Good evening.

Welcome to the February 10th 2026 Brunswick Planning Board meeting.

We have four cases before us tonight.

And before I talk about them, I'll introduce members of the board who are here tonight.

On my far right, Rob Burgess, Planning Board Vice Chair, next to Rob Steve Walker.

On my near left, Alison Harris, next to Allison, Director of Planning and Development, Julie Erdman, next to Julie Jimmy Dealman, principal planner, next to Jimmy.

Yes.

Matt.

And our attorney Gray Lewis.

Gray Lewis from Pretty Flarity.

All right.

Off print premises signage, a zoning text amendment.

The planning board will hold a public hearing tonight.

And case number 25057 102 LLC subdivision waiver request.

Case number 25057102 LLC subdivision sketch plan.

The planning board will review and act upon a major development review sketch plan and case number 25059, Maine Health Mid Coast Cancer Center renovation.

The planning board will review and act upon a site plan amendment application.

And that's it.

Starting with case number 265 off-premise signage zoning text amendment.

All right.

So tonight uh I'll just share a brief presentation.

Um again, we're attorning for a public hearing regarding zoning text amendments that are proposed by the planning department.

And if you just want to flip to slide two.

So again, as summarized in the staff report and at the last workshop, staff are proposing zoning amendments to allow for off-premises business directory signage at entrances to development, so that businesses separated from commercial corridors may have greater visibility and improved wayfinding for users.

That signage is equally sized for each business, and only one sign is at each entrance.

Next slide.

Again, in making its recommendation to the town council, the planning board will provide a recommendation whether the amendments are compatible with the town's comprehensive plan.

Staff have reviewed the proposed amendments and believe they're compatible because they support established large and small local businesses by providing flexibility to advertise and provide predictable wayfinding for users.

And my last slide is just kind of summarizing.

And if recommended, the amendments are expected to be reviewed at the town council March 2nd public hearing.

Happy to answer any questions.

I mean, I saw that one might be five by five, and I thought um no more than eight uh at a on a on an entryway sign.

So that seems like that might be a pretty big resulting sign.

Yeah, my read of the the town's signage standards uh is that uh our standards are pretty flexible.

Um unless it's otherwise specified, the maximum uh uh area for signage is 200 square feet.

So quite quite large.

Um that said, uh the I I think this department will have an interest in in being more methodical about uh addressing and updating our sign standards during recode um later this year.

So uh but in this for the purposes of this ordinance, we were just trying not to reinvent the wheel, and we just wanted to to allow a little bit more flexibility for the interim.

Thank you.

I sort of had the same question mostly because I was after we did the workshop.

I was getting off of 295 at exit 28, and there's this gigantic welcome to Brunswick sign that must list 10 businesses.

And it's it's very attractive.

I you know it's too big and too many, too many businesses to actually read them all, but it has a good look to it, and so I I didn't object to that aesthetically, but I'm not sure how practical it is for the businesses.

Yeah, I think any anything off of those the main routes, it's very likely something that's that's regulated by the state.

Um so this would be this would be uh kind of its own camp of of sign type.

It would just be um more of a business directory.

Um that said, yeah, they could they could it could be a large directory depending on um where the location is, but um I think the way we would say that see this play out is generally at industrial parks.

That's that's kind of how it's steered with um approaching it by by limiting it to an entrance to a development.

Okay.

Steve, any questions, comments?

Um just similar to what I said last time.

I just wondered what the explanation was for except the business directory signs for three or more, why that just can't be for two or more businesses.

It's a that's a good point.

Um do you have a response to that, Jim?

Um I think I think having uh setting at three was just to have a higher bar for entry.

So I mean again it was it was kind of steered towards those those multiple uses at an industrial park, which tended to be higher than two, so three just felt more appropriate rather than if it was at two, potentially we could see uh more off-premises signages being created.

So three was more of a safer number to set it at, and I guess we could always uh the it's a um we're open to the board's feedback if if they would like to recommend with an amendment, but um I think we're comfortable with the um three being the number, and we could always revisit that in the future if developers have concerns about that.

But um the one developer we did or um one business owner who um has been monitoring this process.

Um I did have a chance to forward him the the latest or the the draft amendments and um we've received no uh negative feedback.

So we can revisit it during recode.