Good evening, everyone.

Um welcome to the October 14th, 2025 Brunswick Planning Board meeting.

Before we begin, I would just like to introduce up here members of the planning board and staff.

On my far right is Kelly Matson.

Chris Baldwin is next to him.

To my left is Alison Harris, and then members of the planning staff, Jimmy Dillman and Matt James.

And we have four items on the agenda tonight.

Two of them are uh workshops really to consider possible amendments to the um to the ordinance uh relating to uh a bus depot at Coffin School and uh a zoning change for the Hawthorne school area, and then we have two sketch plan reviews of two different subdivisions in Brunswick.

Uh before we begin, I would like to read uh an introductory statement that we have used from time to time at um widely attended planning board meetings uh and explain uh the purpose of the uh of the planning board.

Its duty is to oversee the application of the town of Brunswick zoning ordinance with respect to new projects that meet the threshold of needing planning board review and approval.

Generally, the board cannot impose restrictions on a development unless they are prescribed by the zoning ordinance.

Similarly, the board may not deny a project that meets all ordinance requirements.

In carrying out our duties, the board helps to ensure that residents' concerns receive a fair hearing and that the public interest is protected.

During our public meetings, we expect that members of the public abide by the rules of conduct for public meetings that are posted at the entrance of this room and on the town's uh planning board webpage.

So please review those rules before offering public comment.

And finally, uh members of the public who are attending and who would like to speak should go to the podium, state their names, the town in which they live, uh, and any other information they would care to provide.

The public uh people attending virtually need to raise their hand.

They will be promoted, ask their names and town uh town of residents, and will be welcome to ask questions or offer comments.

We will limit individuals to three minutes, although people who are directly affected by a development will be given extra time to state their case.

Um with that, I guess we would uh begin tonight's proceedings with the first matter before us, the zoning text amendment.

And Matt, please introduce that.

First off, we have case number 2544, Brunswick School Department Bus Garage Zoning Tax Amendment.

The planning board will review and act upon a zoning tax amendment request by the Brunswick School Department to amend Table 4.2.3 dimensional and density standards for growth area zoning districts, exempting public school facilities from the required maximum building footprint per structure.

The zoning tax amendment would facilitate constructing a bus garage on the subject of property located at 65 Columbia AV, map U27 lot 20, and within the growth residential 9 or GR9 zone, the Shoreland Protection Overlay or SPO subdistrict, and the Shoreland Protection Overlay Stream Protection or SPO SP subdistrict.

Thank you.

With that, um would staff like to uh provide some background on this and introduce the matter.

Uh sure.

Uh so the school department is in attendance tonight as well, so I um can also pass it off to them if they prefer.

Um, but there was a a need to replace an existing facility at their um school campus at 65 Columbia Avenue.

Um there's currently uh a small bus garage, I believe, and in order to replace it, they would um they're seeking to add a structure that would exceed the the max um building footprint.

So uh currently the the text amendments are that public school facilities uh are exempted from that max building footprint.

Um staff supported that and thought that was a kind of a logical uh move just given how integrated schools are into the the surrounding neighborhoods and they kind of naturally pair with the um existing conditions.

So I can pass it off to the applicant if they're interested in speaking.

Good evening.

Uh for record, my name is Andy Johnston.

I'm with Atlantic Resource Consultants.

We're a consultant that does work with the school department.

And I may just be able to give you a little background and a little deeper history to this uh request for a text amendment.

Because it's really part of it is is due to the project they're trying to construct right now.

Um but it's also to remove an existing contradiction that's been in your ordinance actually since it was adopted.

Um we actually made note of this 10 years ago when the ordinance was in draft format and we were planning the Cape Furbish elementary school.

And the contradiction is this is that in some of these growth zones, your ordinance allows schools to be built, but it also has a maximum building footprint of 5,000 square feet.

Now, I've worked on schools for 20 years, and I can't remember a single school project that I worked on that has a building footprint of less than 5,000 square feet.

So in effect, what the ordinance does now in this text is it allows schools in these districts but prohibits them from being practically built.

So it's a bigger issue than just the project that's in front of you now.

This actually stops a new school from practically being built in any of these zones, even though the zoning allows that use in the zone.

So that's some of the background here.

I I would like to think it's a fairly simple amendment just to allow schools to really be built in those zones, which I think was probably the intent of the ordinance in the first place.

I just had a uh a question uh with your familiarity in terms of uh bulk and size of this uh proposed replacement building, how does that compare to uh the size of facilities of our school facilities currently?

Well, so the the bus garage actually goes over that 5,000 square foot threshold, it's about 6,800 square feet.

A typical school building, we're doing one now in Cumberland, the the floor area of the school, the footprint of the school is 49,000 square feet.

That's a relatively that's a moderate size school.

We did one in Scowhegan recently.

The total floor area of that school is 110,000 square feet.

So uh to think that you could build a school that's 5,000 square feet or less is is it's an impractical proposition.

And actually, in addition to preventing new schools, it prevents even reasonable size additions on additional schools.

So it's it's quite restrictive the way it's written right now.

Thank you.

Any uh questions of question.

Um so I got a couple questions.