As Moratorium Deadline Looms, Council and Staff Work Toward Potential Changes
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Andy’s Home Improvement Inc.
BAR HARBOR—Six Bar Harbor town councilors and staff sat around tables pushed together in the town’s council chambers, Tuesday night, papers splayed before them, trying to workshop the town’s future.
Council Chair Val Peacock said as the workshop began, “We need to figure out what the actual work is that needs to be done.”
For months, the town’s comprehensive planning committee and planning department have diligently worked to do the same thing in slightly different ways. The town’s planning board has been going through proposed land use amendment after proposed land use amendment that town staff brought forward. The comprehensive planning committee has outlined areas for the town to focus on as it grows.
Tuesday night, though, it had a slightly different feel. That wasn’t just because of the table configuration or because it was the council instead of another municipal body reviewing a potential implementation guideline for multiple actions. It was because of an emergency moratorium that is ticking away in the backdrop of the town’s activities.
That 60-day moratorium pauses all development for certain lodging types due to the town “experiencing unprecedented pressure on public facilities and infrastructure due to an increase in certain transient accommodations” and concerns about the impact on health and safety, environment, quality of life, property values, size and approval processes, according to the moratorium’s language.
The November 19 moratorium goes on to say that Bar Harbor’s “land use ordinance is inadequate to prevent serious public harm due to the current approval process,” and that people are concerned that the “increase in certain transient accommodations will put undue strain on the water, sewer, and stormwater systems” as well as increased traffic congestion.
The purpose is also within the moratorium and is “to allow municipal officials reasonable time to evaluate the concerns raised in regards to anticipated or proposed development of certain transient accommodations, to determine the adequacy of existing land use ordinances and regulations, the approval and permitting process of certain transient accommodations, and, if necessary, develop additional ordinances and regulations to provide adequate protection for the property, health, welfare, land use, compatibility, environmental compatibility, and protection of all residents and visitors in the Town of Bar Harbor, such as but not limited to sewer, water, storm water, and parking.”
It might take two to three months, but Bar Harbor Town Manager James Smith said that he hopes that in that time, the town will know what tasks are necessary to complete so that the town’s emergency moratorium can be refined or lifted.
The goal is to leave the moratorium in place as long as it’s necessary while going after active goals, Smith said during a Bar Harbor Town Council workshop, December 3. The workshop was meant to be a step toward that.
The town has identified five target areas to focus on: tourism management and zoning, infrastructure and transportation, environmental protections, economic growth support, and community engagement and monitoring.
“A lot of this is already work-in-progress, but it’s long-range planning,” Smith said, but the town staff would also like to address some short-range decisions that are under the council’s purview. Elements of those areas have been tied back to the town’s draft comprehensive plan (meant to guide the town’s future), which voters will approve or not in June.
“The whole purpose of this is just to give you a starting point for this conversation,” Smith said to councilors about the workshop. Then, ideas could be refined and action items could be created, prioritized problem statements created, and then steps and language would be returned to the council.
Much of the process will take time. Changes to the land use ordinance can take six to 12 to 18 months to get to voters. Smith thanked the planning staff for its work.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” Town Council Chair Val Peacock said as the councilors delved into the five main areas of discussion.
Both Bar Harbor Planning Board Chair Millard Dority and Vice Chair Ruth Eveland volunteered their board to help.
“We’ve been talking about (it) in the planning board, but we’ve been holding back on the reigns until the comp plan is done,” Dority said of many of the topics discussed at the workshop. He asked how other boards and committees in the town will be involved in the process.
As of Tuesday, there were fifty-three days left in the moratorium.
“I’m imagining three years, not 53 days,” to get changes done, Dority said, given how long it typically takes for things to get done in municipal governments.
“Your planning board is eager to help. You have a lot on your plates,” Eveland said. “Please delegate.”
TOURISM MANAGEMENT AND ZONING
Councilors spent a majority of the workshop discussion on tourism management and zoning, delving into both possible actions and ideas.
Potential short-term solutions included developing limits on short-term rentals in residential zones; strengthening short-term rentals requirements; developing sustainable tourism management policy; organizing a sustainable tourism ad-hoc committee; and developing visitor impact management plans.
