Waterville City Council votes to delay referring controversial church rezoning request to Planning Board

Seen from Park Place, two buildings on Park Street that would be razed to make way for more parking, with the First Church of Waterville steeple in the distance. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel file

WATERVILLE — The City Council decided it was not ready Tuesday night to send a request to the Planning Board for a controversial zoning change on Park Street that could allow the First Church of Waterville to demolish buildings and expand parking.

The council voted 6-1 to postpone the request until church officials and residents of nearby Park Place can discuss what each side wants and seek a compromise.

Council Chairwoman Rebecca Green, D-Ward 4, made a motion to table the matter, but said she first wanted to confirm that both sides are willing to have the discussion.

Stephen Meidahl, senior minister of the church, said he and Park Place resident Nancy Williams had been communicating by email in an effort to move toward such a meeting.

“We want to have those discussions,” he said. “We’re going to have those discussions.”

The vote followed a lengthy back-and-forth Tuesday between Meidahl and city councilors, with Green and other councilors expressing concern that buildings that recently housed families were going to be razed, particularly with a dearth of housing in the city.

The buildings include a duplex at 3 Park St. that is within 10 feet of the back wall of the church and a former funeral home at 5 Park St. that had three apartments. All are now vacant.

Councilor Brandon Gilley, D-Ward 1, the lone dissenter in the vote to postpone the issue, said the city is in a housing crisis and a church wants to take down two buildings with five apartments.

“For me, it’s not a good look,” Gilley said. “I don’t like it.”

But Meidahl countered by saying about 200 apartments are to be developed at other buildings in the city and the five apartments at the Park Street buildings represent only small a fraction of that.

Green told him every building, every unit in Waterville, counts.

“We need to work toward positive — more housing, not less,” she said.

Meidahl said that since he began three years ago as minister at the church, the congregation has grown from eight parishioners to about 200 on a typical Sunday. While the church has a front entrance that is accessible to those who are handicapped, officials want to build a ramp at the rear for those who are physically challenged so they do not have to traverse long distances to get inside. More parking is also needed, he said.

In response to Gilley’s comment about the church’s actions looking bad, Meidahl countered that the same could be said of not accommodating the needs of those who are physically challenged.

“That’s an exceedingly bad look,” he said.

Meidahl said last month, and reiterated Tuesday, that the former owner had removed all of the fixtures, furnaces, showers, sinks and other items from the apartment buildings, making them inhabitable.

He said the church bought the buildings in late October and one tenant was allowed to stay for free until the end of December.

However, a former tenant, Kimberlee Barnett, said earlier Tuesday that all of the fixtures had not been removed from the apartments before the purchase.

She said she had lived in the duplex at 3 Park St. for three years and received a notice at the end of September that she had to vacate the building. She said she moved out the first week of November and all the fixtures and items were still at the apartments.

Barnett also said that people from the church came in Nov. 3 and looked at her apartment and marveled at the granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and new cabinets that had been installed in the units when renovated three years ago. Each apartment also had its own washer and dryer, according to Barnett.

“They were beautiful,” Barnett said. “The apartments were gorgeous.”

She said that on Oct. 31, she ran into some Park Place residents while moving items out of her apartment, and they did not know tenants of the apartment buildings had to vacate the building.

Barnett said the apartments in the buildings rented for between $975 and about $1,300 a month, but Meidahl said Tuesday the rents were $1,600.

Residents of Park Place, which is perpendicular to Park Street and runs along the church parking lot, said they did not like how the situation unfolded under the radar.

Bob Dombroski called it a “very shady situation,” and Mayor Jay Coelho called it “a really cruddy situation that really could have been taken care of another way.”

The church applied to the city’s code enforcement office for a permit to demolish buildings at 3 and 5 Park St., but Dan Bradstreet, director of code enforcement, said Monday the request is pending a zoning modification for the proposed use for the property. The church is asking the city to rezone the lots from Contract Zoned District/Commercial-A to Residential-D.

The properties were rezoned in March 2020 from Residential-D to Contract Zoned District Commercial-A. The amended zoning says 5 Park St. can be used only as a beauty salon and spa, professional office or residences; 3 Park St. shall continue to be used as two residential apartments; and 7 Park St. shall continue to be used only as a parking lot.

The zoning was changed to allow a hairdressing and spa business to move to 3 and 5 Park St., and the conditions of the contract were intended to preserve the residential character of the abutting neighborhood. The business, however, never moved there.

The City Council refers zoning requests to the Planning Board, which holds a hearing and makes a recommendation back to the council. The Planning Board can only recommend, and the council has final authority on whether to rezone.

In other matters Tuesday, the council voted 7-0 to approve recommendations from the city’s American Rescue Plan Act Advisory Committee to disburse $50,000 to outside agencies. Kennebec Valley Community Action Program/Educare, the Maine Children’s Home and the Waterville Area Soup Kitchen are to receive $10,000 each; the Greater Waterville Area Food Bank, Starfish Village and the Waterville Historical Society were awarded $5,000 each; and the South End Neighborhood Association and the Winslow Community Cupboard are to get $2,500 each.