Mary Brow, a 57-year resident of Lee Street, speaks Oct. 13, 2020, against a mixed-use zoning rule for her neighborhood during a meeting at the Winslow Parks and Recreation Department building. A decision on the land’s zoning was delayed again Monday during a Planning Board meeting. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel file
A regionwide Spectrum outage Monday evening not only shut customers out from services, but it directly impacted Winslow municipal government.
The Winslow Planning Board tabled any action on the longstanding zoning issue in the Dunbar Acres subdivision at the request of land owner Steve Martin, whose internet was down because of the outage.
“It’s not a big rush on my end,” Martin said. “I said, ‘just table it until we can have a decent conversation.'”
The Planning Board was slated to make a formal recommendation Monday evening that would go before the Town Council at its April 12 meeting. The next Planning Board meeting is scheduled for May 3.
“We did not take any action on that particular issue at our meeting last night,” Chairperson Elery Keene said in a phone interview Tuesday. “The reason was because Steve Martin wanted to make comments, and he was not going to be able to do so at our meeting last night.”
On the town council’s radar since last fall, the zoning issue has been on agendas for every council meeting for the last nine months. The council voted twice to approve an initial zoning change last fall, but pushback from neighbors brought the topic back to the table. The council has tabled the ordinance at every one of its meetings since October.
Councilors recently heard testimony from neighbors in a public hearing March 8 after abutters on Lee and Marie streets were notified by certified mail in late February of Martin’s request to change the zoning of lots on a portion of Tax Map 13, Lot 115. That portion is described as lots 87, 88 and 89 in the Dunbar Acres subdivision and the change desired is from high density residential to mixed-use zoning. Martin wants to change the zoning to build a garage for his S B Martin Excavations business and put construction vehicles on the lot.
“My opinion is that it should remain in the high-density district,” Keene said. “I think we should listen to the the concerns of the nearby homeowners and take that into consideration.”
Wording has changed throughout the process. At one point, Martin requested a contract zone, but now the request is back to the original mixed-use status. The Planning Board attended the March public hearing in order to solidify understanding of the proposed project. The board was supposed to make the recommendation Monday before the council did a first reading April 12. If that had passed, the final reading would’ve been in May.
The process will be further delayed with the tabling of the issue Monday. Winslow Code Enforcement Officer Adam Bradstreet said the issue will remain on next week’s council agenda, though it likely will remain tabled.
Keene, the Planning Board chairperson, believes the issue will be back before the board before the council takes any action.
“We will take action on it, but the situation will stay the way it is,” Keene said. “Nothing will be built until final action is taken.”
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