school and the other offseasons so the summer in the fall and that terrestrial habitat is important for other types of species from bear large bear moose turkeys to ducks and owls so again the vernal pool itself is important to the amphibians for breeding and then the terrestrial upland habitat is important for those species as well as other species who are outside of the pool so where are these vernal pools located well you can't really see this map very well but you have the map in your packet and this shows that growth area thank you the growth area as defined by the comprehensive plan as well as the rural area as defined by the comprehensive plan and hopefully you can see that the vernal pools are scattered throughout the entire town within both the growth area and the rural area of town and again this was part of that mapping effort that went out few years back where they flew imagery and out of the imagery there were select locations that looked like there could be vernal pools in those locations so those were flagged those properties were flagged and landowners were notified citizen scientists were trained by scientists at the University of Maine to be able to go and verify identify and verify the location of the vernal pools again it's not it wasn't completely comprehensive because you can miss vernal pools with the flyover of the aerial imagery and also there were some landowners that didn't want people to go on their property and so those pools were not verified so there are current regulations or surrounding vernal pools in terms of limitations on development the federal regulations limit development within 750 feet of a vernal pool this is defined by the Army Corps of engineer so they're the regulating body at the federal level and they they have the ability to enforce this 750 foot buffer roll through the Clean Water Act the catch here is that the vernal pool needs to be part of a greater wetland system and it needs to also be classified as a water of the United States for the Army Corps to step in and regulate at the state level the Maine Department of Environmental Protection through the natural resources Protection Act which we all know is naba they're able to regulate up to 250 feet surrounding a vernal pool but there has to be they have to be classified as a significant vernal pool and to be classified as a significant vernal pool they're several criteria and one of which is they have to find significant amounts of egg breeding masses within the pool which is difficult because like I said the in phibian is only go to breed in the spring and so if they go do their site visits in the winter summer fall they're not gonna find what they're looking for to classify this as a significant vernal pool so there's a little bit of timing issues here also scientists have found that while it might not be a significant vernal pool one year the following year it could be significant so really the staff time that it takes to go out and determine significant vernal pools at the state level it's just not there so we can't we don't know if you know this really is a significant or non significant vernal pool and those are only the ones that are protected through this 250 foot buffer at the state level so this is a there are limitations to the current regulation so here we see the slide with the 250 foot buffer and we see the amphibians sort of not caring about a buffer and that's because they travel throughout the entire so you're not really protecting the vernal pool itself by regulating up to 250 feet the animals need much more space than that to survive and to to be prosperous into the future also regulating to add a buffer level of 250 and 750 feet creates this isolation so you can develop right up to that 250 foot buffer line right up to the 750 foot buffer line what that does over time is the pool becomes isolated the amphibians aren't able to travel outside of that area and there becomes interbreeding and interbreeding over time will cause the pool to die off it won't be prosperous into the future what needs to happen is for the juveniles from these pools to be able to go and colonize other pools throughout the entire landscape in order to make new pools prosperous and for that pool to also be prosperous so from a scientific perspective the 250 foot and 750 foot buffer is not really protecting the pools at that level it's it's small-scale protection but what in terms of vernal pools they need a landscape scale larger size protection to be able to have these vernal pools be successful into the future from a socio-economic standpoint what this does is land owners within the designated development area which is where or the growth area which is where the town through the comprehensive plan has said they want to target growth close to schools close to amenities close to utilities you know they are smaller Lots and if you have to abide by a 250 foot or 750 foot regulation really that cuts your lot size down even further and so you really don't get a good return on investment if you're trying to develop within the air of town where we're trying to promote if you run into a vernal pool there's also this issue of unprotect unpredictability for developers like I said we don't know 100% where all the vernal pools are and so a lot of times if there's a landowner who wants to have a project a development within the designated development area and they go and they do a wetlands analysis of the of the property sometimes they can run into vernal pools and then the project either you know doesn't go forward or they get really far into it and spend a lot of money and the project ends up not going forward because they cannot meet the regulations so this leads me to the alternative vernal pool regulation so a few years back there was basically a consensus by scientists and in the town people at the town level developers people in the real estate market that there needs to be some sort of new tool to be able to regulate vernal pools where it could be a win-win situation where the town could have development where they want to in growth areas where developers wouldn't run into these unpredictable issues that they were running into and where pools could be protected at a larger scale level than they were being protected previously through the other regulation so regulators everyone got together and they developed an alternative regulation to vernal pools and the way that they did that was through a special area management