Southern Maine communities struggle to balance development with conservation

At first, the proposal sounded like a nightmare scenario for Jim Spencer and other business owners along “Gourmet Alley” in Kittery. Spencer is the owner of Golden Harvest, which has sold fresh produce on the southern portion of Route 1 since the 1950s. When news spread that the Maine Department of Transportation planned to widen the road’s shoulders and add a sidewalk, Spencer and others feared the project would be crippling for business. Golden Harvest, Carl’s Meat Market, the Beach Pea Baking Company and Terra Cotta Pasta all stand to lose parking spaces along the road.

Spencer, who lives in Eliot and has owned Golden Harvest for nine years, also has safety concerns. “It is going to be a wider, flatter road, which I think will entice faster speed,” he said. “It’s 35 miles per hour now, and they fly down this road.”

Another concern is how renovations to the stretch of Route 1 between Love Lane and the rotary would detract from the community’s small-town character. What is now a relatively rustic roadway lined with a handful of independent businesses could wind up looking like an impassible and nondescript highway.

“We do have a nice quaint road, and if it had been left the same I think it would have been nice,” Spencer said. “People don’t want another strip like the malls, because that’s very commercial and it’s not Kittery. The townspeople truly believe that (Gourmet Alley) is Kittery.”

Residents and business owners alike have voiced their concerns during a number of public hearings, but Spencer says town officials and DOT representatives have managed to assuage most of his fears. He plans to make up for the loss of roadside parking spaces by redesigning the entire parking lot to improve traffic flow. Although Golden Harvest and other establishments on Gourmet Alley will almost certainly suffer during the construction process, Spencer hopes the long-term impact will be minimal.

But like many major development projects, the ultimate impacts of the roadwork are difficult to predict. As Kittery and surrounding communities continue to grow at a rapid rate, town officials and residents face a variety of challenges. Depending on how it is executed, development can be beneficial or detrimental to a community.

How can a town harness the inevitable push of development without losing all the qualities that make the community unique?

“That’s the million dollar question for these towns,” said Paul Schumacher, director of the Southern Maine Regional Planning Commission. “How do we effectively do that? You need to grow, obviously. Growth is not bad, but mismanaged growth is bad.” 

Spencer said the town of Kittery and the state have worked hard to ensure that the Route 1 project ends up being beneficial for him and his fellow business owners. He believes that steady growth can prove advantageous for Kittery.

“It’s good for business, and if it’s managed properly with the town I would think it would be good for the town too,” he said.

York County is growing. Fast.

Census estimates in 2006 put the Southern Maine county’s population at 206,590, up about 20,000 people, or more than 10 percent, from the last official census in 2000. In fact, 33 percent of Maine’s total population growth over the last six years has occurred in York County. By the time the next census occurs in 2010, York County will likely have surpassed Cumberland County as the state’s most highly populated region.

Why the influx of people? Situated on the scenic coast of Southern Maine, York County offers a number of advantages to out-of-staters looking to migrate north. Businesspeople from Massachusetts consider York County a prime location to raise a family, far removed from the smog and hubbub of suburban Boston, but still within striking distance of the big city. Sandy beaches abound, Amtrak stations carry commuters to Boston, and friendly Fenway Park is only 90 minutes away.

The rapidly growing population and accompanying development—both residential and commercial—can jeopardize the quaint charm and historic character of Maine communities. By moving to Southern Maine in droves, migrants can inadvertently destroy the very quality of life that brought them to the state. Individual towns often struggle to strike a balance between embracing development and retaining a community atmosphere, while also setting aside conservation land and open space.

“You don’t come to Maine, whether to work or play or to live, because you’re in close proximity to the Maine malls. You come because of the unique character of the New England village,” said John Richardson, commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. Richardson believes that with proper planning and zoning, communities can maintain a village feel while nurturing steady development. “Can it all be done? Sure. It’s a question of whether people in town have the proper vision and the ability to work together to meet their common goals,” he said.

But residents who have lived in small Maine communities for several generations may not share the same goals as newcomers. Although most people moving to Maine are attracted by the same qualities that have kept longtime residents from leaving the state, not all locals welcome the flood of new arrivals.

“People who are coming here are highly educated and they’re coming here and building wealth within the industry they’ve chosen to work in, so they’re very satisfied with Maine as it exists today,” Richardson said. “Some who are here today, who have lived here for some time, find that there’s a division, if you will, between those who come and those who have been here for some time.”

In other words, some people in rural Maine with limited educational backgrounds find it difficult to compete with wealthy and highly educated newcomers. As Maine continues to grow, officials at the state and local levels must consider ways to bridge the widening income gap, provide affordable housing for young families and add a younger population to the workforce.

Located just over the New Hampshire border, across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, Kittery is one of many communities in Southern Maine experiencing significant development. With a 2006 population estimate of slightly more than 10,000, the town’s six percent annual growth rate since 2000 is well below the average in York County. But Kittery issued 350 building permits between 2000 and 2005, compared to an average of about 320 across the county.

“Demographics are changing in Kittery,” said Town Manager Jonathan Carter. “I see more development, larger development happening.”

