The Planning Board recommended Tuesday night a set of limitations on large retail projects that would limit their size and could be a stumbling block for a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in Westbrook.
The board voted, 7-0, to send the standards to the council. The standards were developed in response to a proposal by Wal-Mart to construct a 203,000-square-foot “supercenter” on the land currently occupied by the Saunders Brothers mill. The standards, which still need to be approved by the City Council, would apply to large projects in the Gateway zone that abut a residential neighborhood.
As they are currently written, the new standards would limit buildings in the Gateway zone to a footprint size of 160,000 square feet. The standards also set increased buffering standards, put limits on noise levels and limits hours of retail operation from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m.
Planning Board member Greg Knapton, who voted against rezoning the Saunders property from industrial to Gateway, said he felt the additional standards were necessary to protect the surrounding neighborhood. “The most important thing is to protect the neighborhood,” he said.
Responding to concerns that the new standards would be too restrictive for businesses and would dissuade some businesses from considering moving to Westbrook, board member Christopher Parr said the needs of the residents must be considered as well.
“We’re citizens of this city,” Parr said. “We set the terms of what we think is required to protect our fellow citizens and at the same time be welcoming to businesses.”
Board Member Anna Wrobel said the new standards were not in response to Wal-Mart’s proposal. She said the board wanted to make sure there were protections in place for the neighborhood, no matter what is developed on the Saunders property.
“If it’s regarded as punitive by some, I just regard it as protective,” she said.
The standards must now be approved by the City Council, which will hold a public hearing on the matter before taking a vote. A date for the public hearing has not been set.
In other news, the Planning Board reaffirmed its decision to deny approval to a 23-unit affordable housing project proposed for a plot of land off Reed Street.
On May 3, the board voted, 4-3, to deny the application of Community Housing of Maine to construct the project, known as Clearwater Bend.
After a request by the applicant, the board voted unanimously to reconsider its vote on May 23. At the meeting on Tuesday night, however, board members did not change their votes. The board once again voted, 4-3, not to approve the project.
Board members Wrobel, Luc Bergeron, Brian Beattie and Rene Daniel voted to deny the application. Board members Parr, Greg Blake and Chairman Ed Reidman voted in favor of the project.
While they said they were in favor of affordable housing being built in Westbrook, the members who voted against the project said they felt the project, and the traffic associated with it would overwhelm the Reed Street neighborhood.
Wrobel said she liked the idea of the project, and would like to see it built somewhere in the city, but said she felt it wasn’t a good fit for Reed Street. She said she felt Clearwater Bend would have a negative effect on property values of existing homes on Reed Street.
“For me, the issue really is Reed Street,” said Wrobel. “Every project changes a neighborhood, there’s no two ways about that.”
Beattie said while he also thought the project was a good one for the city as a whole, the additional traffic associated with it led him to vote against the project. “We look at what’s going to be best for Westbrook, but we also have to look at what’s best for the surrounding area,” he said.
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