Charting Maine’s Future

Summit 2008 is coming up soon - just over a month and a half away, on October 10th. This year’s program includes three major keynote speakers from the Public Strategies Group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Brookings Institution.

The Summit will also include the first of many statewide “listening sessions” that will help inform the scope and issues we’ll address in our upcoming “Climate, Energy, and Prosperity” and “Governing Maine in the 21st Century” projects. Summit attendees will be the first people in the state to set the agenda for these two proposed sequels to our 2006 “Charting Maine’s Future” report.

As a way of thanking our blog readers and subscribers, we’re offering a limited “early-bird” discount on registration to the first 150 registrants. If you’re a contributing member of GrowSmart Maine, you’re eligible for an even larger discount on registration fees.

Click here for the full program of speakers and breakout sessions.

Click here to register online using our secure webpages.

Following the June 12th Public Workshop [PDF file], the Standish Corner Village Implementation Committee met on July 17th to discuss the public’s input and fine-tuned three possible future village concepts for Standish Corner Village. The concepts are three options for how the village might evolve over the next 20 or so years based upon three distinct policy and zoning directions.  These concepts are:

1. Current Zoning and Policies — if current zoning and other policies in place continue;
2. Master Plan — if zoning and policies follow recommendations of the Jan. ‘08 Standish Corner Master Plan [large PDF file];
3. Master Plan Variation — if zoning and policies follow recommendations of a variation of the Master Plan (a modified zoning concept).

See the July 17th meeting materials for descriptions of these three concepts.

For each of these 3 concepts, a detailed evaluation will be conducted including development of 3-dimensional models and photo-simulations (see examples of these techniques here) to help the committee and public visualize the pros and cons of these zoning and policy options.  The committee will review and refine these concepts at its September and October meetings.  They will be presented to the public for their input at an upcoming mid-October meeting.  Stay tuned!

June 12th Public Workshop

Over 50 Standish residents attended the June 12th Public Workshop and provided their thoughtful input on the future of the Town.  The Workshop was hosted by the Standish Corner Village Implementation Committee and the Conservation and Open Space Plan Committee.

Click here for an overview of the presentations and the public workshop. 

The Village Committee sought input into how a village center should evolve over the next 20 or so years.  Residents gave their thoughts on: how the village should look as it’s built; what types of activities should happen there; what form businesses, neighborhoods and parks should take; and, where they should be located. 

For more information or to send any additional thoughts you may have, email Bruce Hyman, the GrowSmart Maine project facilitator, or Bud Benson, the Standish Planning Board Administrator.

Following up on yesterday’s post about Biddeford’s newly-won community planning grant, here are some other exciting news items from Biddeford that I’ve been meaning to write about:

• The Heart of Biddeford, the nonprofit economic development organization that’s been leading the charge in downtown Biddeford’s revitalization, has launched a new web site. It includes resources on starting a new business downtown, and information about available commercial and residential properties.
• The National Trust for Historic Preservation held their leadership training conference in Portland earlier this month and brought a number of historic preservation heavyweights to southern Maine. One of them, Donovan Rypkema, who runs PlaceEconomics, made a side trip to Biddeford and wrote a glowing blog post about some of the mill redevelopment projects underway. “Go to Biddeford for a visit or to invest or maybe as a great place to relocate (at VERY affordable rents) your “creative economy” business,” writes Rypkema. He also reminds readers from Boston that “a new Amtrak station is being completed in the midst of the mill building redevelopment…so walk to the train and ride the 90 miles to Beantown.”
• And speaking of mill redevelopment projects, today’s MaineBiz Daily newsletter reports that the state’s Municipal Investment Trust Fund will grant $350,000 to Biddeford’s Riverdam mill redevelopment efforts and to downtown revitalization efforts in general.

A clarification on that last item: the Municipal Investment Trust Fund is a sort of in-town counterpart to the “Land for Maine’s Future” program, only it’s designed to revitalize downtowns and Main Streets, instead of preserving farms or wild forests. Another big difference is the fact that Land for Maine’s Future gets a lot more money.

I think the Municipal Investment Trust Fund needs a snazzier name: “Main Street Investment Fund”? “Downtowns for Maine’s Future”? Let’s hear your ideas in the comments.

Our colleagues from the Orton Family Foundation, who are big supporters of our Model Town planning project in Standish, last week announced a major new $10 million initiative to “help communities strengthen their unique spirit of place as they face growth and change.” Biddeford and Damariscotta will be two of the first four towns to receive grants.

