Do Residential Sprinkler Requirements Run Counter To Affordable Housing?
Acadia Corp Warehouse Expansion Approved, Potential LUO Amendments Discussed, Chair Advocates for Kindness
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Paradis Ace Hardware.
BAR HARBOR—Life safety and affordable homes don’t always go easily hand in hand. The tension between those needs came up during the public comments of the Bar Harbor Planning Board’s final meeting of 2024 last week.
The Bar Harbor Planning Board welcomed new member Kathy St. Germain at her first meeting. Board members also said goodbye to Bar Harbor Code Enforcement Officer Angela Chamberlain who has resigned and is headed to a position in Tremont at the beginning of January.
“We can’t thank you enough for everything. Congratulations. We’re going to miss you, no question about it,” Planning Board Chair Millard Dority told Chamberlain as those attending applauded.
Dority also mentioned how lucky and thankful everyone attending should be to be on Mount Desert Island.
“It’s been a really tough last two years. There’s no question about it. There’s a lot of strife, a lot of anger and even hate,” he said. “We’re never going to get anywhere if we continue this way.”
In the last two years the town has dealt with cruise ship lawsuits, created a comprehensive plan, started an emergency moratorium on some types of transient accommodations (lodging), pondered how to make more homes and tweaked and changed multiple aspects of the town’s land use ordinance.
Dority advocated that everyone should listen to people that they might disagree with and act with kindness.
“We have an amazing staff all throughout the town,” Dority said. “We all have the same thing in mind, which is to make Bar Harbor better.”
One of the needs in Bar Harbor that town staff has focused on is for more homes. During public comment, a couple who are trying to build a chalet-style home in an approved development on Eden Farm Road, part of McFarland Farm LLC, across from the Mount Desert Biological Laboratory, spoke to an issue that they said could be holding back building.
Because the development was approved without a fire pond, the couple has to put in fire sprinklers, an added cost that isn’t easily taken care of due to a lack of contractors available.
Mark Caggiano said they’d talked to their builder, realized the need this past August, and have talked to both Fire Chief Matt Bartlett and Planning Director Michele Gagnon.
“Fire spread was confined to the object or room of origin in 94 percent of the reported structure fires in which sprinkler systems were present compared to 70 percent in properties with no AES,” according to an April 2024 report from the National Fire Protection Association.
Caggiano said that he understood that sprinklers are helpful in containing residential fires.
“The problem is they are very expensive,” Caggiano said.
The other problem, he said, is that it’s hard to find someone to install a system.
Caggiano’s builder called everyone across Maine, he said. Eventually, a guy’s relative knew a guy in Bangor, who came up with the cost of $37,000, off the record, but that man is swamped with other clients. A company that could potentially do it is in New Hampshire. That cost? $42,000.
“I’m looking for other options,” he said and would like to see if sprinkling a home in the area can get changed as a requirement for development.
The couple is from rural Maryland. Karen Crawford was hired at MDI Biological Laboratories.
“We understand being safe,” Caggiano said.
The longer all this is delayed, the longer the couple’s home is in limbo, Crawford said.
“Installing a sprinkler system in the roof of their house” would require a $12,000-14,000 generator, Crawford said. She added, “What this mandate has done is put in a surcharge on every home going in there.”
That, Crawford said, is about affordability. Homes in the areas that require sprinklers will be only for people with fancy homes, she worried.
“We kind of bought the land. We’re kind of stuck,” she said.
“Developers are given many options to meet fire suppression standards,” Gagnon said. So, the developer makes the choice of what they want to propose.
“Sprinklers have proven to be reliable in reported structure fires considered large enough to activate them,” the NFPA reports. “From 2017 to 2021, sprinklers operated in 92 percent of such fires and were effective at controlling the fire in 97 percent of the incidents. Overall, sprinkler systems operated and were effective in 89 percent of the fires considered large enough to activate them. The most common reason that sprinklers failed to operate was the systems being shut off at some point before the fire.”
WAREHOUSE EXPANSION FOR ACADIA CORP
The board members approved the Acadia Corporation’s warehouse expansion at 14 West Eden Street on a 1.75 acre parcel in Town Hill.
The exterior lights can’t exceed 1800 lumens and have to be shielded. The locations and spec sheets must be provided before a permit will be issued. A capacity statement from the public works department and documents showing that there is no increase in storm water runoff are also required.
The project was found complete. There was no public comment and the application was approved.
THE LAND USE AMENDMENTS
The planning board members and town planning staff also briefly discussed multiple potential draft land use ordinance amendments. If those amendments move forward in January, they would likely go before the voters at Bar Harbor Town Meeting and elections in June.
Proposed LUO Amendment — Offensive Language
The first amendment would change the term “grandfathered” to “legal non-conformity” within the town’s land use ordinance, where it occurs three times. The term was found in another ordinance and was flagged by a town attorney several years ago as something that should be removed because of historical racist connotations.
“We just feel like in a legal document it was the right thing to take out,” Gagnon said.
Proposed LUO Amendment — Salisbury Cove Corridor Front Setback
This amendment would make front setbacks on Route 3 along the Salisbury Cove Corridor to be consistent with the Ireson Hill Corridor and itself. It would reduce the minimum front setback to 75 feet.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said St. Germain
“Me too. Me too,” Dority said.
Proposed Land Use Ordinance Amendment — Timeframes
This amendment would allow more time for a project to commence and be considered complete.
“We found that some of the time frames was not sufficient to meet the construction needs of today,” Gagnon said. It takes longer to get people to do the work required to build.
Proposed Land Use Ordinance Amendment — Campground, Private Campsites, and Temporary Camping Vehicles
Chamberlain said that she’s struggled with requests for temporary camping vehicles in the last few years.
“We’re seeing it being requested more often for housing” as a way of dealing with needs for homes.
She said the town staff has tried to be sensitive in downtown areas where people don’t want to see someone living in an RV right next to them.
There has been an RV on the YMCA campus for summer housing. There was an RV parked for over a week on School Street in a lot prior to the lot’s sale, with permission of the property owners. That RV, however, housed vacationers.
Planning board member Teresa Wagner questioned the areas with smaller lot sizes, such as downtown residential areas being included.
“Village residential is the one district” that Chamberlain wasn’t sure about including. She isn’t married to keeping it in.
If you’re adding a camper, are you not adding a bedroom to the subsurface water system, Stivers wondered.
Chamberlain said that not everyone would be able to hook up to their septic system without modification.
Proposed Land Use Ordinance Amendment — Multifamily-1 and Multifamily-2
This amendment would make it clear that multifamily 1 and multifamily 2 uses are not meant to be “separate, detached, single-family buildings” that are on the same lot but have “multiple separate living units for residential use.”
Proposed Land Use Ordinance Amendment — Short-term Rental
This amendment would get rid of language that is now obsolete, remove the definition of vacation rental, language about “length of stay” and replace it as stand alone language. It would also “refine the definition of primary residence” and the proof needed to show that Bar Harbor is an applicant’s primary residence.
Dority said that it really cleaned up the language in the definitions.
PLANNING BOARD CALENDAR
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