March 18, 2026 ~ Public Hearing: Proposed Land Use Ordinance Changes

2026-03-18 · Public Hearing · 1:22:56 · watch on YouTube →

This was the Planning Board's public hearing on proposed land use ordinance changes, and the last one at which changes could still be made before the package went to the select board. The chair, Brian, set out the schedule, and the town planner, George, walked through all three parts: seven minor policy changes, ten administrative changes, and the codification of the ordinance. Public comment came from a resident asking that the required width for what he called a family back lot drive be cut from 20 feet to 18, a cannabis caregiver asking that the town's language track state law, and a resident asking how current the review is given the legislature's continuing housing bills. The board declined to change the 20-foot standard, held the tree clearing language over to its April 1 meeting, and agreed to pass the package to the select board with two items still to settle. The board also asked George to draft a policy for handling long agendas.

No written minutes could be matched to this meeting. The transcript records that the speaker changed but never who was speaking, so any name attached to a statement below is inferred from context and is marked (?).

What was discussed

1. 4:24
   Opening, purpose and schedule

   Brian opened the hearing on the three-part land use ordinance package and set the schedule: a final recommendation to the select board on April 1, select board action on the final draft and warrant articles on April 14, a last public hearing on May 20 at which no changes could be made, and the town meeting vote in June. George (?) said a digital code specialist is converting the ordinance, which he traced back to about the 1970s, into a cross-indexed digital version, and that the codification list had been narrowed to 100 corrections containing no policy changes. Note that the chair's spoken date is "April 18th" while the record dates this meeting March 18; the schedule he gave, with the select board "in two weeks" on April 1, fits March 18.

2. 9:36
   Minor policy 1: back lots and private ways

   George (?) said the current ordinance mixes single back lots, which the code officer approves and which require a 5-acre lot and a 20-foot road, with private ways serving multiple lots, and splits approval of the latter between the code officer, the road commissioner and the planning board. The proposal separates the two and gives the planning board sole approval of private ways, with input from the other staff. He said the standards themselves stay the same.

3. 9:36
   Public comment: request for an 18-foot family back lot drive

   Jon Perry (?) asked whether the documents were online and was told everything, summaries and text, is on the town website. He then asked the board to reduce the width required for what he called a family back lot from 20 feet to 18, noting the proposal already cuts single back lot access from 20 feet to 16. He said two cars pass on his family's drive easily and a fire truck has been up it at least six times, and that two of his siblings cannot afford to build because of the 20-foot standard.

4. 14:38
   Minor policies 2 and 3: non-conforming expansions and subdivision road buffers

   George (?) said the current planning board conditional use review and 30 percent cap on expanding a house that sits too close to a line does not suit a rural town, and the proposal lets the code officer approve an expansion that does not encroach further. He also described reassigning responsibility for extending grandfathered status when a non-conforming use ceases, though the transcript states the direction of that transfer inconsistently. On buffers, a subdivision must now keep a 50-foot buffer along a public road but nothing is required where a new subdivision road runs beside an existing house, so the proposal gives the planning board discretion to require one.

5. 20:20
   Minor policy 4: fire protection water supply

   George (?) said the fire chief wants underground water storage systems removed as an option, calling them unreliable and difficult to refill, but would in some cases prefer residential sprinklers to a fire pond. The proposal lets a developer use any of three options: a fire pond meeting the specifications, an existing water source meeting the specifications, or residential sprinklers in all the homes.

6. 20:20
   Minor policy 5: aggregated cannabis growing facilities

   George (?) said the town attorney identified a gap where someone rents out individual spaces in a facility to growers who are exempt under state law, which could add up to a substantial operation with nothing in the ordinance addressing it. Rather than adopt the licensing and inspection program the attorney offered, which the town has no capacity to run, the proposal defines aggregated growing facilities and prohibits them in all districts. He said the intent is not to limit individual users or caregivers allowed under state law.

