At the urging of selectmen, the town's economic development director and code enforcement officer and most residents who spoke, Wiscasset's planning board Nov. 24 did not make a policy of defining a recent survey as one from the last six months. Chair Karl Olson said the board has gone by six months for years, has waived it many times, and has to go by some timeframe because the ordinance only calls for the surveys to be "recent."

Olson said he does not want discretionary power; lawsuits over planning board and code enforcement decisions are the costliest ones to towns; and that a survey is a "Polaroid" picture of a property as of that date. 

In the public hearing, Economic Development Director Aaron Chrostowsky said the six-month timeframe "just seems really arbitrary" and is not business-friendly because getting a survey costs time and money and there may be no reason for a new one.

A six-month window "creates an additional hurdle for property owners, developers and small businesses seeking to invest or reinvest in our town," said Selectmen's Chair Sarah Whitfield, on the selectboard's behalf. 

Chrostowsky suggested town officials, the boards and the ORC come up with a "thoughtful, balanced approach," possibly basing requirements' strictness on whether a proposed development is minor or major.

Olson said the planning board has, "at least twice, accepted a letter from a surveyor ... not the original surveyor (but who) examined the property and examined the record title and (said) there were no changes. We accepted those old surveys. We do do that, and we've explained that to pretty much every applicant that's come in. It is an option."

Olson and the rest of the board agreed with member Allen Cohen to table the proposed policy. Cohen said it is up to selectmen to have the town's ordinance review committee look at things, and he would like selectmen to make the survey matter a top priority for the ORC, which he and Olson serve on.

Whitfield planned to put the survey matter on the selectboard's Dec. 2 agenda. The agenda, released Nov. 28, had it on there and, in his manager's report that was part of the meeting packet, Town Manager Dennis Simmons recommended selectmen have Whitfield send the ORC's chair a letter "directing the Committee to take up this issue and place it at the top of their current workload."

Simmons commented in his report, "In my view, the (selectboard) should not allow the (planning board) to adopt this (six months) definition as a policy. Policies can shift with the composition of any board, creating inconsistency and uncertainty. The cleaner and more durable solution is to refer the issue to the (ORC) and have them develop a recommended amendment to the ordinance itself, following a public process ..."

Also Nov. 24, the planning board nodded Chewonki Foundation's ground-mounted solar array that project representatives said will go on an acre of pasture on the east side of Chewonki Neck Road. The nod was on the condition of an escrow for the array's decommissioning.