Greenville Planning Board working on several ordinances
GREENVILLE — To bring the town’s land use ordinance up to date, Greenville Code Enforcement Officer Ron Sarol and the planning board have been working to address a lack of some guidelines and missing components in the document.
Sarol gave an update during the Jan. 15 planning board meeting, mentioning one component of the land use ordinance he continues to work on are changes to property line setbacks. He has been researching what other communities have in place to see “what they have for setbacks and how they are improving their housing density, making land more available to build and increase homes in the area.”
Going through a handout, Sarol said amendments to land use ordinance setback requirements would have reduced setbacks apply only to the village and residential zoning areas of Greenville and would not include properties falling within the shoreland overlay zone. The amendments apply to properties created prior to the land use ordinance being established, which Sarol believes was in 1989.
He said the proposal applies to properties of a quarter acre or less, and those larger in size likely would not have the same issues with setbacks.
Setbacks can be reduced to 5-feet with a variance from the code enforcement officer for accessory dwellings and/or accessory buildings such as garages and sheds. Variances can be granted to reduce the setback to 10 feet for primary dwellings and zero feet for dwellings that have a shared wall such as duplexes and townhouses. Reduced setbacks must demonstrate no harm to neighbors or the public interest, such as snow falling off a garage onto another property.
“It seems reasonable to me,” Planning Board Chair John Contreni said about what Sarol has developed.
The code enforcement officer said currently there is a 15-foot setback, with permits required for projects. “There are some lots in town that are so small, there are several up on Maple Street that are only 42 feet wide so when you take 15 feet away from each side you have 12 feet to build on,” he said.
Mentioning what spurned the amendments Sarol said, “Over the past few years we have had many people approach us that have these lots that were created 100 years ago that by our standards, they’re just not practical to build on.”
When asked, he said he was unsure of how many lots would be affected by the changes. Sarol said any amendments would first go to the select board for approval and then a town meeting vote such at the annual meeting in early June.
“I am not seeing any additions or concerns among my fellow planning board members so I think we would encourage you to continue with this and sort of finalize it into a form we could bring before the select board,” Contreni said. “Anything to increase densities, particularly the village and residential areas, would be great.”
Sarol presented the planning board with the 5-page abandoned and vacant building ordinance for Dover-Foxcroft. He said this research began after calls from residents concerned about kids going into abandoned buildings.
“Currently we have nothing in our ordinance that talks about (this),” Sarol said. “This is really for the homes that are in disrepair that are possibly a health hazard.”
The code enforcement officer said the town can define what is vacant and/or abandoned or dangerous or a health hazard.
Contreni said this also ties into the issue of housing in town. “Why should a property be vacant and abandoned when we have a severe need for housing in the community?,” he said.
“We need affordable housing in town,” the chair said. “Instead of houses being vacant and abandoned we should make them available for people to buy or to rent.”
Determining the number of vacant or abandoned homes may be difficult, as Sarol said some may be vacation homes that have not been used for several years. He said a disrepair aspect may need to be stressed in making a determination.
Sarol will continue to develop a proposal for Greenville.
He also is working on land use ordinance violation enforcement capabilities and will have something Greenville-specific.
“Once again we don’t have anything in the land use ordinance on this,” the code enforcement officer said. He explained without a list of steps to be taken then violations can be easier to challenge in court.
In other business, Sarol said he should be receiving a subdivision application from the Northern Forest Center for its housing project.
“I gave the application for the subdivision to (Northern Forest Center Senior Program Director Mike Wilson) and we will be waiting for that to come back,” Sarol said. He said he was unsure if this would be on the agenda for Wednesday, Feb. 5 meeting agenda.
The Northern Forest Center purchased the land several years ago to build housing to serve the local workforce. The housing project plan seeks to develop 29 units of new housing that incorporate a mix of multi-family buildings, duplexes, and single-family homes to be built over three years. The Northern Forest Center hopes to use the project to demonstrate the environmental and economic benefits of utilizing mass timber construction.