7. 26:02
   Public comment from a cannabis caregiver

   A caregiver, working with his wife as a caregiver team since 2011, said he had been in touch with George and appreciated the response. He asked that the language simply reflect state law, referring to a bill he identified as LD 1897 covering sun-grown cultivators; the canopy square footage he quoted is garbled in the recording. He said a number of caregivers in town do this for a living and pay taxes.

8. 26:02
   Minor policy 6: manufactured housing and accessory apartments

   George (?) said state law now requires tiny homes and accessory apartments to be allowed as standalone units, where Durham has required them to be part of a house or an outbuilding. Durham's mobile home park rules, which require an acre per home, a 50-foot right of way and at least 20 acres, are not allowed under state law. He said the town has no flexibility on any of this, and the board pulled it out of the codification so residents would see the change.

9. 31:30
   Minor policy 7: road frontage determination

   George (?) said the code enforcement officer and the road commissioner keep running into confusion over how a lot meets the required 300 feet of road frontage. The proposal lets frontage be counted around a turnaround, which he said halves the length of the "road to nowhere" a back lot otherwise needs, allows the arc of a curved road to count rather than a straight line, and allows contiguous frontage around a corner lot. Non-contiguous scattered pieces would still not count.

10. 31:30
    Public comment: keeping current with state law

    Bill St. Michelle (?) of 37 Davis Road (?) asked how current the review is, given that the legislature keeps adding housing requirements, and said he wanted to know whether further changes would be needed continually. George (?) said the manufactured housing item reflects what is currently required, that some new laws take effect for Durham in 2027, and that the board will look at those for the 2027 town meeting. The chair then closed public comment on part one.

11. 37:10
    Board discussion of part one

    The board heard no opposition to the cannabis item beyond a request that the town not regulate beyond state law, and a member noted the word "aggregated" is misspelled in the draft. On the back lot width, the chair said the board had been back and forth on it with the fire chief, developers, the public and the road commissioner, and would stick with what it had. A member added that a family back lot does not always stay in the family, and that new owners can make shared standards contentious.

12. 37:10
    Administrative change: subdivision road standards

    George (?) said the road standards are still tied to the growth management ordinance the town repealed around 2019, so the proposal replaces the public and private distinction with classification by use. A minor local road serving up to about 12 homes stays at 20 feet, larger ones go to 22 feet, and a new sub-collector class of a 60-foot right of way and 24-foot width would apply at around 100 homes, allowing bike lanes and pedestrian connections. He said a sub-collector is unlikely soon but the town needs the provision available.

13. 42:46
    Administrative changes: road construction, parking and driveway standards

    The town engineer recommended 2-foot shoulders rather than 4, a building permit would need the road complete except for paving only up to the lot being built on, a gravel road that later triggers paving would have to be paved throughout, and the road commissioner proposed 3 inches of surface gravel over 15 inches of subbase in place of 6 inches of aggregate base over 12 inches. Zinc-coated metal pipe provisions come out. Parking standards move to site plan review, driveways off a turnaround need road commissioner approval, MaineDOT sight distance standards are adopted, driveway permits are required on any road the town maintains or the planning board approved but not on state roads, driveway grade within the right of way drops from 10 percent to 3 percent, the intersection angle minimum is set at 75 degrees, and a paved apron is required where the road is paved. George credited the road commissioner and the town's peer review engineer, Gorrill Palmer (?), with the review.

14. 48:47
    Administrative changes: zoning boundary interpretation and solid waste

    George (?) said questions about exactly where a resource protection boundary such as the 100-year floodplain edge falls now go to the board of appeals, which meets once or twice a year and has no expertise on it, so the proposal moves that one function to the planning board, which meets monthly and has staff and peer review support. On solid waste, subdivisions on busy roads have had residents putting containers out on a state highway with a 50 mph limit, so the proposal requires a developer to get a readiness-to-serve letter from Casella, and to produce a plan such as a private hauler or an enclosed shared dumpster area if Casella will not serve. A resident giving her address as Harmony Acres (?) said it seems unfair that residents who pay town taxes would also have to pay for that.

