PARIS – The comprehensive planning committee has come together for the first time in two years, determined now to give Paris a plan that will steer town growth.
In 1993, voters rejected the town’s first proposed plan, and in the years since, the committee has twice tried to muster momentum to resurrect the initiative, said Board of Selectmen Chairman Raymond Glover, who is also chairman of the new committee.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” Glover said Tuesday. “It has been very difficult to get citizen participation to complete it.”
The newly revived committee, which met last week, must also grapple with townspeople’s wariness of possible future zoning. Glover said the main reason for the plan’s first failure was that Paris residents “did not want the state telling the town what to do.”
Many objectors to the plan in 1993 focused in particular on a recommendation that rural lots be a minimum of three acres, he said. Currently, the smallest allowable lot size is a half-acre.
A comprehensive plan requires a thorough analysis of the town, and is essentially a compilation of policies related to the town’s vision of itself and its growth, said John DelVecchio, special projects coordinator at Maine’s State Planning Office. He said a plan can preserve natural resources, wildlife habitat and quality of life for residents by defining protected areas and development areas.
The plans provide a blueprint for possible zoning districts and restrictions, but a town can have a comprehensive plan and no zoning. DelVecchio said, however, “If you want to zone, your zoning must be derived out of a plan.”
Glover said, “I’d like to see the town grow without zoning.” But he pointed out, “Paris Hill is a unique area, it’s a historic district, and to protect that character, the only way is through zoning.”
Paris Town Manager Sharon Jackson, who sits on the committee, said, “Every town needs a comprehensive plan.”
At this point, 240 out of 454 organized communities in Maine have a state-sanctioned plan, according to Matt Nazar, director of land use planning at the State Planning Office.
The plan is a necessity to attract certain state funding and grants, Glover said.
The committee plans to meet twice a month for several months to put a plan in front of voters at the June town meeting. Glover said the committee’s work involves updating the original version.
The committee has unlimited membership and welcomes anyone to sit in on meetings on the first and third Thursdays of each month.
Nazar said, “The best advice I could give any community that is going to be working on a comprehensive plan is to have as much public involvement as possible.”
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