NEWRY – Debate at Wednesday night’s Planning Board meeting centered on the point at which the Bear River becomes a river as opposed to a stream.

It is a fact that planners must know when considering development applications within areas in both the town’s shoreland zoning and floodplain maps.

At the meeting, planners began a much-needed review of Newry’s shoreland zoning map, which hasn’t been revised in many years, Chairman Joseph Aloisio said.

According to the State of Maine, the Bear River is considered a stream above Branch Brook. The state’s required setback for streams is 75 feet. But Newry, which has long considered the Bear River as a river in its entirety, enforces a 250-foot setback requirement along the length of the river in the town’s shoreland zoning maps.

Aloisio read a letter from the state that said Newry has “very appropriately zoned the Bear River as a river, consistent with its ordinance and not with the state.”

With its 250-foot setback requirement, Newry has taken a more stringent approach, affording the Bear River area a greater level of protection than the state guidelines provide, the letter stated.

“If we went with the state standards for shoreland zoning with the 75-foot setback, that would make several of our previous decisions easier,” said Planner Norman Davis. “But our decisions have all been correct with our ordinance as previously written.”

Aloisio noted that if an area is not part of the Bear River, it could still be within the 100-year floodplain and not in the shoreland zone. Davis said he has a portion of land that is more than 250 feet away from the river, but it still gets flooded.

“It would be a little ridiculous, but you could zone the whole town as shoreland zoning and it would be easier to make decisions,” Aloisio said, noting that the town has the right to interpret more stringently than the state.

He then gave planners some homework, asking them to look at the Bear River stream section and identify what areas of it they feel should be protected.

“It may be that the town thinks it should only be 75 feet or that it needs more protection,” Aloisio added.

Any Planning Board recommendation concerning Newry’s shoreland zoning map must go before town meeting voters.

Aloisio said he would get new maps made of Newry, increasing the current 1:2000 scale rendering five times to a 1:400 scale, but that would mean having five maps instead of one showing the town in its entirety.

The larger scale would better delineate the Bear and Sunday rivers in town, show the 100-year floodplain, property parcels, wildlife and wetland habitat lines, contours, gravel aquifers and 911 roads, which include skidder or logging roads.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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