Sagadahoc Stories 120: 9/27/00
Complanning
It's getting down to business time, now the days are shorter than the nights, and that frosty paintbrush is in the air. The wetlands are in full riot, and outer branches are in blush. We haven't actually had a killing frost here on Brooklyn Neck yet, but the light is autumnal, and the bite can't be far behind.
We're still gleaning last ears of corn, after the best season
ever in that patch, but it's been a sad year for onions and squash.
We even had to BUY zucchini for pickle. I was so embarrassed dealing
with the lady at the farmers' market that she threw in some extra
zucs out of pity. Still, we've had bountiful salads since May:
our highest ambition.
Local Colors
Others are more ambitious. The Comprehensive Plan Committee has finally assembled a document to deliver to the town, and we can now see what civic prognosticators hope and fear for the future. And how they want us to behave.
At the hearing
The process has been a long-running melodrama, and the finale
is rather anti-climactic. When the forces for good began envisioning
a sweeping land-use master plan back in the 80s, it was thought
of as a set of integrated ordinances regulating every what, where,
and how. That method was a bust.. and how. The document our first
committee presented to town meeting had something for everyone
to hate, and it went down in flames.
But the state kept insisting the town address comprehensive planning,
this being the fashionable mantra. Those hotbeds of bureaucratic
intrigue, the State Planning Office and the Maine Municipal Association,
have long seen that the best place to lay down more administrative
fat , and enrich more consultants, is in planning bureaucracies.
This plays nicely to the fears of Mainers. Maine's worst fear
is that it will end up looking like New Jersey. So SPRAWL is today's
nightmare boogie, and the magic sword is COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING.
(Never mind that no amount of zoning and planning has stopped
growth from happening as it will in the Jerseys.) So our heroes
in Augusta have been mandating local compplanning, whether we
like it or not.
We've liked it so much we've spent a dozen years getting to first
base. Last night was the last hearing at which revisions to our
new local plan could be proposed, before it goes to final debate
and a vote. And the document is quite astonishing. As much for
what it isn't as for what it is. What it is, primarily, is a voluminous profile of a town at the
millennium. Everything you can imagine has been inventoried, from
schoolchild demographics and deeryards, to soil types and curb
cuts. Having fought over every detail time and time again, the
committee has established a database to brag about. Whatever decisions
are made about land-use, there will be no groping in the dark
about what Bowdoinham IS now.
Of course planning is about what a town WILL BE tomorrow. And
conventional plans generally make clear rules about what a place
CANNOT BE. But we've discovered repeatedly that ruling with a
stick doesn't work in this stiff-necked burg, and this document
is all carrots. Along with describing today's land use, the plan
sets out the polled responses of citizens as to what they'd like
Bowdoinham to be. Then suggests strategies to get there. It's
a town wish list, and some whistles about how to call down the
good fairies.
The plan is so unobjectionable that it can hardly fail. It is,
after all, a mirror of our fond desires. What happens when actual
ordinances go to a vote, is another matter. Will we be willing
to further devalue ag land on the tax roles to prevent sub-division,
etc? For now, though, in appropriate millennial fashion, we can
reflect on where we're at. There are some surprises, and some suddenly obvious AHHAs. Watching
house-starts along the roads we know that development has followed
the corridors, but an overlay map of town housing makes ribbon
settlement starkly apparent. The demographic analysis of population
shift explains where the new-comers are coming from. The sprawl
we are bemoaning isn't a bunch of THEMs moving in from outastate,
it's a bunch of USes moving out of town. All the old population
centers are losing population. Mainers want to get out into the
country. Duh.
This regional automotive centrifugalism also explains why some
of the touted solutions to sprawl are a waste of breath. Cadres
of cluster-housing advocates consulted their way around the state
in the 80s, arguing persuasively that ordinances favoring planned
clusters would spare the landscape. Only problem is that people
moving out of Portland don't want to live cheek-by-jowl with their
neighbors. So much for settlement by design. Last night one of
the few contentious issues was over new language suggesting that
controlled sub-divisions have less impact on habitat than individual
house-starts at random. Maybe so, in theory, but encouraging sub-divisions
is more likely to hasten the pace of development, with all its
impacts. Such idealized planning always has unanticipated consequences.
Which, at root, is the flaw in the grand design. Trying to second
guess the future and inscribe it in ordinances tends to freeze
you in today's mindset, and is futile before market forces anyway.
As George Christopher quietly pointed out, if there is no market
for local produce there won't be any local farms. If ex-urbanites
want land for houselots, and can afford it.. Bob's your uncle.
And Uncle Bob isn't spreading manure.
What the comp plan attempts to do is define preferred areas of
development. What are the patterns of soil and habitat and traditional
use. What amenities townspeople want to perpetuate. What needs
to be protected for our well-being. And the plan sketches some
sweeping philosophies about open space, and community life, and
apple pie. Put commercial development up by the highway. Try to enhance village
businesses and local institutions to foster community life. Protect
woods and farms and wetlands. Kiss the babies. Who could quibble
with that?
Well I can, of course. If the pressures for rampant growth are
pushing up against the town line, as they patently are in Topsham,
this is a gossamer defense. Please don't do it to us because we
like it here, and these are the reasons why. Which reasons are
precisely why people want to move to town. It's like bragging
up your boyfriend to your favorite hussies. Any developer reading
this document would find her mouth watering. We're hoping that
sensible encouragement of low impact development by town proclamation
will stop the tide. Better get your boots.
My response to rising waters is to build a boat, which changes your view of the landscape. Our Yarting expeditions got a puff piece in the Portland paper, and I've had to change my hat size. The article also brought some new yartists to the dock, which amused the regulars. Last week an assorted lot went out on a breezy morning, with a reef in, and blew across the Bay and down through Chops. Took us three tries to find a berth at the north end of Lines Island, with the tide funneling past, and the air eddying.
We'd gone out with a southerly and overcast skies, but a pale blue rent worked its way up from the coast, there was a fluster of wind, a sprinkle of rain, then the bluesky opened wide, and it blew like blazes. The Professional Christian from Chops Point School motored over in his tri-hull to warn us that the Bay was capping white, and suggesting we put in to his dock for comfort.
TOAD by Matt
Funny how mad such a patronizing proselyte makes me. He meant
well, of course, it was just none of his damned business. I've
had unsolicited offers of assistance from this righteous character
before, with his somber-faced glee in my possible difficulty.
Screw that.
We upped sail and motored into the wind. It was a dead muzzler.
With the big reef in and the small jib on, the TOAD can barely
better a broad reach. We skittered sideways full tilt up into
the shallows by Butler Head, then zagged like a shot towards sands.
TOAD rode the churning well, and the live ballast kept her firm,
but she was simply overmastered against wind and tide. I finally
set the nine horses to work, and we galloped into the river over
roiling waters. Devil take the hindmost.
TOAD by David
Town planning is a bit like professional Christianizing. We'll plan what's best for you in the face of possible dangers. I'd rather tack up against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, sail them. Or at least motor home.
