Standards procedure in South Portland

The City Council will begin its debate on new Willard Square building rules, already deemed ‘anti-commercial.’

  

SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland City Council will get its first look Monday at design standards it asked for June 6, when it enacted a 95-day ban on new building in the Willard Square neighborhood.

The new zoning rules – written by City Planner Tex Haeuser and amended by the Planning Board in four separate sessions during the past 60 days – mandate acceptable materials and styles for any new construction (exempting single-family residences) on 12 lots around the square, at the intersection of Pillsbury and Preble streets.

However, Pillsbury Street resident Glenn Perry intimated last week that the new rules may have an ulterior purpose.

“The comments that have been made tonight make it clear, it seems to me, that residential uses are being favored over commercial uses,” he told Planning Board members at their July 26 meeting.

Among the new rules: Larger setbacks from property lines, more stringent requirements for business parking spaces, and the lifting of a ban on ground-level residences in multi-use buildings.

That said, Perry found little to fault in the new zoning rules, which the city council ordered following the extended brouhaha over an “upscale food store” he had hoped to build on a vacant lot at 7 Pillsbury Street.

“Generally, and reluctantly, I’ll say that many of the provisions you’ve labored to present to the City Council make a lot of sense to me,” he said. “It just would have been nice to have had them in place, or a sense that this was going to happen, before … our Mr. Delicious project.”

Perry claims to have lost more than $55,000 in up-front design and application costs when financial backers pulled their investments, following implementation of the council’s building moratorium.

Delicious history

Along with business partner Ian Hayward, Perry announced the Mr. Delicious for Willard Square shop in late-April. However, their presentation at a neighborhood association meeting resulted in a howl of protest about the proposed store, described by one local as a "cowboy saloon."

That prompted the pair to go back to the drawing board – at a cost of roughly $6,000. They tried to unveil that work at a May 9 City Council workshop, but got just eight minutes to show off the new design, now dubbed Ebo's Market. The following hour was given over to public comment, largely negative, about the project.

The bulk of the complaints focused on traffic concerns, and the perception that any new business in the square had “endangered pedestrian” stamped all over it.

The City Council has unilateral control over traffic, but chose not to act. Instead, it seemed to take to heart a secondary concern over design standards. Time and again, local residents swore they were not opposed to business development in the square, they just wanted something safe that fit into its surroundings. Many councilors, particularly Tom Blake and Tom Coward, blamed the city for “dropping the ball” in 2006 when Willard Square was rezoned from a "Limited Business" area into a "Village Commercial" district. The rezoning lacked the design criteria common to other VC sections of the city, like Knightville.

A different construction proposal in 2009 nearly got those standards added, but when the recession hit and killed the project, the urgency faded away.

Distraction by design?

While design standards make up the bulk of the new zoning rules, they drew virtually no comment during the drafting process. Haeuser said debate was limited almost entirely to issues like parking and building setbacks.

“It’s interesting considering how much discussion there was about design standards [at the City Council], how little there was [at the Planning Board hearings],” said Hauser.

Planning Board member Paul McKee agreed, suggesting that any talk of design standards might have been a sort of stalking horse for other concerns.

“It [Perry’s project] would have met all of the adopted standards,” he said. “It was like, ‘We don’t like this, so let’s get to where we are today.’”

Although he has yet to submit an application, Perry has said he and Hayward now intend to open their food store in Knightville, on Ocean Street, sometime this fall. Haeuser said McKee is correct, however. If Perry could have waited out the moratorium, his building proposal would have met every stipulation laid out in the draft zoning amendments.

Those design standards are, Haeuser admitted, fairly vague in many sections.

“Attractive landscape transitions to adjoining properties shall be provided,” the text reads, apparently leaving the definition of “attractive” to whomever happens to sit on the Planning Board when a project comes up for consideration.

“That’s really up to the discretion of the board,” said Haeuser.

