New Gloucester residents during a special town meeting Monday endorsed a concept plan that aims to redevelop the Upper Village into a bustling commercial center with more of a village-like feel.
Before taking a vote, however, several residents during the meeting at the American Legion hall questioned the plan, including how the development would impact New Gloucester taxpayers, as well as Upper Village residents and businesses owners.
“I don’t see a lot of property here,” said resident Frank Staton of the area along Route 100 in what comprises New Gloucester’s primary business district. “I only see a couple properties that have enough land for (this). Do you know of any retailers that come and knock on residents’ doors and ask them to buy property?”
“It’s not going to slow the traffic down,” Staton said of the plan, which promotes traffic-calming measures. “It increases every day. This road has been here for decades.”
Kathleen Potter said she was concerned about supporting a vision that could be altered by a future developer.
“You may get an Upper Village plan, but it’s not going to be exactly what you want,” Potter said.
Following a two-hour discussion moderated by resident Ben DeTroy, residents narrowly approved a warrant article that asked them to support the town’s efforts to promote a so-called “village orientation” in the Upper Village area, which stretches along Route 100 between Route 231 and Gilmore Road.
”Village orientation” was defined by the town as “a quality possessed by successful town centers that accrues from a variety of factors including, but not limited to, a unified streetscape, sensitive building layout and design, mixed uses, pedestrian amenities, traffic calming, and a focus on creating and maintaining a human scale rather than an automobile-dominated landscape.”
After voting 57-56 in support of the measure by holding up pink pieces of paper, some residents urged a recount. Instead, officials asked residents to re-cast their votes by writing down whether they supported the concept on a small piece of paper and place it into a ballot box. Residents passed the article, 66-59.
Though town officials at the meeting did not provide a cost estimate for the redevelopment, they said that it would eventually lower residents’ property taxes.
“In the long run, there is benefit to attracting business and having commercial taxpayers in our community,” said Town Manager Paul First. “It contributes to the overall picture of making our community a great place to live.”
Through a series of public workshops and other planning efforts, the New Gloucester Planning Department and members of the Land Management Planning Committee have spent the last several years developing a draft Upper Village Master Plan that would serve as a guide for future development and investment.
A handful of residents Monday urged the voters to support the concept plan. Cobbs Bridge Road resident Buzz Lamb, who previously served on the Land Management Planning Committee in New Gloucester, said the town needs to focus on downtown revitalization in order to prosper.
“Millennials don’t want to live in the country like we did. They want to live in urban areas where there are people and places they can go,” Lamb said. “Portland is a good example of this, (as well as) Dover-Foxcroft (and) Eastport. All over the state we are seeing revitalization in village centers that have both excellent places to live and excellent places to work.”
“The Upper Village has room to grow,” Lamb said. “It has a significant amount of potential.”
Tammy Donovan, a New Gloucester resident who also served on the committee, commended the town planners for the thought they put into the plan.
“It’s a vision. It’s preserving our future,” she said. “This doesn’t mean it’s going to happen tomorrow; it doesn’t mean things aren’t going to change over time, but in order to preserve what we want as a quaint little town, we have to take these measures.”
Other goals in the master plan include addressing “unsafe conditions related to traffic, infrastructure and mixed land uses” and managing land uses “to ensure compatibility and prosperity” in the Upper Village, which has recently been outfitted with piped water. In summer 2014, the New Gloucester Water District installed a new $2.4 million public water distribution system throughout the Upper Village, which addressed a quarter-century-long issue of contaminated groundwater that hindered development in the village.
The town’s public works facility, which is in poor condition and located conspicuously in the middle of the village area, has also impeded development in the Upper Village, the plan says. Part of the town’s vision, according to the plan, includes relocating the public works building to a nearby location and replacing it with a cluster of six mixed-use buildings that would form the village’s core, said Town Planner Will Johnston.
The village redesign piggybacks with the newly installed water system, which town officials say now provides more opportunities for economic development in the Upper Village corridor.
“It’s made the area more attractive,” said Johnston.
With water in place, one resident who lives on Route 100 asked whether the town also discussed or planned to install septic systems as part of the development concept.
“The plan to address that for the (most dense) area for the core village is through a community septic system,” said First. “It would be what really equates to a large leach field and septic system that would be shared by the businesses that are clustered there together.”
Monday’s meeting was intended to get residents to “buy in” to an overall concept for the Upper Village as opposed to determining details of the plan, since “the details could change according to who we find as a private sector partner,” Johnston told the Lakes Region Weekly prior to the meeting.
“We wanted to get an endorsement because we didn’t want to get accused of putting the cart before the horse,” Johnston told residents Monday. “It’s an affirmation that we’re on the right track here.”
And “as things evolve,” he said, “we will probably refine it.”
In order to realize the full potential of the Upper Village, the town is looking to change its zoning and land use standards to allow for higher density development, as well as reconfigure the traffic pattern to improve pedestrian access.
“We’re talking smaller, lower buildings close to the road that feel like a village,” said Joshua McHenry, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.
The re-envisioned Upper Village could also include a village green at the intersection of Upper Village Street and Route 100 that would separate the new mixed-use business district traffic from Route 100. Wide sidewalks that would accommodate outdoor patios and gathering places are also proposed.
McHenry said getting the residents’ endorsement for the concept plan makes the town a more attractive applicant for grant funding.
“Think about the impact of the water district, and the fact there is now clean and reliable, safe drinking water in the Upper Village, that’s been lacking for many years,” McHenry said. “Just by virtue of having a public water supply, it makes that region more attractive to outside development.”
McHenry said the fact there is a lot of vehicular traffic on Route 100 is also enticing to developers.
“You don’t want to open up a business and have nobody driving by it,” McHenry said. “I think that this plan moves us in the right direction, and I think it’s the way we should be going.”
An artist’s rendering shows what the Upper Village in New Gloucester might look like if it is redeveloped according to the town’s Upper Village Master Plan.
New Gloucester resident Buzz Lamb encourages residents at a special town meeting Monday to support downtown revitalization in the Upper Village.
New Gloucester residents vote using pink slips of paper during Monday night’s special town meeting regarding a concept plan for redeveloping the Upper Village along Route 100.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
