News

 

Many ordinances under scrutiny
By Elizabeth Prata

Gray--The Gray Town Council spent two hours discussing the proposed new ordinance draft for a section of Rt. 100. The draft had generated concern among residents on the affected stretch of road that will commence from the southerly Village Aquifer Protection zone down Rt. 100 to the end of the current Commercial zone or about the property line between Busy Bee and SW Cole. They felt the draft as it had then been written severely restricted their property rights.

The Council had commissioned an economic development report and one of the recommendations in it was to release more land for commercial purposes. The amount of land zoned commercial in Gray right now is only 4%. The Council had thought that with the water line installation along Rt. 100 this summer that it made a likely location to continue to grow that area for business, and generated a rezoning draft for that area of town. The draft had originally phased out residential uses in the zone, and would not have allowed their homes to be sold as residential properties.

After much contention and several long meetings at which the organized and prepared citizens advocated for changes in the draft, the council and the citizens Monday night came closer to agreement on a workable product.
Councilor Lynn Olson assured the citizens by stating unequivocally that "they bought their property with certain rights and they should have those rights when they sell."

The Council is including grandfathering language into the draft that will specify owners of record will be able to gift or sell their property one time to offspring. They will also look at setbacks again and a few other minor details. The draft will be discussed publicly at the October 21 Council meeting in Stimson Hall beginning at 7 p.m.

Jean Bibber, a lead organizer of the citizen initiative against the draft, thanked the Council for being responsive and including their concerns into the zoning draft. She said she felt that Monday's meeting was productive for all concerned. Vice-Chair Richard F. Barter agreed and thanked the citizens for being involved in the process.

In other business, Jason Wilson of Gray asked the Council to evaluate the current zoning in the Village Aquifer Protection Zone. Wilson was a member of the Comprehensive Plan Committee that had intensively studied Gray's land uses for a Plan that was presented to the Council last summer. He said that the requirement for lots to remain at four acres in a highly desirable and developable village center adds to sprawl and is counterproductive. The Council agreed to take up the issue at an upcoming workshop. Other zoning issues that will be assessed at upcoming workshops are the Back Lot Ordinance, the Gravel Pit Ordinance, and the Road Standards ordinance.

The Planning Board had made a request of the Council for a joint workshop to examine the Road Standards Ordinance. The newly beefed up ordinance was recently passed after exhaustive scrutiny over two years of wrangling over what standards should be implemented for new road construction. The Planning Board has now had several months' worth of implementation and are seeing development plans hit too many snags. The Council will hear the Planning Board's concerns on the Road Standards ordinance at a workshop in November.

There will be an executive session at the next Council meeting on two personnel matters. One will be the regular review of the Town Manager, and another personnel issue will be discussed.

http://www.MonumentNews.com/2003/news/1009/1009a.shtml