The Edgecomb Planning Board approved sending the revised land use ordinance to the selectmen for review following a 44-minute March 31 public hearing. Three residents attended the meeting held in the municipal building to discuss changes to the ten-chapter, 150-page ordinance.

The Ordinance Review Committee began working on the revision in 2013. The committee was charged with making the document more user-friendly, correcting errors, eliminating non-applicable sections, and rearranging the articles into a more sensible order.

Planning Board Chairman Jack French was pleased with the final document created by the six-person committee which included Barry Hathorne, Dave Boucher, David Nutt, Skip White, Sue Carlson and Barb Gibson.

“It looks great,” French said. “It updates a lot of state regulations. Plus, they did a heck of a job putting it into English and reorganizing it.”

If approved by voters in May, this would be the 11th time the ordinance was revised since its enactment in 2005.

One major revision is changing guidelines for determining what uses are allowed in a district. Under the current ordinance, there is a commercial category requiring planning board approval.

The current ordinance allows anything from a cement plant to a candy store in the commercial category, according to planning board secretary Jackie Lowell. Under the proposal, the commercial category is broken down so a district allowing a candy store would also restrict cement plants to areas designed for heavy industrial use.

According to French, the biggest change is to the ordinance’s land use sections. The proposed changes provide prospective land owners with minimum lot size coverage, minimum lot frontage, maximum curb cuts, front and rear side setbacks, maximum building heights, and minimum buffer and separation between residential buildings. These guidelines are now all on one page, not the five in the current ordinance, according to town officials.

The committee didn’t recommend any changes to the shoreland, floodplain, mobile home and wireless communication facility ordinances. The proposal also has articles regarding enforcement, appeals, fees, and definitions which all apply to the new ordinance.

Selectman Jack Sarmanian thanked the planning board and ordinance review committee for their work.

“You’ve done an admirable job. Your hard work is appreciated and it will be noted,” he said.

The selectmen will decide whether the proposal will be on the May town meeting warrant.

The planning board will meet next for its regularly scheduled meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 7 in the municipal building.