Comprehensive plan rejected again in Perry

Three years of planning on a rocky road resulted in a close defeat for the Perry Comprehensive Plan and its revisions, which were presented to the town on the November 2 ballot. Perry residents cast 206 votes against the comprehensive plan and 184 in favor.
The plan began in 2006 with funding from a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). The Town of Perry raised an additional $7,500 that same year to help fund the plan. Along the way "at the least $25,000 was spent on the plan," says Judy East, executive director of Washington County Council of Governments.
According to East, the last of the block grant money was spent in September 2009. Monies from state contracts were used to fund continued costs until October 2010. "I'll need a new contract to go forward with a plan. I can't spend any more state contract money for this," East said. Without the approval of voters in the Town of Perry, all work on the plan, including recent revisions, has come to a halt.

The plan's history
After the grant was secured in 2006, a combined survey was mailed to all resident and non-resident property owners of Perry and Pembroke in July-August of 2007. There were 714 surveys mailed. A total of 182 surveys were returned, a 25% response rate. Data were complied by a 12-member committee, and the initial plan was drafted in an attempt to update the advisory document adopted by the town in 1993.
The comprehensive plan committee began holding regular monthly meetings looking at small businesses, fishing, farming, forestry, conservation, education, real estate and public safety in the town. The update had a schedule of 18 months. The plan failed to win approval at a March 2009 town meeting.
A new comprehensive plan committee was approved for 2009-10. Several informational meetings and three public hearings were held during its tenure. Information cards, which some say they didn't receive, were mailed. Others received letters that criticized the plan.
At the Perry town meeting on August 24 voters again rejected the plan by a vote of 38-22. Planners agreed to address the concerns of some townspeople by reducing the number of areas designated for potential future commercial growth on the proposed land use map. The committee voted unanimously to remove five of the eight districts on the map and to reduce the size of two others.
The committee held a public hearing on October 21 to hear comments about revisions made to the plan. During the meeting, residents were concerned that the 45th Parallel gift store was in an area designated as commercial/industrial. Michael Leddy, a homeowner next to the gift store, voiced his concern that his property was listed on the land map as "zoned" for commercial/industrial use. Comprehensive plan committee member Karen Raye was quick to say, "This is not about zoning. This is based on existing businesses in the area. It's only encouraging the use of land for business where it already exists." Ann Skriletz, another comprehensive plan committee member, said, "I think we should take his land out of the plan. I don't think people should have to have a parcel in it if they don't want to." Leddy stated that he was not notified that his land was listed on the map as commercial/industrial.
After that discussion, the focus centered on the group agreeing with East, who said, "You can still modify this plan. You can make a finer distinction between commercial and industrial and create two districts; both would be growth areas, but one would be industrial and the other commercial." East said that the group could "extend the village/mixed use district north along Route 1 to include the same area as is now in commercial/industrial."
Other residents weren't pleased with the four areas that were left in the designated business development district in the revised plan. The areas in question were an area behind the municipal building between Mahar's Lane and the South Meadow Road, where the potential rail yard could be sited, and an area adjacent to the Old Eastport bridge designated for commercial marine activities.
Committee member John Cook said, "Well, let's change it. Let's take a vote right now and change this corridor." Committee chairman Gerry Morrison reminded the board that a vote cannot be taken at a public hearing.
With a week to go before the vote, there was no way to change the amended revisions, time ran out and voters went to the polls without any new or updated information about the possibility of another change to the plan.

Comprehensive plan's future
After the vote, Jim Whitehead, former vice chairman of the 2006 comprehensive plan committee, said, "We needed the comprehensive plan. If there is ever going to be any jobs here you got to have it."
Cook expressed his opinion, saying, "Twice the selectmen have stubbornly insisted on make or break votes on the plan without consulting with or involving the community. They pursued an approach that guaranteed failure. This could have been easily avoided, and the town would have not only saved precious time and taxpayer money but also would have wound up with a workable plan. We now have a chance to do it right."
Cook continued, "Clearly the fact that property taxes have jumped up 70% in five years needs to addressed. Business development and job creation need to be encouraged and facilitated but not subsidized with higher property taxes. The plan should also protect the town's property owners, its resources and its tax base from speculative exploitation, not offer them up for it.
Cook also maintained, "The four or five people that hijacked the committee and imposed their own vision and agenda on the plan failed as stewards of the town's future. They manipulated the data and the survey and deprived the rest of the community of opportunities to participate in the process. The town's collective wisdom has been expressed loudly and clearly in the two voter rejections. That wisdom must now be applied to correct the plan and get it approved. Hopefully those committee members and the selectmen will listen this time and act responsibly."
Morrison said, "In an election that was all about jobs and Maine's business climate, Perry voters strongly favored pro-business candidates for governor and state legislature. So it's pretty clear that the defeat of the comprehensive plan was not based on opposition to growth in Perry. In fact, many Perry voters have expressed reservations about a new comprehensive plan because they fear it could lead to zoning and restricting their ability to use their land. ... It was ironic to see anonymous signs pop up in the final days before the election falsely alleging that passage of the comprehensive plan would somehow result in a tax increase. In fact, the only way we will ever see lower property taxes is to encourage economic growth and business in town to expand the tax base. It may be more constructive to simply allow the existing 1993 comprehensive plan to guide the town's development. If the town were to go through the process all over again, there would be significant cost to the town, and I can't see raising taxes to do that."
Perry selectman Karen Raye, a member of the 2010 comprehensive plan committee, said, "There is no money in the budget to keep this process moving forward. The voters have turned this down twice now, most likely because they believed it included zoning. A lot of people in Perry don't like the idea of any kind of restriction on the use of their own property. With the new administration in Augusta, the future of the State Planning Office is a bit up in the air. The selectmen might be smart to sit back and wait a few months before deciding if and when to proceed.