plan and the special area management plan defined some criteria that municipalities would have to go through in order to be then become the people who are now designated to permit to provide a permit for vernal pools and so I'll explain this a little bit more detail really what it would allow for is that a landowner within the designated development area would be able to develop right up to a vernal pool through the vernal pool really get rid of the vernal pool and pretend that it wasn't even there and developed their project as long as they were able to conserve to vernal pools and seventy acres within the rural area of town so it would be a trade-off it would be a mid of a mitigation for being able to develop in the area that the town wants to develop in and then to protect the vernal pools at a level where they would be prosperous into the future so I went through this before but some of the benefits of this alternative is that it would give certainty and predictability for applicants developers landowners within the growth area it would be a municipal tool encouraging compact development within the growth area it would provide economic incentive for development where municipalities want development it would allow again to conserve rental pools in a land at a landscape larger scale in the rural area it supports the munis our towns vision for rural lands so you know not sprawling with subdivisions but you know more more conserved land open space and it would also provide some incentive for rural landowners who if they do put their land in conservation that they could get some sort of tax break or they would get money for land that they wanted have developed anyways because it's back land or it's wet land or you know some sort of example like that so I'm just gonna go through this quickly there there has to be some municipal criteria in place and so that criteria includes an adopted comprehensive plan which the town of Orono has and that's necessary to define the growth area and also the rural area and again here's a this this map shows the growth area and the rural area and it also shows what's known as a designated development area the designated development area is a smaller portion of the growth area it was designed for places that are on sewer and water that have accessibility to Main Roads and that would be prime targets for development in the future so let me go back there also has to be a signed agreement with the third party nonprofit land conservation organization again I talked about this last time but we are in talks with the Orono Land Trust being that third party and there has to be adopted ordinance language and that's what is in front of you tonight is the proposed ordinance language that would allow for town to permit this the vernal pool permits so after all the criteria is in place we are then able to request partial delegated authority from the Board of Environmental Protection at the state level to issue permits and then after that so the ordinance is in place we have partial delegated authority then the applicant would be an applicant or a developer would be able to use this tool in development and I threw this slide in this time because I think it's important for the Planning Board to understand what this would mean for you and what it would mean is that within your site plan review or your subdivision or subdivision plan review application you would get a copy of the permit that was given by the code enforcement officer and a receipt of the payment submitted to the code enforcement officer for the fee that would be put toward the mitigation action so if that was basically the fee which we talked about last time a lot would be based on you would either have the cost of the price of the land with the vernal pool subtracted from the price of the land without the vernal pool and then it would be a forty forty percent of that then we spoke about a minimum fee so if the project isn't large enough to generate enough money to actually have some sort of a conservation action acquisition of land in the rural area that would amount to two vernal pools plus seventy acres it's being able to be conserved then we would have a minimum fee in place and we are still in the talks of setting that minimum fee but in the proposed amendment that you have in front of you tonight page three and page four was amended since the last meeting to include some language to create a mechanism um to create that minimum fee it would be included into the fee schedule that the council adopts every year and so that is included now within the ordinance as a wit as a mechanism to set up the minimum fee we haven't 100% agreed on what the minimum fee would be yet but we are working on it and there's also language in the proposed ordinance now that ensures that the Land Trust would get the amount of money necessary to cover their administrative fees through that minimum fee so all the planning board needs to know is that there's the mechanism in place it's up to the council to decide what that fee structure so when we're not going man this evening yes so you would receive in your planning board packet notice that the applicant is choosing to utilize the vernal pool overlay district tool that they have met all the criteria necessary that they've gone to the code enforcement officer that they've gotten their permit and that they've paid their feet there is also this idea that the applicant could go out and purchase their own land seventy acres plus two vernal pools in the rural area and if if they chose to go that route instead of paying the actual fee they would have to show that they had title writer interest in the property that they purchased for the mitigation and that that conservation action that they take so if they let's say they went out and they purchased 70 acres the third party or the Land Trust would have to verify that what they what the land that they purchased actually meets the criteria necessary to be to be the mitigation land and I just want to remind you that the applicant can always choose to go with the current regulation at the state or federal level now so the 250 foot buffer or the 750 foot buffer from the vernal pool they don't have to use this this is just an incentive to try and get development within the growth area and all as always all other permits that the local state and federal level are are still required so again once the applicant chooses to use it the fee would go to the third party or the