Town officials do indeed have a number of big development projects on their plate.

The Maine DOT hopes to begin renovating Route 1 sometime next year, ultimately creating a 12-foot roadway with six-foot shoulders and a sidewalk with granite curbing on the east side. DOT officials say the renovations are needed to improve safety and bolster the road’s deteriorating infrastructure.

Carter said the Route 1 project rests primarily in the hands of the state, and there is little that town officials can do to alter the design. “We are working exceedingly hard to bring added value to that project with sidewalks and hopefully a pedestrian friendly infrastructure, but we have been faced with the Department of Transportation’s continued belief that they need to do a road project that will be of a certain design and require parking to be off the street,” he said.

An additional public hearing regarding the Route 1 project will likely take place later this summer, Carter added.
Another contentious project involves plans for a 25,500-square-foot community center on Kenneth R. Emery Field. A number of residents object to the scale and location of the proposed facility at the corner of Woodlawn Avenue and Cole Street. Opponents complain that the center, which would include a basketball court, exercise area and meeting rooms, would decimate a precious parcel of open space enjoyed by many neighborhood residents.

A group of concerned residents called Savethevillage.org appealed the Kittery Planning Board’s decision to approve the proposed center last year. A York County Superior Court judge later rejected that appeal, but it heads to the state Supreme Court this summer, Carter said. Meanwhile, town officials must prove that a town-owned parcel of open space at Haley Field constitutes an adequate substitute for the open space that would be lost at Emery Field.

A third project that has riled some residents is a proposal to construct a 150-foot cell phone tower off Charles Hill Road. While the tower would ideally increase cell phone reception across town, residents who live in the area worry that it would create an eyesore and add unwanted traffic in the neighborhood. Other residents object to the tower on the grounds that it would be located too close to fragile wetlands. The Planning Board is still reviewing the proposal.

Other development projects include a 30,000-square-foot, 88-room hotel at the former site of the Homestead Nursing Home on Route 1. The Planning Board is reviewing the proposed building, which would be located across from Lewis Road and would also include a restaurant and retail space.

Preparation work has already begun on a 100-plus bed nursing home on Lewis Road, and the official groundbreaking is scheduled to occur on June 8, Carter said. The Planning Board recently approved a 123-unit congregate housing facility adjacent to Town Hall, but the town still must acquire the land and hire contractors to do the work.

Although residents object to many of these development projects, Carter insists that the Planning Board and Town Council members are following guidelines laid out in the town’s comprehensive plan. Town officials do not wish to corrupt the town’s unique character, he said, but they must comply with design standards.

“The comprehensive plan is certified by the state, and what the Planning Board has been doing is creating zoning to comply with that comprehensive plan,” Carter said. “In so doing, they develop the design manual that states very clearly what people need to follow for development designs and what it should be looking like, what is acceptable and what’s not acceptable, lighting standards, and so as these new developments come forward, they are designed in a way that is to be more acceptable to the general public, keeping in mind the small-town atmosphere and look and feel of the community.”

Kittery was a different town 20 years ago. But what surprises former town planner Benjamin Frost most is not how much the town has changed, but how much it has stayed the same. Frost, who served as town planner in Kittery in 1988 and 1989, is impressed by how the shopping malls on Route 1 have endured through the last two decades. “I expected that when the economy went into a recession, which it did shortly after I left, I predicted that the malls would become vacant, that they’d become ghost towns, because people’s disposable income was drying up and they just wouldn’t want to make the trek from Massachusetts up to the malls in Kittery,” he said. “I was wrong.”

Today, the Kittery Trading Post and other shopping areas on the north side of Route 1 are booming. But supervising additional development in Kittery and other communities places a major burden on planning boards. During Frost’s time as town planner in Kittery, the town faced so many development proposals that the Town Council granted the Planning Board a six-month development moratorium.

Communities in Maine and New Hampshire do not always grow at a uniform rate, but they are all growing. “It varies from one community to another depending upon the market and the local regulatory structure,” Frost said. “Some municipalities welcome development and others don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

It is up to town boards and councils to make sure that growth happens in a way that reflects the town’s desires. “That’s the fundamental challenge facing most planning boards,” Frost said.

But town officials cannot do everything on their own. When it comes to conserving open space, Carter pointed to the importance of groups like the Kittery Land Trust, which currently owns 370 acres of open space in town.The trust’s most recent acquisition was an 86-acre parcel of land at the end of Norton Road, purchased in December from George and Juliana Patten. The wooded property is filled with red oaks, birches and evergreens that provide habitat for moose, coyotes, foxes and birds.

Kittery Land Trust president Melissa Paly said the organization relies on concerned property owners like the Pattens to prevent new development from running rampant. “We couldn’t really do much land conservation at all if it wasn’t for landowners who wanted to see their land conserved,” Paly said. “Unfortunately, there are still lots of landowners who may not be able to give their land away,” she added, noting many longtime residents rely on their property as a source of family wealth.

