NORWAY — The town’s updated comprehensive plan has been approved by the state without conditions but with a few suggestions from several state agencies.

The updated plan was recently approved by special town meeting voters and submitted to the State Planning Office for its approval as part of the application requirements for Norway to be eligible to receive up to $400,000 in state grants to renovate the first-floor storefronts of the Opera House. The Comprehensive Plan was originally written in 2004 by a local Comprehensive Planning Committee.

The plan, which many towns and cities have, forms a legal framework for land-use ordinances and the town’s growth and future. The plan contains inventory and analysis, town policies and strategies to achieve the policies.

“There’s some pretty valuable information for us,” Planning Board Chairman Dennis Gray said of the 25-page report from the state that he has been reviewing over the last two days.

Gray said one of the important pieces of information that came back from the state was finding out that details the town submitted regarding classification of streams and phosphorus allocation numbers appeared to be incorrect, according to the response from the Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Watershed Management.

Gray said the town also needs to look carefully at suggestions from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife concerning protection of Norway’s water bodies. The state agency suggests that Norway consider additional protection for the town’s significant natural resources when reviewing proposed development projects.

For example, Norway currently mandates a 75- foot buffer area be maintained between development and perennial streams, except where roads need to cross streams.

The state agency responded that typically they request 100-foot undisturbed buffers along both sides of any stream or stream-associated wetlands to protect the overall health of the stream habitat.

Additionally, the agency said smaller headwaters and lower-order streams are often affected the greatest by development and these systems benefit the most from adequately sized, vegetated buffers. The agency said the policy should certainly be considered for critical cold-water stream fisheries where salmon and trout are present.

Other issues included access to the town’s “great ponds.” Of the five or so great ponds (as designated by state law) there is very limited public access except at Lake Pennesseewassee where there is public parking, a beach area and a boat ramp.

“We do have a public boat ramp (at Lake Pennesseewassee) but other waters don’t have public access,” Gray said adding that the state won’t stock fish in ponds that don’t have public access.

“The waters belong to the people of Maine,” he said.

But providing public access to the great ponds in Norway, such as Hobbs Pond, Mud Pond and Sand Pond, is not that easy because most of the land is privately owned.

“It’s a possibility depending on what projects come along,” he said of the idea that the town could work out a deal with a shoreline developer for access at some time.

The state has urged the Comprehensive Planning Committee to consider drafting revisions to the plan that incorporate suggestions contained in the state agency reviews and comments. Although any revision would not need further State Planning Office review, Gray said they would probably be passed through a town meeting for voter approval.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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