Land Trust the Land Trust would then embarked on a conservation action through either a fee simple acquisition seventy acres two pools or through conservation easement to be able to protect the two pools and the seventy acres and so I just put it here as a reminder the programmatic target to pool seventy acres in the rural area for each pool that's impacted in the designated development area and then there is reporting that's done by the town to the two regulators the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Environmental Protection and then every year this is evaluated and reviewed to make sure that its intent is actually being played out so that vernal pools are actually being protected at a landscape level in sacrifice for compromising them within the designated development area and so I wanted to just remind you as well that the ordinance now allows the town to issue permits that would normally be issued by the Department of Environmental Protection it allows us to collect fees for the impacts to the vernal pool that would then be transferred to the third party and it allows us to establish the fee mechanism which is what we discussed before for an appraisal based fee or the I'll just leave this up this is this gives you the sections of the ordinance of the proposed ordinance and I will allow you to ask questions about the proposed ordinance or if Evan wants to come forward and give you another synopsis on the for those ordinance some of the concerns we talked about last time you didn't get to hear we're concerned about having a land trust because that would put them in a position based on my understanding you said part of the fee would include money to help them do what they need to do so that work for nothing yes if you look on page four there we go that the minimum fee would be established to include in addition to acquisition costs reasonable administrative and due diligence costs incurred by the designated third party conservation organization to implement a mitigation project trying to figure out again providing some incentive for developers to actually use this I just random thought when I was looking at that is it you know if you had a project that was you know we had two vernal pools for for instance there's any hybrid approach [Music] so I bet I looked at that map that I showed you of the vernal pools within the growth area and then the rural area and we selected parcels that we thought would be in the rural area that we thought would be really great you know if they could be protected and one of them abuts already protected land at the state level and which also was continuous contiguous to some or no Land Trust land and so we use that as an example and we looked at the assessed cost of that parcel and and how much it would cost so I guess the answer to your question would be that in looking at that parcel the back acreage was only about 55 acres but you would be getting a lot of the wetland plus the vernal pool and then the upland area which is still part of the habitat is actually a little bit on that parcel but then goes into the land that was is already protected so I believe that that would be the at the programmatic level which is what we discussed last time because at the programmatic level meaning you're conserving the entire habitat necessary per this vernal pool so I would think I would say that you could take that already conserved land into account for being at the programmatic level and that you would be able to then acquire the 55 acres more or less say that we're taking about you know 12 acres from the upland from the already protected property and then take a couple - from another property that's all wetland and assess at a lower value so I think there are ways because there there's already a lot there's protected land within the rural area that I think you could try and use that to your benefit I think there's ways of getting the 70 acres or the programmatic level aside from just going out and purchasing 78 so the 70 acres wouldn't have to be a contiguous 17 acres it would because 55 and the 12 or whatever and then the two elsewhere so I wish I had brought the map but they're all contiguous but they're on three separate parcels I see so here's to them yes okay yes and then can I ask just a quickie summary just mentioned the black bear Heights the situation we ran into before and how you know how the town lost potentially a good project and you know what we're dealing with now in the pilot project because she mentioned a bit about ask for summary but this is not all over the state this is two towns proposing right now pilot yeah well it's the special area management programs apply statewide but the whole effort has been to get to towns Topsham in Orono which had done this previous work underway as pilot so we've gotten enormous amount of technical help from scientists and and others with respect to the black bear Heights that your question I think you all know that LACMA Heights was the name of a proposed subdivision off Main Street within walking distance to the schools it was a single family house lot subdivision the developer had proposed the parcel is long is somewhat oddly shaped irregularly shaped but it's long and right through the middle of it is a wetland which includes a significant Bertil pool the developer proposed and the local Planning Board the oral Planning Board approved a plan that included a clustered plan that included half the proposed Lots and the on one side of the of the wetland strip they had the vernal pool in it and then the other half to be connected with a crossing of the wetland on the back part of the land the Army Corps of Engineers ultimately said no you can't do that there's a significant vernal pool it's embedded in a wetland and even though you're not touching the vernal pool itself we don't want you to touch any part of the wetland either and they imposed that 750 foot limitation which knocked out half of the development and development also ran into other difficulties along the way and the combination of things led the project to not be able to be implemented and it was abandoned my point was that that project was an example of many things we touched on in the comp plan it was going to connect dead-end streets the interconnectivity was closed to utilities close to the school so as far as comp plan and the things we've talked about years there's a pretty good project and this vowel having another option might have saved that