Bring back contract zoning
For the past two years, Westbrook has been deprived of an important tool when it comes to dealing with developers.
In 2004, the city revised its zoning ordinances and eliminated contract zoning. That tied the city’s hands in working with development projects in the city.
The city has tried for two years to operate without contract zoning, and in that time, has faced two projects – the proposed Wal-Mart on the Saunders Brothers land and the new Cinemagic movie theater – that would have benefited from it.
In both cases, the council would have been free to make changes on the specific parcels of land in question, instead of being forced to make changes to the entire zone. Contract zoning would have spared developers and the city a series of lengthy debates and meetings and would have avoided delaying the projects unnecessarily.
Contract zoning would give the city the freedom to allow developments that would usually be restricted in a given zone – if those projects benefit the city – and it would allow the city to set specific conditions for the project.
At the time contract zoning was eliminated, those who drafted the new ordinance argued that as long as the zones were created with enough foresight, there would be no need to make any exceptions, rendering contract zoning unnecessary.
That’s a shortsighted argument. There is no possible way to know with any certainty what’s going to happen in the future, and even the most well crafted documents need to be changed sometimes. If the U.S. Constitution has required 27 amendments in its history, it should come as no surprise that the Westbrook zoning ordinances need changing from time-to-time.
Allowing for contract zoning would make the changes much easier. Instead of forcing a change to the entire zoning ordinance, it would allow the City Council the freedom to set conditions on projects, without requiring developers to wait while both the council and Planning Board act on an ordinance change.
A good example of this is the Cinemagic movie theater being built on County Road. When that project was proposed, the city was forced to make a change to the zoning ordinance to allow theaters to operate in an industrial zone. Instead of being able to make the change for just the theater, the council was forced to make the change to the entire zone.
At a meeting of the council Monday night, Councilor Drew Gattine said he felt the city was changing the zoning ordinances too much. “I think we’d be far better served being able to make some arrangements with individual projects we think are important to the city as opposed to always having to change the zone,” he said.
Gattine makes a good point. Changing zones is time-consuming, and it gets expensive for developers to have projects delayed while waiting for the process to play itself out.
And it’s not as if contract zoning hasn’t been used effectively here in the past. The Hannaford store on William Clarke Drive and the People’s Regional Opportunity Program’s affordable housing units on Brown Street were allowed under contract zoning, and there’s little doubt those projects have benefited the city.
With other neighboring towns and cities allowing contract zoning, Westbrook needs to make sure it can stay competitive as it moves into the future.
Two years without contract zoning has proven it can be a useful tool, even with a well crafted ordinance. It’s time to return to contract zoning.
Standing for a cause
Last week, for the third consecutive year, Eric Smith, an assistant pastor at the First Parish Church in Gorham stood up for something he believed in – although he took it further than most people would ever consider.
Smith stood on a narrow ledge 65 feet in the air to help collect money and food for the church’s annual food drive.
Braving a cold, driving rain and wind that surely made his perch a slippery one, Smith and a group of volunteers from the community collected almost 2,800 pounds of food and $600 in cash for the Gorham Ecumenical Food Pantry and $1,400 to assist the needy with heating bills.
Smith should be commended for his dedication to the cause. When the weather turned nasty, it would have been easy for Smith to change his mind and skip the vigil this year. Instead, he braved the elements, and now there are people in Gorham who will have food and a warm place to fight off the winter cold.
Mike Higgins, assistant editor
Send questions/comments to the editors.