15. 54:10
    Administrative changes: campgrounds, submission deadlines and ordinance corrections

    The planning board would keep conditional use approval for new campgrounds and expansions but limit its review to noise, traffic, drainage and visual quality, leaving environmental permitting and campground management, including the log of campers, to state inspectors. The application deadline would move from 14 days to three weeks before the meeting, and the requirement for 10 printed copies would be reduced while keeping hard copies for public review and department heads. The proposal would also let the select board correct clear text errors, such as the two definitions both numbered 75, without a town meeting vote, and would require proof that taxes on the property are current, after developers came in with two years of unpaid taxes on subdivision lots.

16. 59:30
    Administrative changes: conditional use submissions and tree clearing

    George (?) said the planning board had prepared a roughly 10-page submission instruction sheet for conditional use applications, but the town attorney advised it is not enforceable unless it is in the ordinance, so the proposal puts it there and makes clear the planning board, not staff, determines whether an application is complete. On tree clearing, a developer had proposed cutting the development area while the ground was frozen and before the northern long-eared bat breeding season, and the board did not think it had authority to stop that. The town attorney indicated it probably does, so the proposal states a developer cannot clear trees for the roadway or house sites before final subdivision approval.

17. 1:04:36
    Board discussion of the tree clearing language

    A board member noted the northern long-eared bat is state and federally endangered and that the state recommends clearing between November and the end of March. Another member suggested cutting the phrase "for the purpose of developing" so the prohibition covered any clearing; George (?) said that would also block cutting needed to get a backhoe in for test pits. George (?) said the town attorney thinks current clearing could be cited as a violation but that he considers it unclear, and noted the board has waiver authority it could use case by case at preliminary approval.

18. 1:10:25
    Part three: codification, and referral to the select board

    The single codification slide covered the 100 corrections to typographical and grammatical errors and outdated state citations, one of which George (?) said has changed three times since it was cited. He said the town spent around $11,000 on the work and the board kept controversial issues out of it to protect that. Board members said the main gain is that the ordinance becomes searchable.

19. 1:15:36
    Long agendas and a meeting continuation policy

    Brian (?) said the April 1 agenda is heavy and raised whether to set a cut-off time. George (?) described the practice he used in Falmouth, where the board reviewed its position at 10:00 and decided whether to take up new items after 10:30, and said applicants bringing a development team at $600 an hour need predictability about whether they will be heard. The board discussed identifying incomplete applications first so they can be moved to the next meeting, and George (?) said he would draft a continuation policy.

What was decided

• 1:04:36
  Hold further discussion of the tree clearing language over to the April 1 meeting, after a member suggested broadening it beyond clearing done for development purposes and George (?) raised test-pit access as an exception.tabled
• 1:10:25
  Pass the three-part package to the select board, using the April 1 meeting to settle the tree clearing language and to take a board decision on the added cannabis aggregated facilities statement, with the select board to consider it on April 14. No vote is recorded in the transcript.outcome unclear
• 1:20:47
  George to draft a meeting continuation policy for the board to consider, setting a point in the evening at which the board decides whether to take up further agenda items. No vote is recorded in the transcript.outcome unclear

An outcome reads "unclear" where the recording does not state it plainly. The recogniser drops short words, and "the motion does not carry" is one missing word from its opposite.

Worth knowing

• 4:24
  This was the last hearing at which changes could be made. George (?) said that once it goes to the select board the warrants are printed and the language is locked, and no changes can be made at town meeting.
• 37:10
  The board declined the public request to lower the back lot access width from 20 feet to 18 feet. The chair said the board had been back and forth on it for a long time with the fire chief, the road commissioner, developers and the public, and would stick with what it had.
• 48:47
  Residents in some subdivisions have been putting trash containers out on a state highway with a 50 mph speed limit, which is why the readiness-to-serve requirement is being proposed.
• 1:10:25
  The town spent around $11,000 on the codification. George (?) said the board deliberately kept controversial issues out of that piece so as not to jeopardise the investment.

Elsewhere

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