project yes at the time so that yeah that was my point here so that you could hear that a few yes it wouldn't so let's just talk about that with our no proposals for this land at this point and I don't know if there ever will be but let's just talk about that since you had back in two thousand three two thousand for that time period an actual project on on before the board and see how that would might play out under this because it's helpful to understand first of all this was going to be a clustered project and I want to point that out because that's in its discussed in the I mean it's embedded in its amendment to what happens if you're clustering are clustering above and beyond any state and federal regulations our cluster development is all aimed at finding this balance creating the opportunity for housing of a wide variety of types from apartments to single-family homes while conserving the open space and that open space includes all important natural resources so there was a formula and all that's up and you know that this town has experienced quite a few clustered developments Darryl Pines the various apartment projects and so forth if this project called black bear Heights had come in with this in place and if the developer had chosen to use this tool what would have happened is that they could have gone ahead with their full proposal which was I think 52 Lots they could have crossed the wetland as long as they didn't disturb more than X thousand long as it didn't require more I think our ordinance has more than a Tier one permit from the DEP they would not have been able to touch the vernal pool but they weren't planning to if you imagine what what happens is that now just develop it by the way here right in this this vicinity right here there's a line of wetland and resources diagonally like this and they develop half of it across the web as well the vernal pool was over here they wanted a cross over here at the narrowest part of the wetland today we're going to touch the vernal pool but the Army Corps reason that if you're going to disturb this wetland you will somehow interrupt disrupt the ability of the amphibians that depend on the pool to move to their upland habitat for the you know the rest of the season outside of the breeding season and so they opposed that 750-foot thing what would happen here because I assumed they were still they would still be doing a cluster I don't know that for sure but let's just that's what they were proposing that Bernal pool would still be protected as a vernal pool and there would be some upland around it it wouldn't be the seventy acres of upland around it but there would be some so there'd be some concern that long-term that pool could become isolated but you know there is the there would not be entirely disturbed and there'd be some review by the board under the cluster provisions to see how best that pool might still function but it could have moved ahead at the same time with the 52 Lots instead of the twenty they were limited ultimately to 26 there would have been an appraisal done with a peer review of what that land is varied at with that limitation that they ultimately faced versus without and so if the value of the land had gone up you know I don't know let's just use a round number a hundred thousand dollars because they could now do 52 loss instead of twenty six Lots they would have made a they would have paid a fee to the town of $40,000 and that $40,000 that's forty forty percent of the of the Delta and that $40,000 would have been transferred into a dedicated fund held by the Arnold Land Trust if they were the third party and that $40,000 would have been available for several purposes acquisition of presumably an easement out in the rural area of the requisite land some some funds designated for the due diligence work surveys environmental assessments things you have to do when you're acquiring land legal things and then long-term stewardship administrative costs so that's how that would have worked yep thank you questions for having them I just have a question in general that Janet touched on if a developer is going to say okay we're going to just develop this area and I'm going to do the payback with the 70 acres that have to vernal pools in them so they would they would purchase the the 70-acre law let's say and they would then pay 40 percent - no no what happened they the developer gets a choice either they can just because everybody want to make it administratively easy yeah for things to move ahead that was part of the whole you know win-win of this the developer would merely pay either the 40 percent of the Delta or the minimum fee the larger whichever is larger to the town for transferred to the Land Trust and then they can move ahead they can move ahead as if that vernal pool wasn't there it's up to then the Land Trust to go out and find and acquire the easements for that pool in the rural area in the land that's one way that can that it can happen the second option is that the developer or somebody else do you own or economic drama corporation so if they had interest in this could do what's called a permit II make it right term permit irresponsible mitigation where they the developer could and acquire that land have their own agreement with the Land Trust for you know for the Land Trust and they would have to they'd have to be some verification that they're meeting all the criteria with that acquisition and they'd have to demonstrate that to you the planning board that the what's being preserved in the rural area meets all the criteria and the Land Trust would also endorsed that and then if they and then there was no fee they don't have to pay a fee could they paid that they've gone out and required the land there was interest in some some of the developers are involved in though these long discussions especially about on Topsham in doing that and so that was included as a so then they would be responsible for doing the reporting back to the the state and the issues of they would they would essentially provide an easement to the Arnold Land Trust and then the ordinal Land Trust would become the steward of that easement and the administrative fees that the or no Land Trust would have to incur would just they would they the Land Trust is used to saying yes we will do this but you're gonna have to give us a they have a formula for stewardship feet drexy okay all right thank you based on the last meeting and what we've talked about just now