When the Town of Cape Elizabeth adopted a new Comprehensive Plan in 2007, it established a far-reaching series of planning goals and strategies to accommodate future growth while simultaneously trying to preserve the rural character of the town.

Prior to revising the Comprehensive Plan, the Town commissioned a survey of residents to help inform the process and establish priorities. In this survey a full 83% of respondents cited the "Protection and preservation of wetlands, ponds and wooded areas" and "Preserving the rural character of the Town" as the top planning priorities. In addition, 94% of residents cited the "natural environment" as one of the most important benefits of living in Cape Elizabeth.

In the two and a half years since the Comprehensive Plan’s adoption, several changes to local zoning ordinances have worked their way through various town boards, committees and public hearings. With the possible exception of the recently passed "farm friendly" agricultural amendments, none of these have addressed the core concern of a vast majority of residents that preservation of natural areas and agricultural lands be a top planning priority.

The Cape Elizabeth Land Trust (CELT) believes that a long-term strategy for the protection and preservation of agricultural lands and natural areas needs to be addressed PRIOR to the Town considering zoning changes to accommodate additional growth and development.

The current batch of proposed changes to local zoning encourages more compact development in an attempt to forestall the development of more rural areas of town. Unfortunately, several of the parcels within the town’s ‘growth area’ are the same forested and agricultural lands that many residents hope to preserve.

Within a Comprehensive Plan, the State Planning Office (SPO) requires that the town determine expected future growth and determine where new growth should occur. The Comprehensive Planning committee provided estimates of future growth based upon past growth trends and submitted a lower growth rate than predicted by the SPO. Using these new growth predictions, the committee members determined that projected growth by 2020 (330 units) could be achieved utilizing existing zoning parameters, and not accounting for the 100+ homes currently on the market.

Given that these ordinance changes are designed with the hope that future growth will have a minimal impact on community character and town services, why not address the issue proactively with ordinance and strategies designed to preserve strategic lands?

The fact that new home starts are now drastically slower than when the Comprehensive Plan was written, that the market is now offering 180 homes for sale (including 80 approved new homes of the type envisioned by the Comprehensive Plan), and that town ordinance can already accommodate projected growth, the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust believes that this an opportune time to design and implement changes to our ordinance that are directly related to the preservation of land rather than to accommodate additional growth above the stated projections in the Comprehensive Plan.

On September 7th at 7:00pm, the Town Council will be holding a Land Use Regulation Review Workshop to debate the current batch of proposed zoning ordinance. We encourage you to contact individual councilors with questions and to attend this meeting.

Further Background on Proposed Zoning Changes