By Gillian Graham
Staff Writer

    The Biddeford City Council rejected a planning board recommendation for shore land zoning changes in Biddeford Pool at its Jan. 19 meeting.
    After months of meetings, the planning board late last year recommended the council amend the shore land zoning ordinance to place 180 homes in limited residential district zoning instead of resource protection.
    The council voted 7-2 to adopt other changes in the ordinance but not move homes out of resource protection. Councilors Jim Emerson and Raymond Gagnon opposed the measure.
    The council tabled the measure at its Dec. 10 meeting. Councilor Pat Boston said at the time she wanted to allow new councilors time to catch up on the issue.
    Last week’s vote comes about 10 months after the planning department began working on updates to the city’s shore land zoning ordinance, which staff said is required by state law. The changes would have switched about 180 homes on Mile Stretch, Fortunes Rocks and Hills Beach roads and Bridge and Yates streets from resource protection to the less restrictive limited residential district zoning.
Residents of the coastal area were split on the issue and turned out in force at a series of public hearings before the planning board and council. Those opposed to the changes say natural resources will be compromised by more development, while supporters say the changes will fix inconsistencies in the ordinance and allow improvements to homes.
    Councilor Bob Mills proposed an amendment to exclude changes to the zoning map and limit changes to the ordinance to items required by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection specifically related to limited residential and resource protection.
Councilors Gagnon and Emerson opposed the amendment.
    Councilor George “Pete” Lamontagne said he originally supported the planning board recommendation but changed his mind after reading a letter from someone on the issue that “really struck home.”
    “Both sides are very, very, very convincing depending on whose vehicle I was riding in or whose walk I took,” he said. “I have spent a lot of time at the coast.”  
    Mills echoed Pete Lamontagne, saying city staff, the planning board and council have invested a lot of time in the issue.
“We have some difficult chores to do here at times and this is one of them. We’re obviously going to make some people happy and some people unhappy,” he said.
City Planner Greg Tansley said the shore land zoning updates apply to the whole city, but changes at the coast were the only contentious proposals.
    “There are literally zones where my house can be LR, my neighbor’s house can be RP. I can toss a ball between the two houses and there’s different standards imposed on each of them,” he said. “Those are the inconsistencies that have been identified by staff for years now. People do have a right to at least know why they are different than their neighbor.”
Throughout the four-hour meeting, more than a dozen coastal residents spoke on the issue, the majority in favor of maintaining resource protection zoning.
    Susan Amons, vice-chairman of the Conservation Commission and coastal resident, urged the council to protect the “unique and fragile” resources at the coast. Coastal resident and former planning board member Arlene Eisenstadt said the state has strict laws and rules for environmental protection that have worked.
    “Why would we want to loosen them and jeopardize the future of Biddeford Pool?” she said.
    Chris Stone, a Fortunes Rocks resident and local realtor, said changes would eliminate inconsistencies and would not allow for widespread development.
    Tansley said the council will hold a second reading of the changes at an upcoming meeting. The changes will then be sent to the state     DEP for review; the department could require the city to make further changes to the ordinance, he said.
    The second reading on the measure has not been scheduled as of Tuesday.