could you just elaborate if there's been any discussions in the Land Trust have any cold feet on this or on the record Bucky on the past president murinal interest we were going to wait till after this meeting actually we have a subcommittee to deal with this I have again reviewed all of this I have some questions particularly I need to sit down with Evan our major we have two concerns one is the expertise to do the work and particularly for instance and what was the terminology used where they'd land purchases permit irresponsible mitigation okay but then that flips over to the Arnold interests there's no provision in here for stewardship fees associated with that number one number two you know and some of us go off the land trust I'm not sure we'll have the expertise to do that and that's why I want to talk to I think you've all met Aram Calhoun who's the sort of the state expert on all of this and I'm actually going to get down and have her sign a a chat saying that she'll continue to be an expert witness for us so that we have the expertise to move ahead with this I don't anticipate we're going to have a lot of these and and secondly is to cover our costs and I just wrote down you know I just estimated we're going to sit down and take a sample parcel of land out there and just kind of estimate what it's going to cost for appraisal surveying environmental survey and all that kind of stuff plus stewardship to make sure that we we don't want to make any money on this but we we don't want to go bank well we have no paid staff at all would totally volunteer but at this point we're in we just need to iron out the details and particularly if you move ahead with the with the model ordinance then we can sit down and and sit down and really talk turkey with evan or general whomever we need to do it but we're behind it we're supportive of it and we'll do everything we can to make it work thank you other questions we do have some members of the audience so if there's any initial questions all right step right up my name is chip Lake I'm representing a landowner the area a couple questions how does this compare to the in lieu fee program state has four mitigating wetlands and real pools structurally it's it's a little bit similar to it but the the in the in lieu of mitigation fees program [Music] in which a developer can compromise and true to pas and alter wetlands if they get the necessary permits to do so with mitigation in part through fees that may or may not avert a pool the bullet pool portion of the wetlands regulation no power stricter than wetland stuff and so that doesn't get you out of the you know it probably doesn't get you out of the vernal pool limitations restrictions of the natural resource protection act or certainly from the Army Corps of engineer Army Corps of Engineers so this is any developer would if they're gonna if they're going to alter wetlands aside from the vernal pool are still going to have to go through the wetland this does not relieve anybody of other regulations including the wetland regulations so you might still be involved with a mitigation of a wetland alteration even if you took this option but it's just that you wouldn't have to worry about the vernal pool portion of it yeah yeah there's always the the rest of the wetland piece is still there still nervous still DEP still the armored York or wherever their jurisdictions come in it's just that they wouldn't now be able to say they would not not say oh and by the way there's a vernal pool there and not only do you have to limit yourself in terms of wetland but God say 750 feet away from the world just just clarify the agreement is part of the negotiation for this pilot project is that the town can be partial to issue the permit for being able to compromise word is partial artful means for vernal pools not for other wildlife habitats not for other wetlands but not for anything else governed by okay how will the how would a developable law be handled where the portion of it is in the designated development area but another portion of it is excluded so the developed area goes right down through a middle ball of a lot so part of it would be in this program and pilot would be out because of the way these lines were how [Music] was that established initially is that aerial imaging so we have a growth as Jan explained we have the designated growth area in our conference a plan you know there's a large area that basically through here that's the growth area but under the speciality management program and the reviews of the especially the Department of Inland Fisheries I here in Maine they would probably not approve all the growth area being in the designated development area for this so they asked us this was before Jana was on board but they asked us the town to take a look at our growth designate growth area and say what subset of the growth area is best suited for this thinking in terms of you know what might actually be developed or potential for development in the next five to ten years that have Utah sewer and water does it have access there's a close to things you know we're become a little more specific and so what you see up here in this map the green and the red together is our designated growth area under the cut in the comprehensive plan as approved by the state the red our areas that are excluded from the designated development area either because they don't have utilities and have you know there'd be some work to get access to them or because they already are in conservation such as coal burn and preserve and the Piney knoll area that the Land Trust owns or we know that it's got very significant other restrictions such as that land at the end of Union Street and down toward the golf course or is a golf course so those things were taken out there is no real science behind it other than our judgment so I think this is why open to discussion and modification this is this is address it was we did it as a draft to chips question if if a property is divided then that part of the land that's not in the designated if there's a vernal pool there would that be eligible for this alternative regulation if it's within the doesn't need to develop many earlier part of the lot then it would be eligible for participation in this alternative regulation and it's not always it's you know we try not to cut lots properties because this makes it complicated it'd have to be a very large lot or something with other restrictions so I think at the