Potential long-term solutions included developing regulations to manage tourism development while protecting town character; developing regulations to protect residential neighborhoods from commercial intrusion; identifying districts for future lodging uses.
Councilor Kyle Shank said that the town wants to concentrate lodging uses to the infrastructure that can support it, which would be the downtown area.
A tension occurs because the town has few zones that are purely residential. The comprehensive plan targets areas for more homes as areas where there is infrastructure (water, sewer) to support those homes. These are the same areas where there is the infrastructure to support lodgings.
There’s a tension there that needs to be resolved, Shank said.
Tools could be put in place, Smith said, to allow developers to do pay for new or improved infrastructure at their expense rather than trying to influence the town’s workload. The town is currently working on a multi-year plan to improve and replace weakening infrastructure.
Shank asked that if that sort of policy be put in place that it be for all commercial developments and build-outs for places such as the MDI Hospital or Jackson Laboratory rather than just lodgings.
PROTECTING RESIDENTIAL AREAS
Protecting current residential areas and neighborhoods was also discussed with many councilors worrying over dwellings being converted to different purposes or razed.
“We’re also at the mercy of our zones and how they’re laid out,” Hochman said. He wanted to make sure that neighborhoods were protected.
Smith said the question for the community is: does Bar Harbor want to leave zones as a mixed-use zone or rezone areas as a pure residential or as a pure business?
“We have to start looking at the overall tourism management strategy that we have for this town,” Peacock said.
That’s congestion, parking, traffic, how to get cars out of downtown, as well as prioritizing residential access and use.
“We need to sit down and say where do we want this and where don’t we want this,” Peacock said.
Councilor Joe Minutolo suggested creating a “watered down spreadsheet” about what can currently be built in each zone and prioritize residential areas to focus on in the beginning.
“Try to build community again. Try to build housing. Try to enable people to build housing,” he said.
Minutolo suggested looking for the loopholes in each zone. He compared the town’s ordinance to a bicycle tube that has so many patches on it that you can’t see the tube again.
“Every time a house gets converted or torn down or bulldozed, that’s what I worry about the most,” Councilor Earl Brechlin said.
Shank asked for a number of residential homes and multifamily homes that have been lost, since it is mentioned often.
The quality and/or safety of homes that may have been replaced throughout the decades is also not often mentioned.
Hochman said he could walk down every street and say this used to be a house and now it’s a parking lot or that this used to be a house and now it’s a hotel. Before that, he said, that same lot might have been a house or a hotel or a store. The proposed plan for the Inn at Eden Street, which has been paused in the moratorium, replaces three currently unoccupied apartments on the site, with three more places to live. One is a duplex that would be employee living quarters. The other would be an apartment within the inn itself.
Planning Director Michele Gagnon suggested finding ways to slow down the conversion of dwelling units to other uses. She said, “Maintaining your current housing stock is better than trying to create new ones.”
A challenge the town has is developing a use code for the database so that when a occupancy certificate is issued, its use is recorded, Smith said, but it would be a valuable tool.
SUSTAINABILITY TOURISM COMMITTEE
Gagnon said that she could come back with an outline and/or framework for the sustainability tourism committee at the next council meeting.
SHORT TERM RENTALS
There was general concern about gaming of the system in the VR-1 (short-term rentals that are primary residences) category where a single family might be trying to register more than one property as a VR-1.
“We’re looking to tighten that up a little bit,” Smith said.
Hochman said that data about why houses are dark would be helpful. Is it from vacation rentals or from people wintering in other places, he asked.
Many of the emails councilors receive, he said, start with “it feels like," but he wants data. He said a lot of it just comes down to having the information the town needs to make decisions and understand the problem.
Shank said that the town has had five net new VR-1 registrations and has seen decreases in VR-2s.
Brechlin suggested looking at the 9% cap of VR-2s and lowering that more.
PARKING AND INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRANSPORTATION
Potential short-term solutions included developing flexible parking fee structures, expanding seasonal public transit, and creating impact fees for high-demand developments.
Potential long-term solutions included developing a sustainable infrastructure policy for design, building and operating systems, expanding public transit networks, reviewing height limits for future lodging uses and reviewing parking requirements for all commercial uses.
Shank said that it might be time to bring up parking garage need again. Hochman said the issues with the concept the last time the town investigated it were that it was a public-private partnership with Ocean Properties and the consultants had told the town that the venture would lose money.
