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 Local news and information from Castine and Penobscot, Maine. |
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News Feature
by Anne Berleant The comprehensive plan approved by town residents in 2010 calls for affordable housing as one way to help keep Castine a vital, year-round community. Towards this end, the Comprehensive Plan Implementation Committee’s zoning subcommittee has been steadily working on revisions to the zoning and subdivision ordinances in time for a town meeting vote on May 12. The subcommittee met on January 23 for a final session before a Planning Board and CPIC public hearing scheduled for February 2 on the revised subdivision ordinance. Besides simplifying language and definitions, and referring to state statutes rather than including them, the revised ordinance has added a section under Article 8, Performance Standards, allowing for cluster developments off-neck with reduced lot-size restrictions. Aimed at providing affordable housing for working families in Castine, and spurred by CPIC Housing Subcommittee research into similar developments in the area, specifically on Mount Desert Island, the purpose of Article 8.21 Cluster Development includes providing “flexibility in the design of housing developments without increasing density” and “affordable housing.” “Economic development and affordable housing go together,” said Jack Macdonald, chairman of the housing subcommittee, when contacted by telephone before the meeting. However, the definition of affordable housing can be murky at best. The proposed ordinance defines it as “decent, safe and sanitary dwellings, apartments or other living accommodations for low-income and moderate-income households.” Low- and moderate-income households are further defined as having a gross income not exceeding 80 percent, for low-income, and 150 percent, for moderate-income, of the median income of the county or Metropolitan Statistical Area in which the household is located. The definitions are those in Title 30-A, MRSA sec. 5002 of the Maine State Statutes. However, these definitions of low- and moderate-income households may or may not apply to Castine. Members expressed concern that the formulas may arrive at income figures too low for their goals of affordable housing. In fact, the terms “low-income” and “moderate-income” were viewed as too restricting by the subcommittee and those attending the session. “When we say ‘affordable housing’ in our context, we were trying to make housing people could afford,” said subcommittee member Scott Vogell. Bill Brennan, a member of the housing subcommittee and president of Maine Maritime Academy, suggested a definition that would “get away from the value-laden term” of affordable housing. “Not section 8, not HUD,” he said. However, Rich Rothe, of Rothe Associates, a consultant hired in December to help with the ordinance revisions, said that subdivision proposals presented as affordable housing to the planning board need to have definite guidelines in order to ensure regulations are met. HUD provides standard guidelines and formulas commonly used in municipal ordinances. Without specific guidelines, an objective ruling by the planning board on proposed developments can’t be guaranteed. “I would look at [the issue] before you throw it out the window and go with something open to interpretation,” Rothe said. Suggestions to simply remove the “affordable housing” definition from the ordinance were halted when members realized that the term was a stated purpose of cluster development in Article 8.21. “We need a basis for reducing density requirements and [that basis] is affordable housing,” subcommittee chairman Bob Friedlander said. The proposed subdivision ordinance permits cluster housing, in a designated rural area, on lot sizes of 20,000 square feet (about one-half acre), with the provision of permanent open space to offset the smaller lot size. Friedlander said that area would lie off-neck, between Route 166 and Route 166A, in a new Rural 2 district designated in the zoning ordinance now under revision. The other major issue raised also fell under Article 8, Performance Standards. Doug Koos, owner of a mobile home park in Castine, would like to turn his 29 units into an “affordable subdivision,” he said, through permanent foundations and second-floor living space. “If we’re trying to make affordable housing, we should make ordinances that allow this to happen,” Koos said. The current lot size requirement for mobile home units is 5,000 square feet. Koos said he wants grandfather status for the mobile home park to waive the lot size requirement for cluster development. “I want to provide second floor housing. I don’t want to do it for myself, but for the people living there,” he said. “My goal is not to kick anyone out but to increase the value of the property.” Rothe said state law provides “special dispensation” for mobile home park lot sizes that is different from cluster or subdivision requirements. “Our town attorney sees mobile home parks and subdivisions as apples and oranges,” said Town Manager Dale Abernethy. The subcommittee decided an additional meeting was required, on Monday, January 30, to clarify the “affordable housing” definition and to review state requirements for converting mobile home parks to subdivisions before the public hearing. With the work on the subdivision ordinance near completion, the subcommittee will next turn its full attention to the zoning ordinance. The Planning Board and CPIC public hearing will be held Thursday, February 2, at 7 p.m. at Emerson Hall. The Zoning Subcommittee will meet Monday, January 30, at 3 p.m. |
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