staff level were wide open to comment review and modification of some of these lines if there was other properties somewhat trips comment there that maybe few properties that are fall in that situation but just a few just our kids for this one when would that occur so we're talking about the ordinance might if we made a recommendation for council but those kinds of adjustments would be it really should be happening now you know in this time frame this this map it becomes part of the zoning ordinance you know it becomes an overlay district it is the boundaries of the overlay district so it's part of the ordinance and it's part potentially what you might want to recommend to the council one way or another either the map as is or with alterations the council itself could alter it before they put it to their public hearing as well so you know but we're in that timeframe the next 30 days we want to finalize the map so that either with direction from you today as part of your recommendation that it should be modified or the council when they take a look right I was just thinking about is that I would not have been aware of this issue unless he brought it up and if there are other properties that would you alert them that you know that a line might be going through their loss under something I don't the way this you know to resolve an issue here we have one lot older that showed up tonight but if there's others would be nice to try to get it right though yeah I think first I think it might just be one large parcel that's okay divided and it's very aware you know sewer water is limited but you know there may be the line that was drawn was just kind of a judgment call there wasn't anything okay so if you wired for example is probably recommendation if you felt this way and I certainly wouldn't argue with it to say that we should examine lines to seed the degree to which if there's a strong logic behind dividing a parcel in partly in and partly out that doesn't get a development area you know we could work with property owners the council whoever to some the public here this evening and I wouldn't have thought of that issue did we answer your questions [Music] we had a lot of discussion it's good to have the Land Trust here and to me the audience but we still have the ordinance in front of us so then when I asked last time is if you had a chance to review that prior to the meeting I'm just thinking procedurally so if we have no questions this is what's in front of us I think the red text that you added heels is helpful that that clarifies how the Land Trust would be covered but how would the board like to proceed now because there's a text Jada did a great job in summarizing last time has had a chance to review the proposed text would you like to go through things [Music] I reviewed it you know obviously a lot of the finer points I you know I wouldn't have come up with your question either so I guess I'm getting to do what others think would be best okay I still have a concern about the Land Trust and it being a volunteer organization and I don't know when we should have that discussion but I mention that but they have a guarantee because a comment last time was a pretty good version being put on the Land Trust as part of this pilot project and making sure that they have the expertise to select you know if they would be tasked with whatever the case may be that they have the expertise in-house so they received a guarantee from was a concern if I understand it the burden still remains on the town the burden is still on the if I if I read this correctly yeah even if the Land Trust backs away is the burden still not on the town DEP XY's it sounds like it is yep Jana may I the burden too according to the samp this especially remains wrongly the burden once once the town has reached an agreement with a third party conservation organization it is the responsibility of that third party to find the land if they possibly can to acquire and do everything necessary to acquire it if they decide they're not going to do it then this goes inactive the only way this can happen is if there's a third party agreement with who is or who is comfortable enough with a program to sign on with a town they don't have to sign on with honor you can say say we just don't think we can do it and so we've done you know some due diligence work with your no land trust talk to their board you met a couple times with their committees to find out their comfort level and you know we think we're getting close and we're trying to get language in here to make sure that they will be appropriately covered and then but they in the end there's nothing that says they have to do this that's why why if at some point so if it's written that third party will participate but if at some point does not have the capability to do this that they could in the you know the model agreement that together there's a termination clause if that happens and the town cannot find a qualified third party organization to step in their place then this overlay district is dormant all right so that would protect until one is found until what I found and we and you know it is being qualified and our new agreement is struck also as the opportunity to do it on his own so party with whom to have an agreement that might be easier to cuz they'd be very specific and they could arrange their own deal with the developers that's a good point this whole thing that the money if it's not used over time goes to a greater fund at the state level to be used for conserving natural resources not strictly just vernal pools but there is a fund at the state level that does conserve vernal pools vernal pool habitat and other types of natural resources at the landscape level so I believe it's three years three years if the money isn't used in three years it can then be transferred to that fund so there is some contingency if you know if the Land Trust is on board and they they can't find a conservation project within three years there is a contingency if the Land Trust pulls away and there's still this fund this money that's still left in the fund that can then go to to this other fund so there are contingencies in place to ensure that natural resources are still being protected and on landscape level regardless of you know if if they're being executed by the third party or by by the town so and and if that happens do that does that state fund become the steward for the properties that have already been put