Prouts Neck parking plan proceeds

As lawsuit looms, Sprague Corp. submits Scarborough Beach lot project for site review

SCARBOROUGH — That noise you just heard in Scarborough was the sound of the other shoe dropping.

Of course, it wasn’t so much a shoe as a beach sandal, but it fell on the sands off Prouts Neck, and that’s what has so many people worked up.

A beachside development project initiated by the Sprague Corp. – which has triggered an appeal in Cumberland County Superior Court after a decision by the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals allowed it to move to the planning phase – has now been submitted to the town for “peer review.”

“It will add to our costs to have to defend the zoning board decision,” but we’re moving ahead,” Seth Sprague said Tuesday. “We’re quite confident that the decision will be upheld in court.”

Town Planner Dan Bacon said “peer review” is a preliminary process in which a project is reviewed by members of his staff, or professionals retained by the town, allowing them to provide feedback before submission to the Planning Board for site plan review.

The plans came in two weeks ago, said Bacon. Meanwhile, Sprague said he’s hopeful the formal review will begin at the Planning Board’s Sept. 12 meeting.

Based on previous interest, expect that meeting to be well-attended.

On May 11, about 75 people turned out to watch, and in some cases jeer, when Scarborough’s Zoning Board of Appeals allowed a “special exemption” to rural zoning rules that will let Sprague Corp., under subsidiary Black Point Resource Management, build a parking lot for 370 vehicles in a 62-acre field it owns off Black Point Road.

That lot would give the public new access to a 1,700-foot-long swath of Sprague-owned beach, not far from the 2,100-foot-long Scarborough Beach State Park. The park is managed by Sprague Corp., but is separated from the new section by a sliver of private property.

“It’s going to be a big party down there,” said Edith Iler, at the time. Her home is sandwiched between the two Sprague-run sections and, she said, “the shortest way to the beach from the western side of that new parking lot will be right down our driveway and then across our porch.”

The parking-lot project was made possible by a zoning change, enacted by the Town Council in May 2010, that relaxed rules in Scarborough’s “rural farming zone.”

Among a host of changes, those rules created a special exemption for outdoor recreation, described by Bacon as “creative land uses to keep land open, and not developed as new neighborhoods.”

According to Bacon, in the 1970s, Scarborough enacted strict zoning rules for agriculture. In more recent years, as values have shifted, there has been a drive to relax some of those rules, with an eye to keeping land open. Beginning in early 2009, the Comprehensive Plan Implementation Committee (CPIC) began debate on a host of changes, including the right of the zoning appeals board to allow a special exemption from the rules for so-called commercial outdoor recreation.

But the court appeal filed on behalf of abutters by John C. Bannon, of Portland law firm Murray Plumb & Murray, claims the zoning board’s view that Sprague’s parking lot is an outdoor-recreation use, “constitutes an abuse of discretion,” even taking into account other aspects of the project, including, “a few picnic tables, a short walking trail, a boardwalk to the beach [and] a small playground.”

The beach itself – where one might expect to find activity more commonly considered outdoor recreation, and which is the admitted destination of folks who will use the lot, walks, picnic areas and playgrounds – is not in the RF zone. Because it lies in a Resource Protection (RP) zones, the recreation exemption cannot apply to any activity that takes place there.

The appeal by the abutters also claims the special exemption permit failed to meet one of its qualifying criteria, that it would not have an adverse impact on others in the area.

The “use, value and enjoyment of their real property will in fact be adversely affected by the noise, odors, lighting, traffic, stormwater runoff, security, increased fire risk, potential groundwater contamination and general commercial activities.”

However, Bannon (who could not be reached for comment) agreed to have the appeal “held in abeyance” until Sprague submitted his project to the Planning Board.

Town Manager Tom Hall said that may mitigate the suit, which the town “is obligated to defend.”

“I think all sides agree that there are many details that will be flushed out and identified during the site plan process,” said Hall. “After all, it is the Planning Board that is equipped to deal in the minutiae and detail of how a site actually works.”

Still, while the Planning Board may help make peace between Sprague and the site abutters, Sprague said the abeyance mostly helps plaintiffs get two suits for the price of one.

“Whatever happens at the Planning Board, they’ll throw that into their appeal,” he said.

Bacon and Sprague both say that the plan just submitted is “essentially” what the Zoning Board of Appeals saw in May, with its changes added in, including allowed hours of operation, restroom requirements and rules for sightline buffers.

“We’ve done everything that we are able to do to mitigate impacts on neighbors,” said Sprague. “The parking area won’t be visible from any of the homes in the area. You also won’t be able to see it from Black Point Road.

“We even agreed to put a closed-vent system in the concession stand, so there will not even be any odors at all,” said Sprague.

Sprague also must retain use of the current 140-space overflow lot for the state park, across Black Point Road, and cannot apply for additional spots until “two full seasons” have passed.

Despite the hoopla created by Sprague’s proposal, one thing Scarborough can’t do is ignore it, or refuse to review it, even though it knows that, whatever the result, odds are the town will end up tangled in a costly lawsuit.

“That’s not how the process works,” said Hall. “Anyone is entitled to make a proposal as long as their submission meets out requirements.”

For his part, Sprague says that, despite the objections of abutters, he is merely meeting a public need.

“There is clearly a demand for improved access to the water,” he said. “We’re trying to satisfy that demand with a plan we believe really will have a minimal impact on the area.

“The folks who already live down there are clearly opposed to it,” said Sprague, “ but I think once the facility is up and running everyone will find that it will run smoothly and provide a good new amenity for people in the area.”