Return

Leaving Maine during the first year of the pandemic required me to relinquish my role as the Vice-chair of the Eliot Planning Board. A role that I quickly rose to within a year of becoming a voting member and enjoyed.

Upon returning to Maine, I used the time and space from not being on the Planning Board, to focus on the construction of my Accessory Dwelling Unit project. But friends and neighbors kept reaching out about local land use issues and concerns, so I started working as a land use consultant assisting landowners in navigating the site plan review process.

In the year that I was away, the state of Maine made significant changes to it’s net-metering program for solar energy production, extending the incentives developed to rooftop installations to larger commercial arrays. This change resulted in a flood of proposals (~400) for large and medium size ground mounted arrays across the state. One such proposal landed in Eliot’s critical rural overlay district in 2021.

I was hired by a group of concerned citizens and abutters to review the solar array proposal, planning board proceedings and the town’s land use ordinance. I identified an inconsistency between the local and state definitions of public utility that led to a reversal of the Planning Board’s approval in early 2022. Litigation has ensued and a decision on this point is expected from the Maine Supreme Court (land court) by the end of 2023.

It pained me to realize that Eliot had a land use definition that should have been changed 20 years prior when the State of Maine deregulated the electricity supply market. So when my consulting contract ended, I sought re-appointment to the Planning Board with the explicit aim of stimulating an on-going review process. I also sought appointment to the legislative policy committee of the Maine Municipal Association in order to gain insight into current legislative initiatives and policy advocacy.

2022-present

I was re-appointed to the Eliot Planning Board in February of 2022 and currently serve as Chair and lead a new subcommittee on Definition and Ordinance Review.

It took five months to convince the former chair of the Planning Board that we could create a sub-committee of 2 members and adhere to the State’s open meeting law and our own by-laws. During that time, I co-wrote 4 new definitions for the singular, outdated land use term of “day nursery” and drafted a substantial amendment to our subdivision ordinance. Since then, I have amended the board’s by-laws to adjust our schedule for election of officers to sync with the Select Board re-appointment schedule, co-written 4 new definitions, led Eliot’s work to comply with a state mandate to increase Housing opportunities (LD 2003) and discussion of other means of addressing our local housing crisis.

Legislative Policy Committee

I joined this committee as an interested party at the same time that I returned to the Eliot Planning Board. In September 2022 I was elected to serve as a voting member for the duration of the 131st legislature. It has been fascinating to learn about municipal issues in other communities, how policy advocacy happens (successfully and unsuccessfully), to participate in legislative hearings and perform policy analysis.

Co-chair

“If you want to get something done, ask a busy person”.