The more people within walking distance from Wiscasset village, the better for businesses, Code Enforcement Officer and Town Planner George Chase said Nov. 24.

Chase told the town's ordinance review committee, the village “really was designed to accommodate a considerable population. You can see it from the infrastructure and the sidewalks (that) run all over the place. I mean, it really is a great potential for the infill there … So if we can promote growth in the village district, then you know that's going to help support the downtown businesses."

He said it will take “cleaning up the zoning a little bit,” by combining village districts 1 and 2 and adding setbacks. Chase described the would-be ordinance changes as streamlining and said he has thought of no downside. 

ORC Chair Karl Olson was concerned with the timing, so soon after the new state law upping allowed density. Olson said after a bill becomes law, the state still has to make the regulations; plus grant money might open up to help with planning.

"I think we're too soon to do some of this," Olson said of the ordinance work. "We may end up having to change what we already did, or change it before we even get it to the voter." He added at another point, "There's a big difference between passing a law and the people down the chain developing the rules and regulations that implement that law. And sometimes there can be a very big difference. Not usually, but there can be one."

Chase suggested starting with zoning corrections and making any other changes once the rest is known from the state. Waiting for a grant is "a waste of potentially very important time," he said. "It really could be the make or break of economic growth that we significantly need."

"We are in a very precarious economic situation (and) we have an opportunity for growth to support our region ...," including with housing, Chase said. He mentioned one property owner interested in selling theirs, that could become housing. But the town's one-acre lot minimum for Village 2, "which there's no practical reason for," prevents that property from being divided, Chase said.

Olson explained, those lot rules were put in because "at the time, people did not want infill in those areas. They wanted to keep the character of the village as it was."

Member Don Oyster wondered if local opinion has changed.

Now people want development, to ease the tax burden, member Allen Cohen offered. "Development brings more income into the town."

"Yeah, once the golden goose (Maine Yankee nuclear power plant) went away, the attitude changed considerably," Chase said.

Before the committee's Dec. 8 meeting, Chase planned to draft some possible ordinance changes involving the village and a possible expansion of the residential district.

Also in the Nov. 24 talks, Chase commented on the Wiscasset Elementary School, former middle school property on Federal Street. If it ever stops being a school, it could be a hotel or 100 apartments, he said. Chase said to be a school is of great value, but the property could have value of another kind, as an income producer for the town. He called it an incredible piece with water frontage.

"That would be a fairly significant tax gain, to go from not paying any taxes to paying the taxes of 100 condo units," Chase said. "The value of that probably could pay for building a new school up near the high school, or wherever anybody wanted it." He added, "Fundamentally, one of the things that will provide stability for the shops is people within a walkable distance (of downtown) being able to ... use the restaurants and use the shops and go to the pub. And hopefully someday we'll have another grocery store down there and go back to being a full self-contained village. The more people that are in walking distance of that, the more likely all those businesses will thrive and last."

Chase also wondered if the town would want to see a hotel on that Federal Street site instead of 100 condo units. A hotel would probably be met with less resistance, he said. "Of course, everybody that lives next to the school would have a sign in front of their house saying that 'We don't want —"

"No hotels ... nor condos," Cohen finished the sentence, drawing laughter.