I attended the workshop meeting of the Raymond Planning Board on Dec. 11, and was shocked that the board passed many of the provisions/changes that Jim Seymour, town planner, presented to the board. Shocked and disappointed that you saw fit to include our LRR11 neighborhood (within shoreland zoning) in the same package he outlines parking lot sizing for the commercial Route 302 corridor. How can there be any comparison between the two very different locales? Parking lots/facilities/areas in a commercial district certainly have different requirements and definitions than those in a residential district. Certainly one size does not fit all; nor should it.

Jim Seymour introduced his revisions saying that existing shoreland zoning provisions do not protect the shoreland enough, and yet his proposal will permit a 50-car paved parking lot (with the option of easy expansion) right in the middle of a residential neighborhood within the very fragile shoreland he proposed to protect. This does just the opposite of the desired objective. It serves Frye Island’s imagined and self-serving parking needs to a “T.”

I implore you, members of the Planning Board, to re-evaluate your decision and consider the large discrepancy between the two districts, residential and commercial. The Cape is truly unique and fragile because of its ubiquitous contact with shoreland, and should be preserved as such without the development of large, inappropriate parking facilities/areas/lots.

In addition, your decision reflects in no way the concerns that residents have continuously presented to you. It begs the question: whom do you represent, Raymond’s residents or the needs of an outside community seeking its personal intrusive goals?

Barb Lovell

Raymond Cape