion?

[3:02:04] I agree with Daisy, and although I am supportive, I believe I am supportive of tractor supply down the line.

[3:02:11] doing this. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be a tractor-supplies best interest before we agree

[3:02:19] to that to get a master plan. Maybe there's a different vision that comes out of it and I do

[3:02:28] also believe that with the bear property owners that it would be a great idea that the planning

[3:02:37] the council and the property owners work together on this idea of a master plan or consult

[3:02:43] on and comment on it so that all of us get the best plan and ultimately the best decision

[3:02:52] for a maturity of the people. Those are my thoughts on opposing just this motion with respect

[3:02:59] Thank you, Jeff.

[3:03:03] Yeah, I don't.

[3:03:03] I actually like the proposal given by the applicant.

[3:03:07] I think it solves.

[3:03:08] I don't actually think this, in my mind there's not,

[3:03:11] I agree with Steve's objection.

[3:03:13] But I don't actually see that it blocks our accepting this proposal

[3:03:16] that Paul put forward.

[3:03:18] I mean, in my mind, the impact study was designed for large

[3:03:20] retail 75,000 square feet.

[3:03:22] Moreover, that's not what's being proposed right now.

[3:03:25] So to me, I don't see the need for that study

[3:03:27] for a tractor-suppiding before it. How are you?

[3:03:28] However, to give the applicant guidance, it seems clear that when contract rezoning proposal comes forward to us, it's going to meet, I think that's a lot of agreement.

[3:03:37] It's going to need to provide, like, he was suggesting, what are the next steps that's going to happen for the master plan, for any future development of any lots, what's going to happen inside of like they were,

[3:03:48] These stats suggestion may sense to me as a way to proceed so we could say they're not going to need the impact study for this

[3:03:56] tractors by however

[3:03:58] They're also going to need to when they come with a proposal. It's a contract for contract rezoning. It's going to have to lay out how we're going to move forward

[3:04:04] And obviously they'll work with

[3:04:06] See you playing staff come up with that and they're going to learn a lot from our conversation a day

[3:04:14] Sarah, remember who's opposed?

[3:04:19] I'm opposed to this motion

[3:04:21] I agree that we should consider this as one whole, it's an entire property and I feel

[3:04:29] so we would be doing a disservice to the citizens of Belfast by not considering it one whole piece of property.

[3:04:37] And yes, we are deliberating on the specifics of an economic impact study.

[3:04:42] And yes, in the past that was intended for a larger retail property,

[3:04:49] is 75,000 feet square feet.

[3:04:54] But I really, I very much believe that the principles of the economic impact study would help

[3:05:02] us to gather more information about what would the type of business that we're going on

[3:05:09] on as property and knowing what the NASA plan would be and taking the entire whole as one

[3:05:16] and thinking about how that would impact our community.

[3:05:21] So with that, yes, I am opposed to this motion

[3:05:25] because I believe we should think of this as an entire whole.

[3:05:30] And that we, as this were to move forward as a subdivision

[3:05:36] we're selling off and selling off and then selling, you know,

[3:05:39] what point do we say, how does this, what does this whole piece look like?

[3:05:47] and with that shall we have the vote.

[3:05:53] Okay, so everyone,

[3:05:57] including myself,

[3:06:14] we need a microphone.

[3:06:18] Thank you for that.

[3:06:22] The code speaks to the council, the planning board,

[3:06:26] and designer deal, being able to vote.

[3:06:32] There's a question.

[3:06:36] Does the associate member angle to vote?

[3:06:45] Because this is a development review, the answer is no.

[3:06:47] If this is an orders proposal before the board, the answer is yes but on development

[3:06:56] reviews, it's just the five regular members.

[3:07:01] So can you clarify who is voting please?

[3:07:04] So on the planning board, it would be Steve, deck, David, Jeff and Wayne, Daisy and you

[3:07:12] cannot vote.

[3:07:17] How do you try to do so to the importance?

[3:07:20] Not before the planning board.

[3:07:27] And on the council, it would be the five regular councilors,

[3:07:30] and then it would be Jim representing the designer

[3:07:32] of the committee.

[3:07:38] Have we consulted with legal counsel?

[3:07:42] No.

[3:07:45] So this is your understanding currently.

[3:07:50] OK.

[3:07:51] So with that, all in favor of the motion in front of us.

[3:07:58] So let me count.

[3:07:58] One, two, three, four, nine, and all opposed,

[3:08:07] two, and anybody else, you're an associate member.

[3:08:13] Okay, so the motion passes nine to two.

[3:08:18] All right, so the next item is

[3:08:24] if the applicant can proceed to the preliminary plan stage at the application process.

[3:08:32] So what they I noted is part of this is to provide direction and some of the direction which I just heard quite a few of the planning board members and counselors speaking to

[3:08:40] as well is the idea of trying to better incorporate some overall design principles into

[3:08:52] the master plan process, as well as looking at the individual development for the tractor supply

[3:08:59] project. And then that's something that could be looked at as being some of the direction

[3:09:04] is being provided from this collective body to the African as they be moving forward.

[3:09:12] And that next step, though, would be entirely through the planning board, not with the council.

[3:09:19] So you're looking for the body, the council and the planning board is on a committee member

[3:09:26] Excuse me, to provide guidance to the applicant,

[3:09:30] and from that, consider if the applicant can proceed to the preliminary plan.

[3:09:37] So, you can identify some parameters on how that would go forward.

[3:09:40] The preliminary plan.

[3:09:44] Declan, I'll make a phone.

[3:09:49] Okay, we identify who the applicant is.

[3:09:51] Thank you.

