By SAM PECOR, Special to the Gazette
Let me ask you something: what do you do when you feel pain?
That’s a loaded question. So, let’s stick to the responsible move: see a doctor and establish the cause.
The answer is no different when it comes to a business, a city, a state or even a nation. Identifying the causes of our malaise is the first step toward remedying it. So why are we so averse to that conversation in public? We are unable to get past “something hurts” and identify what’s hurting and what’s causing it.
Biddeford has suffered years of preventable mismanagement that has persisted without anyone naming the specific, often boring, causes.
Take our Comprehensive Plan. You don’t need a comprehensive plan to exist as a city. You do, however, need the state’s approval, a finding of consistency, if you want the full set of planning tools, if you expect the state to take your zoning seriously, and if you want Biddeford to be competitive for the grant dollars and capital investment that reward communities that plan.
According to the state’s own planning incentives list (quoted verbatim), here’s all that we’ve given up by not receiving state approval for our Comprehensive Plan:
- Enact legitimate zoning, impact fee, and rate of growth ordinances;
- Require state agencies to comply with local zoning standards;
- Qualify for preferred status with many of the state’s competitive grant programs;
- Guide state growth-related capital investment towards locally-chosen growth areas;
- Qualify for Site Location of Development Act exemptions for certain growth-area developments;
- Qualify for relaxed MaineDOT traffic permit standards for certain growth-area developments;
- Qualify for authority to issue Natural Resources Protection Act (NRPA) permits; and
- Qualify for authority to issue Site Location of Development Act permits.
For the residents living beside the York Judicial Center: in practice, without a state-approved Comprehensive Plan, our zoning standards can be merely advisory to the state, weakening our ability to protect abutters.
Failure to adopt a state-approved Comprehensive Plan does far more than erode our ability to self-govern. It affects everyone. It weakens our competitiveness for state grant opportunities. That leaves significant money on the table and pushes more of the burden onto property taxpayers.
A consistent failing among city leadership has been communicating the connections between these problems and the pain we are feeling today. When people understand these connections, they are more likely to support real solutions: funding for staff, investments in technology and increased compliance oversight, to name a few.
Citizens of Biddeford understand cause and effect; we get that investing $1 to save $2 is a good deal. Establish the cause, determine the cost and implement a strategy that saves more than it costs. That’s it, that’s the whole ball game.
Sam Pecor is a Biddeford resident and serves on the Biddeford Gazette’s Advisory Board. We welcome submitted commentary from our readers. For more information, please CONTACT US
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