LEWISTON – A plan designed to ease big projects through city zoning reviews was accepted easily Tuesday.

Councilors adopted a new policy that speeds the initial review process, cutting the time before a project’s public hearing from two months to one.

“This delegates more authority to staff and lets us speed up the city’s regulatory process a bit,” City Administrator Jim Bennett said.

Currently, both city staff and the Planning Board review projects to make sure they’re complete. Once both agree, the city schedules a public hearing on the plan with the Planning Board.

The new policy eliminates a step, letting staff determine if an application is complete. It’s sent directly to the Planning Board for review and a public hearing if it is.

The policy also changes the makeup of the staff review committee. According to the old policy, the committee was made up of city department heads and chaired by the planning director. The new policy allows representatives from each department, not directors.

“This delegates some authority to city staff,” Bennett said. “It’s something we’ve been working on for about four or five months.”

The city has been considering the changes for more than a year. The Planning Board approved its first draft of the changes in February, just before City Administrator Jim Bennett announced his staff reorganization. That involved eliminating Planning Director Jim Lysen’s job, and the council tabled a vote on the plan until the staff reorganization was settled.

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