Brechlin said that if there is a parking place at every accommodation, then that is sufficient, and he advocated not adding any more parking, worrying that more parking meant more congestion.
“We’re done with parking, I think,” he said.
There are 806 parking spaces in the town currently.
Hochman said that adding more parking doesn’t necessarily feel like more people would come.
“I think if you build more lodging, people will come,” he said.
Councilor Maya Caines said that she’d like to see a way to make people realize that taking public transportation is the best way to travel on the island. It’s believed that more people on public transportation and out of individual vehicles would significantly help with congestion.
Shank worried that some restrictions on building can raise the cost of entry for small business owners, which makes it so that only those with capital can have businesses. Throughout the workshop, he advocated being mindful of unintended consequences.
Caines said that the height requirements can also be harmful for housing. She wanted to make sure that any changes made are made while being mindful of housing impacts.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS
Caines encouraged the town look to certain requirements that new developments be up to environmental codes and standards.
“We live in the most beautiful place in the world and around a national park,” she said.
The state often pre-empts municipalities for building code standards, Smith said, though he said he wasn’t saying that having more environmentally responsible codes for new buildings was impossible.
Shank said that many of the town committees have people who are tremendously talented and informed about environmental issues and that they could be resources.
It was also discussed how codes and standards can lower affordability for home buyers and builders.
ECONOMIC GROWTH SUPPORT
Discussion mostly centered around potential tension between rebranding the town as an eco-tourism destination and some residents’ desire to decrease tourism. Minutolo said that the summer season is so intense that it wears people down. The question that came up was what is it to have a year-round community and how would it be defined.
“The balancing act of Bar Harbor is so challenging,” Hochman said.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND MONITORING
The final topic was about community engagement. The councilors agreed that there needed to be more.
REGULAR MEETING
Prior to the workshop, the council held a regular meeting. During public comment, Sara O’Connell asked that the moratorium be tweaked to be more precise in what sort of lodgings its pausing, rather than just going by the town’s categories.
“I invested in the community and want to help be part of the solution,” O’Connell said.
Sharon Knopp said that cell phone coverage should be discussed when the councilors discuss infrastructure load.
Cara Ryan thanked the councilors for voting for the moratorium. She said it was time to take a hard look at the town’s zoning map, and advocated residents understand that map and potentially changing what the ordinance allows. Areas that currently don’t have transient accommodations allow it, she said. To change that, amendments need to be put on the town’s ballot to change the land use ordinance.
"I’m asking residents who say enough all ready,” to commit to action and to the council to act as well, she said.
Enoch Albert said that the traffic light in town takes to long to cycle for wintertime needs and should flash in the off-season instead.
Pat’s Pizza’s special amusement permit for a Class 1AD was renewed, 6-0. The council also accepted the order of discontinuance of Stanwood Place, which is on the MDI Hospital site 6-0. There will be another public hearing and another final step before the road is discontinued.
Hochman said that he would love to see the town enter a discussion with the hospital about a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes). The hospital does not currently do that. Nonprofits do not have to pay property taxes on their land.
MDI Hospital President and CEO Christina Maquire said the hospital can do that.
“This is such an important project for the hospital,” she said of the expansion and that the discontinuance of Stanwood Place would provide better access to the hospital’s campus. She said that the hospital gives free and uncompensated care of over $30 million to the community every year.
Vice Chair Gary Friedmann was not attending and was being sworn in at his role as the area’s state representative. That occurred in Augusta. The councilors voted 5-1 to excuse his absence. Brechlin voted against.
COUNCIL COMMENTS
Brechlin suggested that the town not allow overnight parking except for residents at the Casino Lot and the lot by the town’s municipal building. He said he believed that hotel guests were using those spaces, which he was not in favor of.
Hochman asked if the town could look into other ways of providing cell phone coverage. He also encouraged people come to the Acadia Community Theater show this weekend.
Minutolo asked if the town could review and discuss its policies about recycling and requested the council be given a ferry terminal update.
Shank, Peacock and Caines had no councilor comments.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Rick Osann Art.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
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“There’s a tension there that needs to be resolved, Shank said.”
It’s easy to resolve that tension Kyle: we need more year round housing. We do not need more transient lodging.