Last Monday, Main-Land Development Consultants‘ President/Owner Darryl Brown was invited to give an overview to the town of Farmington’s planning board on his concerns about the changes to the Site Location of Development Law. Darryl received this request from the board’s chair, who had attended Main-Land’s Farmington forum on the site law changes and was very concerned with what he heard. Betty Jespersen, a reporter from the Morning Sentinel who has covered the county for more than two decades, was at that Monday night board meeting, and wrote an extensive story for the Saturday Sentinel about Main-Land’s quest to bring awareness to the proposed changes, and the concerns of town planner as to what the impact might be if these updates are approved by the Maine Legislature.

You can link to her story here, or read it below.

Land-use rule bill worries officials
By Betty Jespersen, Morning Sentinel Staff Writer

FARMINGTON — A proposed change to development rules by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection is a significant concern for the chairman of Farmington’s Planning Board.

“The changes are extensive enough … that we felt there should be more discussion,” said Chairman L. Herbert “Bussie” York.

One change would direct large-scale commercial and residential projects — a pellet mill, a Lowe’s Home Center or a 30-plus-lot subdivision — to be built within a town’s commercial center or designated growth area.

That may not be that much of a problem for towns with state-approved comprehensive plans that include established areas for future growth.

Towns without a plan, however, could find the DEP deciding where development should go, according to Darryl Brown, owner of Main-Land Development Inc. of Livermore Falls.

The proposed changes also would increase a development’s buffer areas around sensitive land, add more requirements for subdivisions and give the DEP authority to approve or reject site contractors.

Brown spoke before the Planning Board last week. Andrew Fisk, director of the DEP’s Bureau of Land & Water Quality, also spoke.

“We are not a lobbying firm … but we are here to discuss public policy that we do not agree with,” Brown said. “Not all the changes proposed are negative, but we have picked out the most onerous, and we feel the negatives far outweigh the positives.”

Brown said an example of a project that probably would be rejected under the proposed rule change would be a large residential subdivision in the Carrabassett Valley area.

“The proposed restrictions that would limit that type of development would allow no disturbance of slopes greater than 20 percent,” he said. “That would prohibit the construction of many roads across slopes to provide access to higher elevations.” Other proposed changes, he said, would limit road and driveway grades to 8 percent. “That is totally unrealistic in mountainous terrain,” he said.

“In nearly four decades as a land planner, never have I been more worried about the impact of a piece of legislation than I am now,” Brown said.

DEP’s Fisk said the agency realizes that significant policy changes are being proposed, “but the vast majority of the rule changes are already in the law.”

Under the proposed legislation, if a community has no state-approved local comprehensive plan, large-scale projects could not be permitted in that town, Fisk said.

He said specifics of proposed rule changes, such as in buffers, setbacks and slopes, still are being worked out as public comments come in. He said the law and rules had not been modified for years. The agency decided to do a complete overhaul of the system, rather than doing it piecemeal, to present the public a comprehensive view of the law.

The site development law was created in the 1970s to regulate land development of large projects.

Farmington’s code enforcement officer, Steve Kaiser, agrees that the state planning process could use improvement — such as getting towns more help with their comprehensive plans — and said he would welcome that change.

“But making such substantial changes to such a long-standing law needs to be thoroughly vetted,” Kaiser said. “I think Farmington will be in good shape because we have such good local control. This will be more of a problem in the smaller towns that have not enacted good ordinances.”

Brown said the DEP has not done enough to get the word out to landowners, developers, town officials and communities. Meetings the agency held in Augusta and Portland were not well advertised and even his own office was not notified, he said.

Fisk said the public will have a chance to comment at later meetings and hearings.

“This is not about the state seizing authority,” he said. “We have had very constructive feedback during these meetings, and we will make changes and come up with responsible rules.”