In other places, the rules seem contradictory. In one section, it is established that new buildings shall be “in harmonious conformance with neighboring development,” while in another the law is laid down that, “monotony of design shall be avoided.” Again, it will fall to the Planning Board to decide if a new building is distinct from those that surround it, but not alarmingly so. That’s if the project actually requires site plan review. For simple building permits, the code enforcement officer, in consultation with Haeuser, becomes the final arbiter of taste, at least pending appeal.

In other areas, the new rules are quite specific.  Exterior finishes shall be natural stone (dressed or cut, only) brick (red or brown, only), wood (in clapboard, shiplap or shingle styles, only) or vinyl or metal siding (so long as it looks like wooded clapboard, shiplap, or shingles).

Specifically banned are stucco-like finishes, concrete blocks (except in foundations and firewalls), precast concrete, corrugated metal, asphalt shingles, plywood and any “reflective materials.”

The new rules acknowledge that the future might bring materials not yet thought of, and gamely approves any that mimic “traditional features.”

The draft zoning amendment also weighs in on doors and windows (they “shall have logical proportions and relationship to one another), exterior lighting (which “shall be harmonious with building design”) and rooflines (which “shall conform to the predominant shape of nearby buildings.”)

Other key parts of the proposed zoning additions include a ban on electronic and “internally illuminated” signs and a scheme to loosen parking space requirements where it will save trees.

Late changes

As Haeuser noted, almost all of the citizen comment at the July 26 Planning Board meeting involved setbacks and parking concerns.

Margaret Carmody objected to new setback rules. Previously, buildings in the Village Commercial – Willard zone could go up right next to a property line, with no setback required unless the building reached 40 feet in height. The new rules call for a 5-foot setback from the road, and 6 feet from side property lines.  However, three properties that border residential zones were initially called on to have 15-foot side setbacks.

Carmody said those rules would eat up half of her lot in setbacks, drastically limiting development possibilities, and thus, potential resale value.

“I don’t consider that reasonable,” she said. “I don’t consider that workable, I don’t consider that fair, when we are all paying the same tax rate in this commercial zone.”

The Planning Board voted 5-1 to fix the side setbacks for the three buffer properties at 6 feet, although anything built taller than 30 feet would require half its height in setbacks. This, for a 31-foot-tall building, the side setback jumps from 6 feet to 15.5.

Some in the audience, particularly Perry, objected to a rule that gives any new business a 33 percent discount on the number of parking spaces it would have to provide almost any place else in the city. The current discount is 50 percent, which Planning Board member Gerard Jalbert said must stand.

According to Jalbert, a law passed this spring by the Legislature makes it illegal in Maine, after Sept. 28, to revoke a municipal land use permit “by subsequent enactment, amendment or repeal of a local ordinance” once 75 days have passed.

The upshot, said Jalbert, is that South Portland cannot impose new parking rules on businesses already in Willard Square, like Bathras Market and Scratch Baking Co. Those stores will continue to enjoy half-off on parking rules, even as new businesses are held to the higher standard.

However, the Planning Board did side with Perry by unanimously striking from the draft a section that would taken away the ability of any new businesses in Willard Square to meet parking requirements by leasing spots in lots no more than 300 feet from the storefront.

The downside, however, is that any interruption of a lease on parking spots could end a business.

“If a lease runs out, the occupancy certificate runs out. They’re done,” said Community Planner Stephen Puleo.

Next steps

At this point, the Planning Board has fulfilled its mandate.

“There’s probably bits and pieces with this that you aren’t happy with, but you can take that up with the council,” said Chairperson Caroline Hendry, addressing residents in the audience. “But I think we have taken this about as far as it will go.”

In addition to the draft zoning change itself, the council will take up traffic issues at its Aug. 8 meeting. That should include a plan favored by Mayor Rosemarie De Angelis to make Thomson Street one way, with traffic allowed to travel away from the square only.

After that, the council will take up the zoning changes in first reading at its Aug. 15 meeting. A second reading, along with a public hearing and possible final passage, could come as soon as Sept. 7.

But that probably would not end the debate, according to Jalbert, who said flatly that the city “is micro-managing” the Willard Square.

“The first time someone proposes a business in Willard Square after this is all said and done, we’ll find out this is not resolved” he said. ”That person will come forward and nobody listened.”