Waterville Planning Board to consider 89-room hotel, solar ordinance revisions

WATERVILLE — The Planning Board is scheduled Tuesday to consider approving final plans for an 89-room hotel on Armory Road and revisions to the city’s zoning ordinance dealing with solar farms.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the City Hall Annex at 46 Front St.

Hill Hospitality, based in Easton, Maryland, is seeking to build a Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel at the corner of Industrial and Armory roads.

The plans call for a 16,000-square-foot, four-story building with an entrance and exit from Armory Road. Landscaping and 95 parking spaces are planned for the site, as are an indoor pool and fitness center, according to Kendra Ramsell, an engineer with Sebago Technics who presented informal preapplication plans Jan. 9 to the Planning Board.

The hotel would be near two existing hotels near Interstate 95, including the Fireside Inn & Suites and Best Western Plus Waterville Grand Hotel, both of which are on Main Street. Developers said they hope to begin construction this year.

The board is also expected Tuesday to consider voting to recommend to the City Council changes to a section of the city’s zoning ordinance that regulates solar farms.

The council voted Sept. 19, 2023, to refer the matter to the Planning Board, asking that members consider solar farm placement and standards.

The council requested the board study the negative visual impacts of large-scale solar arrays and possible methods of mitigation, impacts to wildlife habitats, neighborhoods and outdoor recreational opportunities and runoff and erosion issues.

The council also asked the board to examine the highest and best use of what it described as Waterville’s very limited available lands.

There are five solar farms in the city, including one on Kennebec Sanitary Treatment District property on Water Street; two on Webb Road; one on Robert LaFleur Municipal Airport property, on the east side of Interstate 95; and one on Eight Rod Road, between a mobile home park and a new subdivision.

There are also two informal solar farm requests before the city, according to City Planner Ann Beverage.

The Planning Board’s recommendations to the City Council are expected to include information about when rezoning would be appropriate to allow for solar farms and recommendations from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife about such farms.