Bethel voters attending next week’s annual Town Meeting will consider proposed changes to town ordinances, including more specific standards for building design aesthetics and a loosening of some standards on signs, including flags and political and real estate signs.

The Planning Board and Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Warden are proposing new wording in order to, in many cases, better fit practice for building construction, signs, subdivisions, shoreland zoning and site plan review.

A public hearing last week drew particular comment on a site plan change proposal. Current wording, said Warden, requires that new construction relate harmoniously to the surrounding environment. That, he said, is too general for the Planning Board to easily apply.

The change would add the following standards for all buildings:

“The building’s architecture shall reflect traditional New England building forms including, but not limited to, pitched roofs, dormers, porches and windows and the appearance of clapboard, shingle or brick siding. Freestanding accessory structures, shall be treated as architectural elements and meet the same design standards as the principal structures on the site.”

Commented resident Jane Ryerson, “It sounds like you’re trying to do zoning without doing zoning.”

“In a way,” said Warden, but he noted the restrictions are not specific to parts of the town.

Bob Chadbourne wondered if the standards are needed, saying that from his experience on the Planning Board in the past, in most cases an acceptable design could be found by “talking to people.”

But Warden, offering an example, said the design of the Dunkin Donuts building on Route 2 is stucco – something he said the Planning Board had deemed not harmonious but that the business said the town could not prevent.

Still, said Chadbourne, that design “has never been offensive to me.”

But Warden said that some of the business that the town attracts is determined by “how we look.”

SIGNS

Under the sign ordinance, Warden is proposing to remove political signs from the ordinance because they are restricted by state standards.

“During the last election I spent quite a bit of time trying to regulate political signs,” he said.

He also proposes removing a requirement for off-premise real estate signs, and allowing businesses to have two flags advetising products, services or ‘open’ but not containing manufacturer names or logos. Currently one ‘open’ flag is allowed.

Warden said some businesses already use two, and he has had no complaints on it.

He also proposes adding trailers to the ‘excepted’ signs list, so he may control trailers currently used as off-premise advertising/billboards.

Other ordinance changes propose relate to Shoreland Zoning (repealing the town ordinance and adopting the state guidelines); clarifying setback requirements and removing duplicate wording in the site plan and subdivision ordinances.

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