Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Wednesday, April 29th, 2026 budget and capital improvement program workshop.

Was this meeting properly noticed on Hampton?

Yes, it was.

Thank you.

Um, just as a reminder, this is a workshop, so it's a little bit less formal.

Um, currently we have all counselors present with two of them on Zoom, Councillor Wilson and Counselor Teamy.

Are there any adjustments to the agenda that we have today?

So currently, as it blocked out, we'll have planning and development uh go, followed by a town manager presentation and then council discussion.

Uh after council discussion, we'll have uh public comment.

Not seeing any adjustments to the agenda.

I will welcome our planning and development part uh department.

Hi there.

Julie Eardman, Director of Planning and Development.

Can you hear me?

Is that right in front of my mouth?

Is that better?

Okay.

Okay.

Um, okay.

Go.

So the planning and development department serves a wide range of functions for the town.

The department oversees land use planning, guiding development projects through the review review process to ensure compliance with local ordinances as well as state and federal regulations.

It also leads long-range planning efforts, including the preparation of guiding documents such as the comprehensive plan and climate action plan, and the development and amendment of local ordinances, including the Brunswick Zor, excuse me, the Brunswick Zoning Ordinance.

The department also conducts environmental planning, an area supported by a dedicated environmental planner.

While environmental planning overlaps with both land use and long range planning, its primary focus is the protection and sustainability of Brunswick's natural resources.

This work is carried out through activities such as development review, drafting ordinances and management plans, and monitoring conservation usements.

The planning and development department also includes the code enforcement office, which reviews permit applications and conducts inspections related to building, electrical, plumbing, septic, signage, and change of use permits, as well as special overlay permits such as floodplain and shoreland protection permits.

The office includes a zoning administrator who's responsible for maintaining and interpreting the zoning ordinance and responding to the majority of zoning related inquiries received by the town.

In addition, code enforcement staff administers the code enforcement staff administer ordinance of enforcement, investigate complaints, and issue notices of violation when necessary.

The department further includes the Coastal Resources Division, which works to protect and manage Brunswick's coastal resources.

Responsibilities include water quality monitoring, shellfish inventories, assessments and propagation research, review and assessment of coastal wetlands associated with shoreland development, monitoring shoreline erosion and eelgrass distribution, and conducting shoreline pollution assessments to name a few.

And this slide is my shout out to staff in our department who I've listed here.

We have eight full-time employees, myself, three planners, two code enforcement officers, the coastal resource manager, and a full-time admin assistant, as well as two part-time staff members.

The efforts of our part-time administrative floater floater, excuse me, Susan Carnes are shared with other departments, mainly the clerk's office and the town manager's office.

And our part-time marine technician, Emily Stone works primarily out of the Coastal Resources Office.

And I'll talk about her role a little more in a moment.

The planning and development department has 10 boards and committees that we currently staff.

The planning board generally meets twice a month to review development projects, ordinance amendments, et cetera.

They've convened 19 times this fiscal year.

The staff review committee, which has had 18 meetings, reviews minor development projects for approval, and makes recommendations on major projects to the planning board.

The SRC recently went from meeting once weekly to meeting on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month, similar to Planning Board.

And this allows more time for the committee to review projects and formulate comments.

The Village Review Board, which is a design review committee that reviews projects with exterior alterations in the village review overlay, meets monthly as needed, and they've had six meetings this year.

The zoning board of appeals, which reviews requests for variances in appeals, has met twice this fiscal year, and both of those meetings were served for excuse me, four setback variances.

The comprehensive plan update steering committee met six times this fiscal year with our last meeting occurring in November of last year.

Scheduled for May 27th for review of the state required revisions to the comp plan, which you all have heard about, and we hope that to be the last official meeting of the CPUSE.

The Conservation Commission, which has held 12 meetings so far this year, fosters the conservation of open space, habitat, and ecological values in town, and overseas management of town-owned conservation land and easements.

The Rivers and Coastal Waters Commission, which is met eight times in the last fiscal year, has a duty to oversee the implementation of the harbor management plan, as well as develop and present recommendations to the council on the usage of the coastline, anchorages, moorings, and related town property.

The Shellfish Committee, formerly Marine Resources, which is met 10 times thus far this year, administers and coordinated and coordinates our marine resources, making recommendations to the council on shellfish conservation licenses and management plans.

The Marybrook Watershed Steering Committee is an ad hoc committee tasked with assisting staff with the implementation of the recommendations of the Mayorbrook Watershed Plan.

And this committee meets quarterly.

It's met three times in this past fiscal year.

And the McCoy Bay Water Quality Task Force has met once this fiscal year.

They're also a quarterly meeting, and they are charged with assisting town staff in establishing a baseline of the quality of water within and entering McCoy Bay and evaluating the water quality impacts associated with existing and future land uses in the watershed.

Here you will see our development review revenues over the last three fiscal years.

There was a huge jump, you'll see from 24 to 25, most of which can likely be attributed to an increase in application fees, which took effect September 5th, 2024, just a couple of months into the 2025 fiscal year.

Lagging a little behind where we were at the um at this time last year, which was just over 179,000.

We've had a moratorium on rural development since December, and that's likely keeping our revenue numbers down a little bit in this area.

These are our revenues over the last three years for permitting.

You can see that although we've have two months remaining in this fiscal year, we have well exceeded the revenue we received in fiscal year 2024, and again that increase in fees was in the fiscal year 2025.