WATERVILLE — Officials are proposing to stay focused on ongoing challenges in the city’s next long-term planning document.

With the city’s population on the rise after a decadeslong exodus, the goals laid out in the proposed comprehensive plan will address housing shortages, long-term land use policies and supporting education.

Mayor Mike Morris noted that the plan is not a “be all and end all” as things can change down the road and some goals may not fit perfectly into the plan, but it will serve as a guide for the council and city. As mayor, Morris was a member of the committee and attended several meetings. He previously was a city councilor.

“I think it’s a great document,” Morris said. “I know a lot of hard work went into it.”

The city has been working since 2022 to update its comprehensive plan and now the City Council must approve it before it can go into effect.

A comprehensive plan is a long-term guide for how municipalities make decisions about issues involving growth, development, land use, investment and other issues and includes goals and strategies for education, housing, transportation and infrastructure.

The state Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry has deemed the plan complete and consistent with the Growth Management Act. The public will have a chance to ask questions about and comment on the plan at 6 p.m. Tuesday when the City Council holds a hearing and later considers taking a first of two needed votes to finalize it.

The state requires municipalities to update their comprehensive plans every 10 years. Here are three takeaways from Waterville’s 185-page proposal:

Goals for housing

Housing remains a challenge. The plan calls for creating vibrant and safe neighborhoods and encouraging and promoting affordable, quality housing opportunities for all residents, encouraging a variety of types and densities of housing to accommodate households of different sizes, ages and incomes.

A high percentage of people can’t afford to rent an average two-bedroom apartment or buy a median-priced home in Waterville, according to the plan, so the city will continue to fund affordable housing through a variety of means, including tax increment financing.

The city also will apply for grants to help low-income homeowners upgrade substandard housing and continue to fund a city program that provides revolving loans and grants. Also, the city will require developers to include a percentage of affordable lots or units in proposed housing developments, the plan states.

“The idea is to increase available housing and improve the quality of existing housing,” Scott Beale, chairman of the comprehensive planning committee, said Monday.

Beale also is a city councilor who represents Ward 6, and previously served on the planning board. He was also a member of the Waterville Housing Committee.

Continuing to support education efforts

The proposed comprehensive plan says enrollment in Waterville Public Schools for residents of the city declined by 19% between 2000 and 2022 but increased slightly in the 2022-23 school year. During that period, there was a 22% increase in enrollment of nonresidents because of an increase in Mid-Maine Technical Center enrollments and tuition students from other towns. It projected a total enrollment of 1,915 students in the 2025-26 school year, up from 1,896 in 2022 and 1,893 in 2010, but still less than 2000, when enrollment was at 2,043.

“I worked hard to try to get text added to emphasize the importance of schools to the city’s future growth,” Beale said. “The city wants to grow. We’ve got to continue to support our schools and improve and increase our enrollment as a key component of that growth.”

Addressing the city’s growth

Waterville encompasses about 15 square miles, 5% of which is tax exempt.

“There’s a lot of material in the plan about growth and where to grow, and how to grow in rural areas,” Beale said, noting that majority of Waterville’s area is subject to taxation. “The challenge is the prioritization issue right now.”

The city held a housing summit in September where officials discussed holding council workshops to try to establish priorities for types of housing and talk about economic development priorities, Beale said.

“There’s a lot of tremendously good ideas and concepts in the plan but we don’t have enough resources to do it all at once,” he said. “The plan is good for 12 years, so how do we take what’s in the plan and turn it into actionable activities?”

Waterville is Maine’s 15th-largest municipality. The city’s population was 18,695 in 1960, dropping to 15,828 in 2020. At the same time, towns including Winslow, Albion, Benton, Belgrade, China, Clinton, Fairfield, Oakland, Rome, Sidney, Smithfield and Vassalboro gained population, according to the U.S. Census, as commuting became easier, people moved to the countryside and lakes and places with more open spaces, larger housing lots and newer schools in communities with lower taxes, according to the plan.

Waterville’s population is increasing. As of July 1, 2024, it was 17,336, an increase of 1,508 from 2020, and is projected to increase another 2,550 by 2033, the plan states.

The challenge for the council, Beale says, is how to keep the comprehensive plan in the forefront, and how to use it now that the committee’s work is done.

“There’s a tremendous amount of information in there that’s valuable, but the challenge is, how do we take this information and the concepts and ideas and put them into a concrete plan, funded appropriately?”