KINGFIELD – A public hearing to discuss changes the Planning Board hopes Kingfielders will approve at March’s annual town meeting is set for today at 7 p.m. in the Town Office.
Planning Board Chairman David Guernsey said that because board members expect a crowd, chairs will be set up to accommodate upwards of 50 people. He also said he hopes as many people as possible will come to the hearing.
“I really would like people to come and give the board some idea of the level of regulation they want for this type of thing.”
By “this type of thing,” Guernsey means a Poland Spring application to build a bottling plant in Kingfield. Although bottling company representatives have yet to make a formal proposal to build in town, they have hinted an application may be forthcoming. Residents expect it to arrive sometime this spring.
Planning Board members began working with lawyers from firm Eaton and Peabody this fall to revise some of the town’s ordinances in anticipation of Poland Spring’s filing, hoping both to clarify existing procedural rules and strengthen the town’s position in relation to incoming businesses.
“I think the thing we are clarifying is the process that an applicant will use to come before the Planning Board,” Guernsey said Sunday, “because it’s a little unclear in our ordinance now.” In addition, he said, “We are proposing additional specifications and stringent regulations for the water-withdrawal portion” of the town’s ordinances, “and making every attempt to minimize the impact of the ordinance changes on everyone else.”
“That’s the primary thrust of what we’re trying to do,” he said.
Board members have gone as far as adding the term “aquifer-dependent industry” to the town’s list of approved and prohibited land uses, allowing Kingfield to regulate bottling plant related water withdrawal specifically, rather than having blanket water withdrawal regulations that would affect everyone from farmers, to restaurant owners, to Laundromat operators.
Guernsey said once the proposed changes are brought before the town during town meeting, residents can either vote to approve them, or not, but would not be able to make changes in the proposed amendments. Legally, he said, the proposed ordinance changes brought to town meeting “can get debated, but cannot get amended. Any changes must be made well before town meeting.
Therefore, he said, “It’s really important that people who really feel strongly about this, one way or the other, to come out and speak” tonight, so that proposed changes can be made to the amendments before town meeting.
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