NEW GLOUCESTER – Three dozen New Gloucester residents Thursday turned their thoughts to a business and economic study talking about where they think the town should go in the future.
The group added its input to the ongoing study.
Town Manager Rosemary Kulow asked, “What kind of community do you want New Gloucester to be in the future?”
Janet Smaldon, who owns a business in another town, said “We have to capture business because of the way things are going for taxes. We need something to support taxes.”
Business owner Gerry Hamann said, “Nothing is going on. That’s the way I like it. That to me is quality of life and we should preserve that.”
Penny Hilton said the charm of New Gloucester is its architecture, open land and stone walls. “The roads are pretty to travel the way they are.”
Cliff Andrews said he sat at a table with people of rural character. “We want home business growth and no public water. When you put in water and sewage it draws the wrong type of development and gone is the rural character.”
Questions were raised about the impact of Pineland’s development on the town. Owen Wells, president of Libra Foundation, the owner of Pineland, gave a history of the renovation and growth of Pineland that began in 2000. Now six farms and 4,000 acres form Pineland and Pineland Farms. Roughly 400 jobs have been added.
Wells said, “I encourage you to watch your zoning.”
“The most important thing to me is this is a gorgeous town with open space, farms, orchards, the Shaker Village, the Gray Wildlife Park, the Fish Hatchery and Sabbathday Lake,” Wells added.
The study groups concluded:
• Concentrate future business growth along Route 26 at the Gray/New Gloucester town line to Buddy’s Store at the Snow Hill Road.
• Protect Lower Gloucester’s historic village with appropriate home-based businesses that maintain the rural character and charm of the 18th century village named in the National Register of Historic Places.
• Develop business growth along the Route 100 corridor in Upper Gloucester from the Post Office to Wings’ and Cloutier’s stores for service stores to include a grocery store, for example.
• Promote service-type businesses at Pineland.
RKG Associates Inc. of Durham, N.H., is leading the study and provided a PowerPoint presentation on the existing socioeconomic condition of New Gloucester now facing rapid growth in population and increasing housing development.
Since 1990, New Gloucester’s population has increased 33 percent to 5,218 in 2004.
Meanwhile, household growth increased 44.2 percent, up by 540 new households, outpacing population growth in the 1990s.
The town’s population is young, with 24 percent of the population under 15, 10 percent 15-to-24, 36 percent from 25-to-44 and 22 percent from 45-64.
Only 7 percent of the town’s population is over the age of 65.
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