Belgrade plans to hold a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday on the proposed warrant articles for next month’s Town Meeting.
This public hearing, originally scheduled for Jan. 30, was postponed because of bad weather.
The regular selectmen’s meeting will take place at the close of the hearing.
The proposed warrant is posted on the town’s website at www.townofbelgrade.com.
Up for public hearing are 10 articles that will appear on ballot at the polls from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. March 17 at the Belgrade Town Office.
The remaining articles will be taken to voters in open session beginning at 1 p.m. March 18 at the Belgrade Community Center for All Seasons.
One article up for secret-ballot vote involves amendments to the town’s Commercial Development Review Ordinance.
Planning Board member George Seel said previously that the basic objective was to make the ordinance consistent with the 2014 Comprehensive Plan and recommendations of that plan, many of which were specific to the ordinance.
Seel said other objectives including making the ordinance “more user-friendly both for applicants and the Planning Board and to eliminate some of the areas of ambiguity and vagueness in standards.”
While many of the changes are simple updates, the proposed amendments include a new section about wind energy facilities as well as a standard regarding visual impact of those and cellphone towers.
It says, “Any development to be placed on a lakeshore or a hilltop may be required to prepare a visual impact assessment to provide evidence that it will not significantly impact the quality of Belgrade’s scenic resource.”
Other changes would restore standards for errant lighting or light pollution. Those exterior lighting standards had been deleted, apparently by accident.
The Planning Board has been working on updating the document for more than two years, and the Board of Selectpersons has recommended approval.
Another article to be voted on by secret ballot asks if Belgrade voters will accept a gift of nearly half a million dollars to pay for pedestrian lighting and better sidewalk materials to be installed by the state when it rebuilds the main road through the village.
The money was raised by the Friends of Belgrade Lakes Village.
The state’s reconstruction of about a half-mile of Main Street where it runs through the village is to take place in 2018, although the state has said it will suspend the work during the busy tourist months of July and August.
The state has estimated its cost at just under $2.7 million, including preliminary engineering, right of way, construction and inspection work.
Other warrant article items to be considered at the public hearing include funding for various entities, including $155,551 for the town’s Recreation Department and $58,370 for the library. There are also requests for funding from various nonprofit agencies, including $1,500 for Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area; $2,041 for the Central Maine Area (Agency) on Aging, also known as Spectrum Generations; and a request for $1,000 from Literacy Volunteers.
Another article asks whether voters want to spend $40,000 for lake water quality programs that include erosion control and invasive plant removal. That is the same amount budgeted in 2016.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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