Trail trevail

The Cape Elizabeth Town Council will conduct a public hearing on a draft update to the town’s Greenbelt Trail plan at its Dec. 9 meeting, which gets under way at 7 p.m. in Town Hall. The council last discussed the plan at a Nov. 13 workshop, albeit behind closed doors. The item was on the agenda for open discussion, but councilors immediately called for an executive session to get a briefing on their “rights and responsibilities” from the town attorney. Town Planner Maureen O’Meara also attended the closed-door meeting, which lasted about an hour and 10 minutes. After they returned to open session, the council tabled the topic and declined to discuss the plan, which has garnered criticism from local farmers who objected to walking trails planned through their production fields and residents of Pilot Point Road, who object to extension of the trail along a “paper street” located between their homes and the Atlantic coastline. The farm issue was largely solved when the town’s Comprehensive Planning Committee dropped those trails from the draft plan before presenting it to the Town Council on Oct. 7. The council at that time took the somewhat unusual move of voting to acknowledge the draft plan without formally accepting it. Although there has been talk of lawsuits to block the trail on Pilot Point Road, Town Manager Michael McGovern said in a recent interview that nothing has been filed at this time.

Sign time

The Cape Elizabeth Town Council will hold a public hearing at its Dec. 9 meeting on proposed changes to the town’s sign ordinance that would allow so-called “sandwich-board” signs to be placed in front of local businesses year-round. Currently, such temporary signs may be displayed for no more than three 30-day periods per year, requiring a new permit fee with each application. Town Councilor Kathy Ray, who chairs the ordinance subcommittee, said the proposed revisions, which include the ability to have “open” flags without a permit, came at the request of local businesses. The change was requested in September by Janice Stockton, owner of Shore Things, a women’s consignment shop on Shore Road, and has since been taken up by several businesses in town.

Fish funds

Cape Elizabeth has won conditional approval of a $182,567 grant designed to help eliminate pollution carried into Trout Brook by stormwater runoff. The 2.5-mile-long brook, which runs from a wooded area west of Spurwink Avenue in Cape through South Portland to Mill Creek Park and eventually into Casco Bay, has become so choked by chemicals, oils, pesticides and phosphorous from stormwater runoff that have leached for decades into the surrounding 1,700-acre watershed that it has been labeled an “impaired water body” by the Department of Environmental Protection for failing to meet minimum quality standards in the federal Clean Water Act.

The grant award was announced in a Nov. 22 letter from Norm Marcotte, nonpoint source pollution program coordinator for the Maine Bureau of Land and Water Quality. The grant, one of 10 approved by the DEP for 2014, is “subject to the final approval of the State Procurement Review Committee and the successful negotiation of a grant award,” wrote Marcotte. If the project goes forward, mitigation work will occur along Trout Brook near the South Portland city line on land belonging to the Walnut Hill Equestrian Center and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Work is slated to include construction of a manure storage shed and a system to collect water from a barn roof at the equestrian center, along with construction of two “gravel wetlands,” rehabilitation of an existing storm basin, and installation of a soil filter to capture stormwater runoff from the church parking lot before it enters the brook. The grant also includes money for public outreach and education.

At its September meeting, the Town Council voted to contribute $22,000 toward the 40-percent local match required for funding. That money will come from the town’s Community Fee Utilization Program fund, which holds fees paid by developers. The equestrian center is giving $10,000 toward the match, while South Portland and the Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District are expected to make in-kind contributions.

Flood fight

New flood maps for Cape Elizabeth created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency are now available for viewing at Town Hall, although Code Enforcement Officer Ben McDougal says the public would be better served to download the maps from the town website, where files can be expanded for a closer look. The maps, which have a direct impact on flood insurance rates paid by homeowners, are scheduled to become official in mid-2015.

According to McDougal, FEMA will conduct a public hearing on the new maps at a date to be determined in December. The clock starts ticking on a 90-day appeal window from the date of that hearing. Although South Portland and Scarborough have expressed concern about the new maps, already pulled back and redrawn by FEMA at least twice since 2009, Cape Elizabeth will not file an appeal. “It’s fairly significant for the property owners, because it has major implications for insurance costs,” said Town Manager Michael McGovern at a July 8 Town Council meeting. “But at what point does the town involve itself in [what is] essentially an issue between citizens and the federal government?”

According to McGovern, preliminary maps made available to the town showed 45 Cape homes newly designated as flood risks, including six on Lawson Road, five near Alewife Cove Road and eight in the area of Peables Cove. That, according to McDougal, raises the number of Cape homes in flood zones to about 250. Although residents can appeal the FEMA maps on their own, Bob O’Brien, vice president of Noyes, Hall & Allen, an independent insurance agency located in South Portland, has said that effort can be “pretty much impossible” without municipal backing.

Road remake

A section of Route 77, from the Inn By The Sea to Monastery Road, will be repaved in 2014, thanks to a recommendation from the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System. The Maine Department of Transportation project is expected to cost $574,200. The town will contribute 15 percent, or $86,000, using money on hand in a roadways and drainage fund, said Town Manager Michael McGovern.

“Anyone who drives that section of Route 77 knows it’s a little bumpy,” said McGovern, calling the project announcement “welcome news.”

Some parts of Route 77 in that area have not been paved for 40 years, he said. If the project comes in under budget, McGovern said he will ask DOT to extend the new pavement to the Grange Hall at the intersection of Route 77 and Charles E. Jordan Road.

High water

The Cape Elizabeth Planning Board was scheduled at its Dec. 4 meeting to reconsider the definition of the “normal high water line” along the Atlantic coast. That debate, which took place after the deadline for this week’s Current, could affect public access to some areas of the shoreline. Maine courts have long held to a “public trust doctrine” that says anyone has right of access for purposes of “fishing, fowling and navigation” on private shorefront property, between the normal high and low water marks of the ocean tide. A change of definition could mean a change in where people may cross private beaches. At the Dec. 4 meeting, the Planning Board also was expected to take up a request to clear property and fill 3,564 square feet of wetland preparatory to sale of a lot at 326 Ocean House Road, and possible construction of two “hoop houses” and a storage barn at 191 Fowler Road.