Bar Harbor's Potential New Cruise Ship Ordinance Debuts Friday
Planning Board Holds Public Hearing Next Wednesday on Chapter 50
BAR HARBOR—Updated rules might be coming to Bar Harbor’s cruise ship disembarkation process, but any changes will be up to the town’s voters. Those potential changes will be out for public and Town Council review on Friday and up for public hearing before the Bar Harbor Planning Board on August 7.
Currently, the town is embroiled in multiple lawsuits concerning the November 2022 voter-approved rules that rest within the town’s land use ordinance. One lawsuit involves a coalition of businesses and citizens (Association to Preserve and Protect Local Livelihoods) and a pilots’ association and is in federal appeals court after the town won the case. The other is by the town’s lead citizen petitioner for the cruise ship disembarkation limits and defendant-intervenor on that federal case, Charles Sidman.
The current rules, enacted this month, limit cruise ship disembarkations to 1,000 a day or there will be fines. Because of how the new ordinance written and because it is placed within the town’s land use ordinance, the town’s code enforcement officer and harbormaster are tasked with enforcement and permitting.
In the summer of 2021, half of those responding to the town’s cruise ship survey said that they thought the amount of cruise ship visits was causing harm to the town. Town officials began a process that created memorandums of agreement between the town and each cruise line. Those MOAs would have reduced passenger daily limits to 3,500 or 3,800 passengers and created monthly limits and ship-free days. Those numbers varied and allowed for higher numbers during the shoulder seasons.
Because of what the town has said are difficulties in enforcing the ordinance, Bar Harbor began a two-track approach to cruise ship disembarkations. This approach revs up next week as the town’s planning board holds an August 7 public hearing on five proposed land use amendments, including the cruise ship disembarkations.
THAT DUAL TRACK PROCESS
Town Council Chair Valerie Peacock said that the Council was approaching cruise ship passenger management as a dual process. The first track would be the citizen’s initiative for those 1,000 daily limits. This is currently in place.
The second track would require the town to repeal the cruise ship ordinance or amend it. A portion of the ordinance would be stricken and replaced with the town-government-created ordinance.
Those changes are to be workshopped with the Planning Board, have public discussion, and then be voted on in November by the voters.
The voters could approve those changes to the cruise ship ordinance or not. What those changes might be (if they would change daily limits to monthly, black out days, use licenses vs permits to establish caps, use contracts to establish caps, what those capped numbers would be or are based on) is currently not available. Those changes should be clear in Chapter 50, the new proposed ordinance, on Friday.
According to Town Manager James Smith, those original rules (track one) capping daily disembarkations to 1,000 will be in effect during this “track two” process. They will be implemented and applied. If the voters do not approve track two, the limits originally voted in (and the process around them) will stand. If this track fails to gather voters’ approval in November, track one, the cruise ship ordinance approved by voters in 2022 will still be in effect.
If Track 2 moves forward, then the Track 1 is no longer needed because the town will have voted to move in a slightly different direction to cure some challenges in the LUO that are outside the Council’s prerogative, Smith said in June. The goals, he said, were to make the ordinance more tenable and help ease the legal disputes.
The August 7 Planning Board meeting will be for cruise ship disembarkations, transient lodging accommodation uses, campgrounds, filing and approval, and submissions.
According to Smith, “the full text of each of the draft amendments is available online and in the planning department ahead of these hearings.”
The draft order would repeal § 125-77 H., which is the citizen-initiated land use ordinance that passed November 8, 2022, which requires a written permit from the Code Enforcement Officer for the disembarkation of persons from cruise ships on, over, or across any property located within the Town of Bar Harbor.
It would also amend § 125-69 to allow the land use activity of cruise ship disembarkation subject to compliance with an ordinance governing cruise ship reservation and passenger disembarkation to be enacted by the Council and codified as Chapter 50.
And it would amend § 125-109 to define cruise ship disembarkation.
The draft order defines cruise ship disembarkation as “an activity allowed without a permit, provided that the activity is conducted in compliance with all provisions of Chapter 125 and provided that it be conducted in compliance with Chapter 50. Cruise Ship Reservation and Disembarkation Ordinance.”
“Chapter 50 is the ordinance previously referred to as Track 2 in earlier discussions. It will comprise the creation of a multi-pronged regulatory approach to manage cruise ship visitations in the Town of Bar Harbor,” Smith said in a July 31 email to the Quietside Journal’s Lincoln Millstein, town councilors, Planning Board members, and others. “If the Town Council ultimately determines to adopt this ordinance it will be contingent upon a town meeting vote to amend the current LUO that regulates cruise ship disembarkation. The important thing to remember here is that If the voters ultimately reject repealing the current LUO, Chapter 50 will die on the vine.”
Chapter 50 is set to be out this Friday in draft form.
Smith calls this “a multi-faceted, license based, regulation for disembarkation of cruise ship passengers.”
The Town Council packets will include Chapter 50 on Friday, he said.
THE TIMELINES
Smith provided a timeline of the two-track process:
On August 7 (next Wednesday) the Planning Board holds public hearings on proposed land use ordinance amendments.
On August 8 (next Thursday), a special Town Council meeting will likely call for public hearings on the five amendments.
On August 27, there will be a special Town Council meeting for public hearings on the five amendments and to take up orders placing them on the special Town Meeting warrant.
At a date to be determined, but between August 28 and September 4, the Warrant Committee will take a recommendation vote on each article for the special Town Meeting warrant and ballot.
On September 4, the Planning Board takes recommendation votes for the warrant and ballot on LUO amendment articles.
On October 7, absentee ballots for that meeting will be available.
On November 5 there will be both the special Town Meeting and state and federal elections.
THE SECOND TIMELINE FOR THE CHAPTER 50 DISEMBARKATION ORDINANCE TIMELINE PROCESS
Smith said that on Friday, August 2, the “town attorney will provide draft language for proposed Chapter 50 ordinance, a multi-faceted, license-based regulation for disembarkation of cruise ship passengers and will go out with Town Council packets the same day.”
On Tuesday, August 6, it will be the Town Council’s first public reading of Chapter 50 Ordinance. This occurs during its meeting, which is open to the public and occurs at the Bar Harbor Municipal Building on Cottage Street.
On Tuesday, September 3, the Town Council will consider a possible final reading of Chapter 50 ordinance.
“I just received word late last night from the Town Clerk that the current cruise ship Ordinance, referred to as Track 1, will be assigned to Chapter 52, although our vendor has not yet completed the codification process. Passage of the Chapter 52 completed the requirement for the Town to develop rules [see: 125-77 (H)(3)]. This was passed by Council in June and went into effect on July 18. Now that it is in effect, staff are working to ensure compliance with these new regulations.”
TO BE INVOLVED OR LEARN MORE
Draft Order link: Click here
Planning Board Public Hearing - August 7, 2024 at 4:00 PM
Location: Municipal Building, Town Council Chambers
Address: 93 Cottage Street, Bar Harbor, ME 04609
Town Hall Streams: https://www.townhallstreams.com/towns/bar_harbor_me
Planning Board webpage: https://www.barharbormaine.gov/282/Planning-Board
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Or we could all realize that we are making it much more complicated than it needs to be and just allow 1 ship, any size per day with a few typically really busy days with no ships.
Any thoughts on this? I’m expecting crickets:-)
Seriously, just a thought.