In order to address two hot-button topics, the South Portland City Council has scheduled a special workshop on Wednesday, Dec. 11, while juggling the agenda for its regularly scheduled workshop on Monday, Dec. 9, to include a late addition.

Monday’s new agenda item will include discussion of a possible land lease of a vacant city-owned lot corner of Main and Westbrook streets. Then, on Wednesday, the council will get the jump on passage of a “tar sands moratorium,” expected to come at the Dec. 16 council meeting, by discussing the ad hoc committee that will draft new land-use rules during the six-month stand-down on development needed to load diluted bitumen onto ships along the South Portland waterfront.

Regarding the Main Street lot, a new group calling itself the Thornton Heights Neighborhood Association – formed in response to plans revealed Nov. 21 by Cafua Development to tear down the former St. John the Evangelist Church at 611 Main St. and replace it with a Dunkin’ Donuts – is asking the city to enter into a “land-swap” deal.

Although it was not mentioned during the call for “petitions and communications” at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, the neighborhood association did submit a petition via email last week, reportedly signed by more than 80 area residents, opposing the Dunkin’ development.

According to association member Brian Frost, who lives near the church on Thirlmere Avenue, the group would like the city to swap its 2.33-acre vacant lot at the corner of Main and Westbrook streets with Cafua, assuming the company goes forward with the purchase and sale agreement signed in June with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

The city plans to use its corner lot as a staging area for Main Street reconstruction set to begin next April and lasting two years, and then turn the site into a public park.

Frost said the swap would benefit Cafua, which already operates a Dunkin’ Donuts on an adjacent lot at 633 Main St. It could expand that restaurant on the busy corner lot, he said, allowing the city to make over the St. John’s location as a public park better suited to the residential neighborhood behind and beside it.

However, while the City Council has agreed to hold a workshop on the idea, Mayor Jerry Jalbert says it is limited in what it can discuss. The city can talk about disposition of the corner lot, but not the St. John’s property, in which it has no ownership interest, he said.

“We’ve put on an item to discuss city-owned property, which is how we have to do it,” said Jalbert. “We really can’t discuss a private transaction. It has to involve the real estate of South Portland. There is some other type of connection that might come up from citizens, but we have to be careful where we go with that.”

Jalbert said Wednesday he was not aware whether Cafua would be notified of the workshop, apart from the usual public notice process.

Although Jalbert says the city cannot publicly discuss land it does not own, it apparently did so privately on July 22. On Friday, City Manager Jim Gailey confirmed Frost’s assertion that the council met in executive session to discuss the church property, although Frost said the meeting happened in June.

Jalbert, who also places the meeting in June, rather than July 22, as Gailey asserts, says only that the meeting, whenever it occured, “involved city-owned land,” declining to verify the lot discussed.

Maine law allows municipal officers to enter executive session when contemplating the purchase or sale of real estate, but “only if premature disclosure of information would prejudice the competitive or bargaining position” of the city. The council had such a meeting on Wednesday, although Gailey said that one “definitely” did not involve the church property.

Gailey said via email Friday that, “we are not going to discuss the St. John site,” at Monday’s workshop. A position paper on the topic was slated to be published on the city website later that afternoon, he said.

Jalbert, who was invited to the Nov. 21 neighborhood meeting as representative of that district, said afterward he saw three conceptual drawings for the Dunkin’ Donuts, one of which incorporated re-use of the church building.

“There was only one site plan on display at the meeting,” said Frost, in a Dec. 5 email. “It did not include using the church in any fashion. Plans are to raze the church and rectory and construct a vanilla D&D box that is found throughout the area.

“In fact, a project manager from Plymouth Engineering stated that she explored the option to save the church in depth at Cafua’s request and that it was cost prohibitive and disrupted parking and traffic flow, although she conceded that her firm doesn’t handle the traffic study.”

According to Frost’s recollection of what he saw at the meeting, attended by about 10 residents of homes directly abutting the church property, Cafua’s plans do call for the former church school to be used as a district office for the company, with a new entrance on Thirlmere, which would save at least part of the property as it now stands.

“However, they offered the same proposal for a historic house in Laconia, N.H., years ago and they applied for a demolition permit last week for that structure,” said Frost. “The site plans they propose are very similar to the cookie cutter plans available on the Augusta Planning Board website rejected for a Stone Street job.”

Tar sands

Meanwhile, just as it was unclear Friday exactly what the discussion will entail on Monday, Wednesday’s workshop seems similarly murky.

Jalbert mentioned scheduling of the session in an almost off-hand fashion at Wednesdays’ council meeting, noting that the Muskie School of Government and the Maine Municipal Association have been called for advice on how the city should proceed with plans to form a committee to research the tar sands issue and report back to the council with a list of possible zoning changes.

Because the six-month waterfront construction moratorium to be voted on Dec. 16 is retroactive to the first public hearing on the topic Nov. 6 – meaning it expires on May 6 – time is of the essence, said Jalbert.

“We’re not going to wait, we’re not going to do things consecutively. We’ve got to speed up the process,” he said, following Wednesday’s meeting.

Although, Jalbert said, “You never know,” passage of the moratorium seems assumed based on previous public comments made by councilors – only Councilor Michael Pock has expressed any opposition – and a 4-2 Planning Board vote Monday which determined it “is consistent” with the city’s comprehensive plan.

Jalbert indicated debate on Dec. 11 would revolve around who should be on the committee and what its exact charge should be. That seemed to be confirmed by an agenda that went out at 8:48 a.m. Friday, listing the topic as, “Oil/tar sands committee process.”

However, two hours later a new agenda was issued, with the topic revised to: “Discussion of the next steps for the waterfront moratorium.”

Asked to explain the change, Gailey said via email only that, “The workshop will be to discuss next steps as it relates to the moratorium.”

Asked by Brigham Street resident Russ Lunt at Wednesday’s meeting if the tar sands committee will conduct its proceedings in public, Jalbert replied, “I’m not sure we have all the answers for that.”

However, Councilor Linda Cohen said there can be only one answer possible.

“Since it will be a committee appointed by the City Council, it goes without saying that they will be public meetings the public will be able to attend,” she said.

The tar-sands workshop will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 11 at the South Portland Community Center at 21 Nelson Road.

Monday’s workshop on the property issues, which may or may not include talk on the fate of St. John’s, will also start at 6:30 p.m. at the Community Center. It will be preceded by a Greater Portland Landmarks presentation on historic preservation in the city following its September designation of the entire city on its annual “Places in Peril” list.

A new group calling itself the Thornton Heights Neighborhood Association – formed in response to plans revealed Nov. 21 by Cafua Development to tear down the former St. John the Evangelist Church at 611 Main St. (above) and replace it with a Dunkin’ Donuts – is asking the city to enter into a “land-swap” deal.