News

State fails Gray Comp plan
Fourteen inconsistencies means re-doing major parts
By Elizabeth Prata

Gray-The Gray Comprehensive Plan Committee worked for almost two years in updating and crafting additions and revisions to Gray's Comprehensive Plan, an overarching guiding document that is supposed to outline a long-term plan for Gray's growth and management of natural and cultural assets.

The State of Maine does not require towns to have Comp Plans, but if they do not submit one to the State Planning Office (SPO), and it is then approved, the town is later denied the ability to participate in State grant opportunities.

The Committee was composed of local volunteers who met on regular periods to review Gray's growth to date and to update evolutions in Gray's development.

The Plan was submitted to the SPO in September 2003, and an attendant Capital Investment Plan was submitted on January 2004. The SPO found that the Plans were inconsistent with Maine's Growth Management Act.

The letter from the SPO sent to Planner Dick Cahill on March 16, outlines the fourteen specific places where the State deemed Gray's Plan as conflicting with the Act, "some of which will be relatively easy to address while others will require more careful consideration," the letter stated.

Items with which the state took issue ranged from the Plan's organization and footnoting, to land use issues which the State feels do not guide growth to growth areas and away from rural areas.

The Gray Town Council acknowledged receipt of the letter at their Council Meeting on Tuesday, and will discuss its contents at an upcoming meeting.