LD 1268

In the last session there were two bills that if you look at the titles there would be little concern. They were LD 1268 “An act to Update the Site Location of Development” and LD 1333 “Climate and Energy Planning Act of 2009”. Pretty benign right, well read on.

First let’s look at LD 1268. The site location law has been in place in Maine for nearly 40 years. It is like a “building permit” for large projects. The law assures that proper environmental protections and permits are in place before a large development takes place in the organized towns within the state. It can be burdensome from a business prospective, but a good law that protects from “wilily nilly” development. LD 1268 would have expanded the site location law prohibiting not only commercial and industrial projects but residential subdivisions outside the locally designated growth zones, area’s served by public sewer’s, or identified census “designated places” or urban compact areas. It would have repealed Site Location subdivision rules, broadly amended the law to prevent unreasonable risk of discharge to “ground water” and would have imposed new requirements for “conservation subdivisions”. Let me give you two examples of what this law would have done.

First if a new canoe manufacturing facility came to Farmington or Wilton looking for a place to build. This proposed law would have limited this development to the “growth zone”. In both places this would have been downtown! The project would never be done.

A second example. Suppose you wanted to develop a piece of land into a subdivision. Your lots would only be allowed to open 5000 square feet. This included your driveway. So if you were going to build in the back of the lot requiring a 10 x 100 foot driveway your house “opening “ could only be 4000 square feet including you garage, lawn and septic field!

Thanks to the special efforts of Darrel Brown of Maine Land Consultants information on this bill was distributed throughout the state. This work lead to a full house at the hearing stating the concerns of the bill. In my testimony I called the bill a solution looking for a problem! The committee listened and substantially pared back the bill. The law that passed eliminated a rarely used permit, gave general permit authority to the DOT and Maine Turnpike Authority for their projects and required the DEP to report back to the Natural Resource Committee with any potential changes needed to storm water permitting.

This is a great example of how the people from rural areas spoke and were listen too! Special tanks to Darrell and his crew for their efforts! This bill could have crippled our opportunity to grow. I will cover LD 1333 in another article.

If you have questions about this or anything else please call me at 645-3420 or email me at drtom16@hotmail.com. As always it is my pleasure to serve the people of District 90.