Paly hopes to convert additional parcels between Bartlett Road and the York town line into open space, but acquiring land is increasingly difficult. “We don’t have any parcels right now that are close or anything like that, but it’s part of our long-term vision to try to link up these lots of natural area and create connected corridors that would run through town,” she said.

The amount of conservation land in Kittery is tiny compared to the amount of developed land, Paly noted. While she recognizes the need for ongoing development, it is equally important to conserve property that is ecologically, aesthetically or recreationally valuable to the town.

“We’re not trying to conserve everything in Kittery. We wouldn’t want to and we couldn’t possibly even if we did,” Paly said. “What we are trying to do is be very strategic about what we do conserve.”

The Kittery Land Trust is part of the Mount Agamenticus to the Sea Conservation Initiative, and it has partnered with a number of other state and federal organizations to acquire land across the region. Daily operating expenses, such as insurance costs and wages for a part-time coordinator, are covered by grants and donations from the trust’s 230 members. But funding for major land acquisitions comes primarily from federal sources and private donors.

Much of the land in Kittery and surrounding communities in Southern Maine is ecologically priceless. As of 1997, 49 species of fish and wildlife were listed as endangered or threatened in Maine, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Paly said a number of locations in York County have been identified as “ecological hotspots.”

“The bottom line is that the highest diversity of plants and animals in the state of Maine is right here in Southern York County,” she said, noting that northern and southern forests meet in the Mount Agamenticus region. Development pressures could threaten these unique habitats.

“There’s no question, I think, that Southern Maine, Coastal Maine especially, is facing just tremendous, unrelenting development pressure,” Paly said. She called upon individual community members, as well as the Kittery Town Council and Planning Board, to ensure that a reasonable amount of land is kept pristine.

“We can only do so much in conservation by actually buying lands or buying the development rights to that land, but there’s a role for everybody to get involved directly,” she said. “It’s about all the decisions we make every day in the community that really affect the landscape and the way we feel about our community.”

Benjamin Frost, now the housing awareness coordinator for New Hampshire Housing, has watched many Northern New England communities experience varying levels of growth.

“If you look at Rockingham County, something like two thirds to three quarters of the population of the entire county comes from Massachusetts,” Frost said. “This is having a substantial impact upon the demographical makeup. But at the same time these people are not young people who are going to be the future economic drivers of the state’s overall economy.” 

The trend toward an older population is a problem not only in Rockingham County, but also across New Hampshire and Maine. According to John Richardson, Maine has the oldest population of any state in the nation. As older people continue to migrate to Northern New England from the Boston area, buying up homes and property, it becomes more difficult for younger families to afford housing in the area.

“Affordable housing is a problem everywhere in the country. We have a number of initiatives that have attempted to address that particular problem,” Richardson said. “Everyone’s going to be important to Maine’s future economy. We can’t afford to leave anyone behind.”

To demonstrate the severity of the problem, Richardson noted that 75 percent of employees working in the pulp and paper industry in Maine are eligible to retire within the next five to 10 years. Approximately 9,000 people currently work in the state’s nine paper mills, and integrating a younger workforce into the mills could prove demanding as longtime employees settle into retirement.

The pending labor issue at the mills demonstrates a problem that pervades all areas of the economy in New Hampshire and Maine. If young qualified workers cannot afford to live in the two states, a number of public services could suffer.

“For municipalities to allow for affordable housing to be built is really important, not only as a means of simply keeping the market from being too skewed, but also for their local economy,” Frost said. “People need to think about what they want their community to be like in the future.” Without affordable housing, he added, certain towns and cities could become exclusive, high-end communities with little range of incomes.

Communities also must consider what type of commercial development they choose to allow. As people move to small Maine towns, retail businesses tend to follow the market. Paul Schumacher said the invasion of retail stores has been especially strong in places like Biddeford and Sanford, where monster chains like Wal-mart and Lowe’s have established locations. “There’s no question that that’s been increasing,” he said.

But, Richardson stressed, the expansion of chain stores has pervaded the entire nation, not just Maine. “I don’t see any more chain stores coming into Southern Maine than anywhere else in the country.” Maine has a thriving high-tech manufacturing industry, he noted, and many successful independent businesses have emerged in the state.

Efforts to curtail development sometimes have unintended consequences. Lee Burnett, communications director for GrowSmart Maine, noted that 17 of the 29 towns in York County have adopted growth caps, allowing only a certain number of building permits to be issued each year. But while growth caps slow development, the limited growth also tends to drive up housing prices, which can oust younger families.

Although the state of Maine requires every community to have comprehensive planning procedures in place, much of the planning gets bogged down in town politics and never achieves its purpose. “I think change is such a difficult political thing to do that hardly anybody really has done anything effective in the way of managing growth and planning for their future, despite a huge amount of effort and huge interest in doing so,” Burnett said. “Very little has translated to on-the-ground change.”

GrowSmart is in the process of choosing a guinea pig community in Southern Maine for its “model town project,” which seeks to engage the public with visioning sessions aimed at determining what citizens want their communities to look like and how to accomplish that goal. By keeping the public involved, Burnette hopes to help communities strike the elusive balance between development and conservation.