into this tool discussion but can you just get you on the record so that [Music] we have applied to this fund several times it's called the main natural resources protection program or and and it's money that's allocated regionally throughout the state they try to match the wetlands are being protected with the wetlands that have been destroyed and and it has a third party associated with that but actually there's no reporting requirement by that third party on an annual basis that that there is with this with this program right and I was just wearing what would happen to with the reporting does that stop - if the it doesn't so who's responsible for it so it that would stay with the town the town has to do some reporting anyways and we would probably we would end up taking that over but in terms of the easement the easement will still be in place you know because this now get this moves way beyond ordinances and now we're in the real estate law and if if land on rex has sold an easement to conservation organization why that easement is in place that easement is in place now if for some reason the Land Trust went defunct or something like that there would have to be a proceeding where that conservation easement would be transferred to another responsible party because it remains a restriction on that land and under the samp the town has some responsibility for making sure that the property is not being violated but that in the first instance that would be the Land Trust as the easement holder there will be responsibility hopefully it would be some funds as part of this available to them to carry out their responsibilities the last time we talked about if a parcel the mitigation piece wasn't available in town that they could go to neighboring communities will there be difficulty with a third party the Ono land trust and [Music] again this may never happen but potential parcels that aren't in town I wonder what limitation okay you can okay just random occurrences but I'm just curious all right other questions all right finish the discussion [Music] proceeding [Music] but I think we might be close enough that we could proceed I just [Music] I'm comfortable when I read it seems like a low-risk like I reward okay yeah it's a good program and I think we need to recommend it to the council like right do we need to go through line by line I'm giving you we've had to two months to review this we've addressed some of the significant concerns I've heard from the Land Trust that was a big one for me but it's yeah I'm a little bit more comfortable knowing that they could actually pull back if they were not not equipped to deal with their their role mr. Jim if I could just point out and nobody pointed out before so I don't so I'm sure you're aware of it but I just want to underscore that this crate in your really district but it's amending a few other plate parts of the ordinance - yes so that the things mesh nicely with the new overlay district and one of those deals with the wildlife standards of the ordinance where we become more specific about inventory and vernal pools and if you're not taking advantage of this program of this option that you're giving protection to those vernal pools specifically beau Cigna vernal pool and so that's there and then there are tweaks to the submission requirements for the site plan or subdivision review so so that the information you need to review those plans with respect to this alternative or option would be there if the developer goes that route just a quick question because topsail in Illinois participating in this how follows Topsham the Muslim has adopted their ordinance I think they've reached a third-party agreement with the Brunswick Topsham Land Trust okay and they were in the process of applying for partial delegation yeah I believe that's the last I heard I'm assuming that we've kept abreast of their process or less any lessons learned is there farther along than at this point we've got all their documents and we're in communication with them and yes okay and over here on Calhoun and Elizabeth Hertz who is helping I'm not sure who she's a consultant to if it's to the University I guess she's part of the university team but she's an expert in wetlands regulation among other things and so she's also serving as a communications link letting us know how Thompson was doing and good any last questions from the public before I close the public here all right further discussion if we're okay with this as is I didn't have any substantive changes I just wanted to address some of I think we make a recommendation to approve this I think that we should put the one stipulation or requirement on it that lots not be divided because it could be complicated for us in the future to figure out if a rural pool was on one side of the line or the other side of line if it's a divided law I would like to recommend I think it's very important that planning staff take you know a closer look at [Music] property owner thought it might just be the one law but let's let's try to nail that down as part of that the process so that yeah just to make sure I'm clear on this that was because the lot part of it was in the developmental zone and part of it wasn't right and so that if you're not in that developmental zone then you're not covered by this thing okay so I just have to be aware that if there are lots like that we have to mitigate that somehow all right any other changes [Music] we are ready for motion if somebody will also take a stab at our addition means jump in I guess I make a motion that we accept the proposal as is with the stipulation that properties not be defined such that they're split between districts so a property would be either in a district or not in the district so we you know less confusing for us as we review applications that caps right yeah I maybe you might want to clarify the difference between one that's in the developmental zone and one that that isn't because that that isn't covered by this anyway is evan explained it before so is that lying that the town closely reviews and I guess in discussion with property owners because we have one that's at the table now and maybe it's just the one marked that that they're involved in a discussion of establishing where that one goes so I think Jamie I think that captured it [Music] right any questions so just within the designated lots that are split by the designated development area would be further reviewed to ensure that the entire