Zoom, Pizza, and Bar Harbor's Future:
Bar Harbor Comprehensive Plan looks for a name and more discussion
BAR HARBOR—Bar Harbor’s Comprehensive Planning Committee hopes for both a name and more discussion on the document that is meant to guide Bar Harbor’s future.
This month. the town’s planning department holds three discussion sessions on March 26 and March 28. One session will be on Zoom. Two will be in person.
The plan also may have a name.
A comprehensive plan is a meant to guide a town’s goals, planning, aspirations in the next ten years. It usually delves into areas of the town such as land use, zoning, infrastructure, public resources, and economic development. It is meant to provide continuity to a community and also typically meant to help balance competing interests as a community moves toward its goals.
The 2035 Bar Harbor Comprehensive Plan Committee met Wednesday, March 13, on Zoom, and in person at the Bar Harbor Municipal Building.
Consultant Steve Whitman from Resilience Planning said that the group is using March as a rollout to the public to engage the public in the comprehensive planning project again. The purpose would be to give a general project overview and update as well as provide an opportunity for the public to see how past public participation helped to craft elements of the plan.
“That’s a big part of what’s going to happen at these public meetings,” Whitman said. They also hope to explain how the actions within the plan were generated.
Community and Housing Planner Cali Martinez said Thursday, “The Town really wants the public to be aware of this process now, so there’s plenty of time to incorporate their feedback.”
Knowing about potential problems could help avoid last-minute issues for the adoption of the plan.
“We want the community to be proud of this plan once we get to the Town Meeting for adoption,” Martinez said.
It’s also important, Whitman said Wednesday night, that people understand how the actions be reported, interacted, and implemented for the next decade. “That’s where the rubber hits the road,” he said.
For the more introverted or those who can’t make the sessions there are also seven surveys online that allow respondents to support, not support, be unsure of, or write about each action. Respondents cannot put in their own response and click the other three buttons.
April 8 would likely be the deadline for the online surveys.
There will also be a naming element for the plan. That aspect is not currently on the website. Details about that process were not expanded on. One member joked that it should be called “War and Peace.”
Whitman also presented an updated schedule about the plan’s enactment.
“As we go into April, we’ll be reporting back to you on the feedback collected by the public,” he said. “We really need to start assembling the sections of the plan.”
He proposed no meetings of the committee in April or May, but added, “That could change if we get really surprised on the action feedback.”
He also proposed the committee have two consecutive review sessions in June. The soonest they will be able to submit the plan to the state (a complete draft) would be in July.
Member Elissa Chesler said that she’d like to see the final steps beyond the timeline disseminated to the public so that people would know how the process ends. The plan will go to the state and also to Bar Harbor voters for their approval. That voting element may happen in November 2024.
Another committee member asked how much room there is for the public to have meaningful feedback once the plan is submitted to the state in July.
“I think there’s a tremendous amount of room,” Whitman said, he stressed that Bar Harbor is ahead of many other communities when it came to the state checklist of what the state wants in a plan.
HOW TO ENGAGE
This is via the town’s draft action plan on the event.
“There are both in-person and virtual ways to engage. Free pizza will be available! Please register if you plan on attending an event.
“There is an online survey per action theme (e.g. Housing Solutions, People Centered Transportation, Stewardship of Resources, etc.) that will take individual responses from March 11th through April 8th. The printed surveys are available for pick-up and drop-off in the Municipal Building’s lobby and at the Jesup Memorial Library.
“There is one virtual and two in-person engagement opportunities to learn and provide feedback on the draft Action Plan. These three sessions will include a brief presentation about the comprehensive planning process, project timeline, and the draft actions and strategies. The in-person events will focus around the online surveys while providing opportunities for discussion with the Town’s Planning Department staff and the Comprehensive Planning Committee members.”