LIVERMORE – Town officials are seeking a comprehensive planning grant to help guide Livermore into the future since they expect its population and number of housing units to increase.
Livermore is anticipating that both its population and its housing stock will grow more rapidly in the next 10 years than in the last two decades, according to a preliminary assessment written by Carol Fuller of the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments.
This is due to two significant factors at work in western Maine: Population is generally moving south from Franklin and northern Oxford counties and housing prices in southern Maine, including greater Lewiston and Auburn, are significantly higher than in Livermore, the grant application states.
Livermore Administrative Assistant Kurt Schaub said that Fuller worked with the Planning Board and selectmen to write the grant.
The total cost of the planning proposal is $28,236, with the state share at $21,230 and the town’s share, $7,006. Voters at the June 16 town meeting will have the final say on the grant.
Throughout the town’s history, Livermore has been a rural community with agriculture and forestry as its most important industries. But since about 1970, there have been “significant” changes with fewer family farms, and with forest-products businesses downsizing or closing, leaving the future of forestry in the town uncertain. Most of the residents work in surrounding communities or commute farther away.
Livermore does not contain any downtown area but has three small villages, which have greater density of development than the remainder of town.
The town’s population growth has been moderate over the past two decades; at the last census, its population was 2,106.
At the same time, housing has grown more rapidly, as median household size has decreased significantly. Seasonal units, which have been increasing, make up about 15 percent of the housing stock.
The population increased about 15 percent between 1980 and 2000, while housing units increased 30 percent, the preliminary assessment states. At the same time, population in neighboring Livermore Falls declined.
Schaub said the town believes that this is the time to carefully evaluate its future so that it can be prepared for the anticipated growth.
The town adopted a set of goals at its 1979 town meeting and a comprehensive plan in 1988.
While the goals and the plan do not meet the requirements of the Planning and Land Use Regulation Act, they will guide the work of the committee, Schaub said.
If the grant is approved, a committee made up of a large group of people would be formed and include representation from town boards and departments as well as community and school organizations. When awarding grants, the state and federal government now are looking more frequently at towns’ comprehensive plans, Schaub said.
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