To spend $10,000 more on consultant’s contract

BRUNSWICK

The committee charged with rewriting the town’s zoning ordinance is moving ahead with plans to extend its contract with its consultant in order to draft a second version, despite concerns previously raised by the town council.

The Zoning Ordinance Rewrite Committee — or ZORC — will spend an additional $10,000 to extend the committee’s contract with the consultant by six months in order to develop a second draft. The current contract with consultant Donald Elliott of Clarion Associates ends in December. Funding to extend the contract would come from the planning office’s budget, which had been earmarked for developing design guidelines for the Village Review Board. That project would have been delayed until the next fiscal year.

“We’ve been listening to the residents. They’ve said, ‘slow it down,’” said Anna Breinich, Brunswick’s director of planning and development, in an interview on Tuesday. “That’s why we’re saying we need to have this interim draft.”

Extending the consultant’s contract is the right thing to do, according to ZORC Chairman Charlie Frizzle.

“He wrote the first draft,” said Frizzle. “If we had been charged with writing the first draft, we’d still be busy trying to do it.

“The contractor’s doing what we hired him to do,” Frizzle added.

The council had requested a roadmap that would layout the rewrite process going forward. A draft timeline for moving forward with the rewrite was presented at Tuesday’s planning board meeting.

The draft timeline calls for the second, or “interim,” draft to be written in February.

ZORC would then hold “area-focused public forums” in February and March, but where and how many forums would be held is to be determined.

A final draft rewrite would be presented to the planning board in May, with submission to the town council for approval in June.

Speakers at public forums had requested more time to review the rewrite. The sixmonth extension and second draft, Planning Board member Richard Visser said, “provides more time.”

The idea for a second draft comes after a series of public forums in which dozens of pages worth of questions has been put forth regarding the complex rewrite.

The second draft will incorporate public feedback gathered so far, according to Interim Town Manager John Eldridge.

In an interview on Thursday, Town Councilor Jane Millett said another, interim document isn’t what’s needed right now.

“What we need is dialogue regarding questions that have been asked, and on specifics on the plan itself,” said Millett. “It needs to be an educational process.”

Millett noted that the current rewrite is “very difficult to wade through.”

Breinich on Tuesday noted that the timeline for another rewrite still needs to be presented to the council “for their blessing.”

And Planning Board member Bill Dana defended ZORC members.

“You’re doing a deliberative job, and you’re doing it well,” said Dana.

The ordinances are being rewritten in order to align the town’s zoning with the 2008 comprehensive plan. According to a statement on the town’s website by Brunswick’s Zoning Ordinance Rewrite Committee, or ZORC, Brunswick’s zoning ordinance is “long, confusing and outdated” and in desperate need of revamping.

jswinconeck@timesrecord.com

THE ORDINANCES are being rewritten in order to align Brunswick’s zoning with the 2008 comprehensive plan. According to a statement on the town’s website by Brunswick’s Zoning Ordinance Rewrite Committee, or ZORC, the town’s zoning ordinance is “long, confusing and outdated.”