lot is placed within the designated development within or without whatever BSN I guess some consultation all right [Music] so we have our motion of seconds we good any further discussion I guess all those in favor all right thank you that was very good just discussion of the issue and we'll see what the council comes up with next up is a discussion in fund the presentation on updating the zoning map and I see no action so [Music] and I forgot to include the draft zoning map in your packet so I apologize for that I can put it up on the let's let's do that I do like mr. Owen I do I thank that land trust participation in this process it's it's a unique thing to be able to participate and your involvement is is greatly appreciated so again I apologize that I didn't include a larger scale map of this in your packet but we presented they're not substantive changes to the zoning map they were the council took some action on some contract zones since 2011 and the last time that the map was amended was in 2011 and so there were several contracts owns that were that were included on this map another update to the map was so you'll notice that the shoreland zoning overlay is no longer on this map this is we now have two maps one would be the town wide zoning map and the other would be the shore land overlay map which I can put up after this one but I want to speak to this one first so what was happening is the what was supposed to be an overlay zone was actually embedded as a town-wide zone on the on the zoning map as it's shown now and that caused some issues because we weren't sure exactly what the underlying zone was it doesn't it wasn't showing up on the map so for example down by the Penobscot River and the MDR there was the shoreland zoning buffer from the Penobscot River but underneath it wasn't showing that it was the MDR district so there was some confusion if you are a member of the public and you were looking at our zoning map you would realize that you were within the limited residential shoreland overlay but you didn't also know that you were in the medium density residential zone as well so what this does is it it pulls the underlying zone throughout the entire parcel boundary and then we have another Shore land zoning map to be able to show that you are within the underlying zone and you were also within this shoreland zoning overlay so that was one of the largest updates that was made to the map in addition to the contract zones that were added that had been approved by the council since 2011 many contracts in Eastern recall [Music] three contract zones do they have a particular color up there yes so what we did was we created an inset which is on your bottom right that bottom right inset is strictly contracting conditional zones which we think makes it a lot easier to see where they are throughout the town what we also did was we gave them each a number and that number then reflects to the ID and that table of the map and you go number by number and you're able to see the law the tax map and lot you're able to see what the contract zone is you're able to see the date that it was adopted by the council and you're also able to see the address of the contract zone and in the zone that it was the contract zone that it's in so in essence this isn't really a zoning change it's just a clarification of what already exists updates to the map that need to happen for housekeeping purposes to show it the way that it should be represented at this point in time I can show you oh sorry about that there the council also approved the extension of the village commercial district down Forest Avenue to include four Lots down to the office and that was approved and so this is reflective of that as well that change as well so people can see some of towns GIS view or [Music] formerly we just wanted to have show it to you because this is going to affect you as well and once it has been adopted we will certainly I think for the next meeting which by the way we don't have anything on the January agenda at this point but I can certainly provide this map to you so you can look at it in more detail and going forward once it becomes adopted by the council we will give you the approved copy of the map [Music] and we also can print you copies it might be nice to have one on the wall yeah so when it becomes adopted we will put it up in the Community Development Office as well as my office and you're welcome to suggest places throughout the town hall that we could put it and certainly we have it will be incorporated into the GIS online when it becomes formalized I'll quickly show you the zoning overlay yeah there are large documents and they don't like to download sometimes there we go so the rest of the the underlying zones are taken out of this so that it's clear that there this is strictly an overlay map for Shore land zoning what's happening also on our map was that because we have aquifer overlay we have a still water overlay there's several other overlays when you and the Main Street overlay now and then potentially the vernal pool overlay so with all those other overlays and then a shore land overlay on top of it there's only so many colors you can use until everything looks Brown you know it really all just kind of merges together so this was just easier for members of the public residents town staff board members councillors to be able to look at this and really have more clarity to where the shore land zoning is and where the town wide zoning is looks good yeah I think that that was any questions comments we can provide this to you and you can provide comments to us as well gone through several reiteration so we're hoping that it goes well but so basically this was brought to the comp plan implementation committee council level they looked at it earlier this month it is on the agenda for the next comp plan implementation meeting and then hopefully there'll be some discussion on putting it on the council agenda started here actually the implementation committee that's just a subcommittee of the council itself any other public members no I didn't think so yeah all right so nothing is up for almost as further questions we don't notice Oh January meeting maybe disc golf wants the snow yes yeah yeah they've been putting a lot of working over there yeah thank you very much that thought was good I mean by their permits discussion last up is adjournment I move we adjourn second right very good [Music] everyone have a great holiday