SOUTH PORTLAND – The city of South Portland was a different place when its current comprehensive plan was approved in 1992. New houses were springing up on outer Highland Avenue. And the Maine Mall was still rapidly growing as a hub for commercial development.

Now, 17 years later, a recently formed Comprehensive Plan Committee last week began its mission of writing a new comprehensive plan for South Portland. And the city’s planning director told the group that they face a new challenge in writing the guiding document for the city’s future.

Charles A. “Tex” Haeuser said that’s because those last undeveloped areas of the city “are pretty much built up.” He said that means the city can’t count on expanding its tax base through new development as much as it has in the past, and will have to find other ways to increase revenues if it doesn’t want to cut services or raise taxes.

Haeuser told the group that as they write a new comprehensive plan, “there are tough issues to deal with.” He added, however, that there also are “exciting opportunities.”

For example, he said, citizens today are even more interested in environmental issues than they were in 1992. In fact, the City Council has agreed to discuss the possibility of requiring some green building regulations for certain types of new construction in the city.

“I’m very excited to start on the process of taking on the challenges facing this city,” Haeuser said. The committee met for the first time Nov. 18. The group has many meetings ahead of it. Haeuser told members that writing a new comprehensive plan is a lengthy process that can take up to 2.5 years.

Committee members are representatives of a wide variety of South Portland stakeholders. The members, all city residents, include members of the City Council, the Planning Board, the Board of Education, the Conservation Commission, the Economic Development Committee and the Energy & Recycling Committee. The committee has a representative from the South Portland/Cape Elizabeth Chamber of Commerce and a representative of a large business and also an owner of a small one. Southern Maine Community College has a representative and so does the South Portland Land Trust.

In addition, four people sit on the committee representing the residents of South Portland. A couple seats were still vacant last Wednesday, but the committee is slated to have 17 members and two alternate members. It is being staffed by Haeuser and Patricia Doucette, the city’s code enforcement officer.

Group members introduced themselves and said they volunteered for the committee because they love the city. City Councilor Maxine Beecher, who along with Councilor Tom Coward is one of the two council representatives, was just re-elected to office on Nov. 3. She said she decided to run for another three years on the council because she wanted to work on the committee and come up with a vision for South Portland that “makes this a place where people want to be.”

Much of the first meeting was devoted to process and also to what a comprehensive plan is. Mayor Tom Blake, who is not part of the committee but attended the first meeting to address group members, told them, “The comprehensive plan is our bible, our roadmap.”

Haeuser said, “It is a guiding document.” He said the committee will take a wide-ranging look at the city, including its schools, its housing, its streets and sewers, its businesses, and its recreational opportunities and also consider such other factors as transportation and the city’s economic survival. “You see how it all works together,” Haeuser said, “…and you’re asking yourselves and the community, ‘Where do we want to be?'” The policies and recommendations the committee will come up with in the plan will lead to changes in city zoning and also help determine how the city prioritizes its capital improvement spending.

Haeuser, a city resident who started working for the city in 1990, helped craft the current comprehensive plan. That plan states in its direction statement: “The primary emphasis of the Comprehensive Plan is to continue South Portland’s tradition of being a big city with a small town atmosphere.” The major goals of the 1992 plan were to accommodate growth, consider the impact of planning decisions on the environment, strive to maintain and improve city services, maintain socio-economic diversity, provide more job opportunities, offer diverse commercial and retail development opportunities, make better use of the city’s waterfront, protect natural resources and work with neighboring communities on common issues and goals.

Those goals don’t seem radical today. However, Haeuser said the plan was controversial because different attitudes prevailed in the city nearly two decades ago. “Private property rights were very big,” he said. There was less concern about the needs of the community as a whole, he said. Also, he said, environmental concerns “didn’t have anywhere near the same interest as they do today.”

Another problem with the 1992 plan, which can be viewed online at the city’s Web site, www.southportland.org, is that it wasn’t very user-friendly. The plan itself is about 500 pages, Haeuser said. And he said that various smaller plans added to it over the years – detailed visions for neighborhoods such as Knightville-Mill Creek, which changed dramatically after the Casco Bay Bridge opened in 1997 – bring the total to about 1,000 pages.

Haeuser recommended the group come up with a plan that is “shorter and focused in its recommendations.” He also said the plan should be easily accessible online. During the meeting, Councilor Coward referred to the current plan as “woefully out of date.” Haeuser said that the State Planning Office, which oversees Maine’s municipal comprehensive plans, has told the city it must have a new one by 2011 or 2012.

Blake told the group that the planning office, along with the Greater Portland Council of Governments, a group on which he represents the city, have been talking about the possibility of towns and cities developing regional comprehensive plans instead of individual ones. A pilot program to develop such a regional plan among towns in the Sebago Lake region is just getting underway, Blake said. He advised the committee to keep an eye on that process and also to work with neighboring communities.

“Whatever we do, we can’t do without consulting with Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth,” Blake said.

He said the council has allocated $30,000 the committee may use for such expenditures as hiring a consulting team to assist its work or doing a community survey. But Blake cautioned the group should make the money last throughout the committee’s tenure.

The committee decided that its meetings will be on the first and third Tuesdays of each month. However, due to the upcoming holiday season, the group will next meet on Dec. 1 and then won’t meet again until Jan. 5 of the new year. The meetings will be from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the lower conference room of City Hall. The meetings are all open to the public. The group will also seek public input through means that could include a survey, a charrette or forums. Public participation is vital because the whole community needs to be involved in planning for the city’s future, Haeuser said.

“The comprehensive plan in particular needs to be very transparent to the community,” he said.

Blake invited the Comprehensive Plan Committee to attend two upcoming council workshops that would help it in its work. One will be on Nov. 30, when the council of governments will give a presentation to the council on resources that group offers. And on Dec. 15, the council is slated to discuss green building issues.