[3:09:59] In my opinion, the applicant is both parties pursuant to our ordinance that requires the submission of a master plan.

[3:10:11] The master plan has been submitted by B&G,

[3:10:15] Velfast Properties LLC, and with an individual development proposal being submitted by

[3:10:21] by D&K, apologies for D&K, sir.

[3:10:28] Thank you.

[3:10:32] See?

[3:10:33] I would like to move that this joint session give guidance to the applicants that they should

[3:10:43] move ahead to the presentation of a preliminary plan, provided that they incorporate the

[3:10:51] you put provided them tonight about additional detail, more certainty about the...

[3:10:58] Locations and amount of development as is required under the ordinance and the incorporation of certain design characteristics that we've discussed here that would make this more desirable development for Bellfast.

[3:11:18] So we have a motion and a second, and as before we'll go here from some

[3:11:25] use in favor and then it's a bit of a pause.

[3:11:28] Looks like Mary,

[3:11:35] we have a motion to consider and I think we should speak directly to

[3:11:38] the motion.

[3:11:38] The motion states to consider comments that have been previously made in this

[3:11:42] celebration.

[3:11:44] And no additional comments?

[3:11:47] The motion, no, it's the previous comment.

[3:11:50] So I mean if you want to vote, if you want to speak to this motion and then we vote on this motion and then consider further comments.

[3:12:00] I was recommending or I was moving that this recommendation be that moves ahead to the preliminary plan stage where more detail is then considered is proposed and then considered so there's a lot of different design elements.

[3:12:15] And we don't need to nominate them here, but that is the business of the Plumeric Land Review.

[3:12:22] And that is what a preliminary plan is.

[3:12:25] But I thought we were to give some guidance in helping them prepare.

[3:12:30] So the motion.

[3:12:31] So the motion.

[3:12:32] The motion.

[3:12:34] It considers the previous comments that were made.

[3:12:37] As we said on this table is my understanding.

[3:12:41] And is moving.

[3:12:42] And I thought, so if you are in favor or opposed,

[3:12:48] I do this motion,

[3:12:53] right?

[3:12:54] Yes.

[3:12:55] If I may, as the second of the motion, it was my feeling

[3:13:00] that we spent two hours giving guidance.

[3:13:04] And at that time, that was sufficient guidance for the motion,

[3:13:08] and that there would be other opportunity

[3:13:09] to provide more input and future.

[3:13:14] Somebody in favor and speaking directly to the motion,

[3:13:23] can you repeat the motions, Steve?

[3:13:28] The gist of it is that this body recommends that the applicants move forward to the

[3:13:35] preliminary plan process with the planning board and that their submission of that initial

[3:13:40] preliminary plan and incorporate the design elements and the further detail as required in

[3:13:47] the ordinance about the locations and amount, committing to the locations and the amount

[3:13:54] of development.

[3:13:55] It's stated right in 102768A.

[3:14:04] There's a question.

[3:14:07] Hello.

[3:14:08] Hey, Wayne.

[3:14:13] A lot of times, at this point, you say, once this is over, the council is done,

[3:14:23] are we done on

[3:14:24] this discussion?

[3:14:26] The council would be done on the sketch plan review phase.

[3:14:29] The council's role would not come back until

[3:14:32] what would be the council review of the contract

[3:14:36] Resonary Agreement.

[3:15:24] The thing else that we've talked about here,

[3:15:26] I think it's critical what it's like driving into

[3:15:29] Belfast.

[3:15:30] So I think this motion helps achieve that.

[3:15:33] So thank you.

[3:15:34] So somebody opposed the motion.

[3:15:38] There's another question.

[3:15:39] Can we pass the microphone?

[3:15:48] I wasn't clear from how the motion was phrased if the expectation for the applicant was

[3:15:54] if they would have the master plan would contain sizes and uses for all lots on the

[3:16:01] poverty.

[3:16:02] What was that the intention of motion?

[3:16:04] I referenced the ordinance which says that the master plan shall add a minimum

[3:16:09] identify the total amount of development permitted, the location of said development on the

[3:16:16] property, and how services in infrastructure will be constructed to serve the development.

[3:16:23] So I really think that this ordinance will guide that application and where you're looking

[3:16:28] from for the detail that moves us forward.

[3:16:33] Is there somebody opposed you have a question?

[3:16:35] I'm just wondering if there's a technical way for Mary to put in the input she wanted to.

[3:16:41] I'm going to get it in.

[3:16:43] Just a little bit.

[3:16:44] All right.

[3:16:45] I'm fast.

[3:16:50] I'm for the motion with the additional comment that the developers on top of everything they've listened to in her tonight

[3:17:04] take into serious consideration that this community is looking for development that is progressive

[3:17:11] in today's world and takes into consideration sustainability beyond 10, 20, 35 years and takes

[3:17:19] into consideration climate control issues and anything else additional release once again to

[3:17:29] Thank you, Mayor.

[3:17:33] And I'll call for the vote.

[3:17:35] All in favor?

[3:17:45] Are you in favor?

[3:17:51] Okay.

[3:17:52] Ten in favor?

[3:17:54] Opposed?

[3:17:58] None.

[3:17:59] Opposed?

[3:18:00] Anyone of stained?

[3:18:01] One.

[3:18:02] So ten zero one.

[3:18:04] The motion passes.

[3:18:07] So we've accomplished our goals of

[3:18:13] deliberating on

[3:18:18] community impact assessment, and we've instructed that the applicant can move forward from

[3:18:24] the to the preliminary stage of the application process.

[3:18:27] Is there, uh, most...

[3:18:31] The meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for being here tonight.

Jan 08, 2019 Joint City Council

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