As we’re attempting to do in Standish, Orton will bring a grassroots approach to identify what kind of economic growth they want for their towns and how to preserve the things that make these places special. A press release from the foundation gives more details on the awards:

In a series of gatherings, events, meetings, interviews and polling, the four towns will learn to take action to protect and strengthen those assets for the future. In addition to its grants, the Foundation contributes expertise and training on using innovative tools such as CommuntyViz™ visioning and analysis software, keypad polling, on-line surveys and other ways to increase citizen participation.

These were competitive grants, and the financial rewards come with the expectation that the winning towns will match Orton’s contributions with their own resources - a condition that makes community buy-in essential.

The Biddeford Heart and Soul Planning project will collaborate with the city, the Heart of Biddeford (a nonprofit committed to downtown economic development) and the University of New England. In Damariscotta, Orton will partner with the town government and the Friends of Midcoast Maine.

Congratulations to these two communities!

[photo courtesy of Reny’s, whose original store is on Main Street in Damariscotta]

Just over one year ago, the small town of Greensburg, Kansas lost 95% of its homes and businesses in a massive tornado (photo below). But instead of giving up on the town, or trying to rebuild their past, Greensburg’s residents seized on the disaster to rebuild their town under a completely new framework: as a sustainable, “green” community.

A lot of Maine’s small towns might find a lot in common with Greensburg. It’s a rural community, with an economy that’s highly reliant on local natural resources. Greensburg had also been diminishing in size as its younger residents grew up and moved away.

In a May interview on Treehugger, the environmental news blog, Mayor Bob Dixson said that “our most valuable resource that we’ve exported is our youth. They’ve been heading elsewhere to find employment. So the question has been, ‘How do we encourage and get businesses to come and offer employment to our younger generation and keep them in the county and town?’”

The tornado, and the rebuilding opportunities it afforded, turned out to be a big part of the answer to this question. In December, the Greensburg City Council adopted a resolution that all city buildings bigger than 4000 square feet would be certified to LEED platinum green-building standards - the strictest in the industry.

In May, the City Council approved a citywide “Sustainable Comprehensive Master Plan” (image above) that envisions a small town rebuilt with walkable streets, a vibrant, mixed-use Main Street, restored prairie habitats, recreational trails, and new renewable energy development, with the goal of supplying all of the town’s electricity from local wind and solar power by 2009.

These initiatives partly reflect the inherent frugality of small-town prairie dwellers: in the same interview, Mayor Dixson points out that “in rural America we are the original recyclers and our forefathers and pioneers knew the advantages of passive solar heat… and geothermal energy as well, using it through dugouts and cellars with root crops.” Sounds a lot like frugal Mainers.

The mayor also says that “we’re all painfully aware the fossil fuel situation is one we need to wean ourselves off of because that resource has been pretty well drained.” A sentiment to which most Mainers can also relate.

The focus on greening Greensburg has brought another, less anticipated benefit: burgeoning economic development for the small town.

Aside from the tremendous activity from rebuilding, the town has also hosted film crews from movie documentaries and a television series. The attention is attracting investment and talent from all over the nation: A Californian snack food maker is helping to fund a new business incubator building, which will house 10 local businesses and also be built to LEED-platinum standards. And 22 Kansas University architecture students lived and worked in the town for nine months to design and build an arts center (pictured), another LEED-certified building powered by three wind turbines and built from materials salvaged from a World War II-era ammunition plant.

“Before the tornado, I was not going to come back. I was going to go to college, and who knows where. This community was dying,” said 15-year-old Levi Schmidt in this NPR report from December. “Now I’m definitely coming back, and I know a good majority of my friends are.”

Maine is facing its own crisis with skyrocketing energy costs and the looming winter - which, as daunting as it is, still can’t compare with what Greensburg endured. But a small town in Kansas was able to seize its crisis as a new opportunity, and is re-building itself as a vibrant city of the future. Why shouldn’t Maine aim for the same goals?

GrowSmart Maine has begun a new blog, “Innovacationland,” on the new DownEast.com website. Our hope is that this new blog, hosted on Down East magazine’s web site, will expose our organization to more of a national audience.

“Innovacationland” will feature weekly posts on innovative new businesses, government initiatives, or grassroots efforts that we learn about from out members and colleagues. I’ll make a habit of cross-posting our “Innovacationland” blog posts here on our own “Charting Maine’s Future” blog, so that if you already subscribe to our RSS feed, there won’t be any need to subscribe to a second.

As an additional bonus for this blog’s readers, I think that the “Innovacationland” project will give me more motivation to produce more original content, both here and there. Without further ado, here’s our first “Innovacationland” post:

When it comes to innovative thinking in local government, we’re big fans of what the cities of Lewiston and Auburn have already accomplished – and the two City Halls on either side of the Androscoggin River are still pushing the envelope on new and creative ways to provide city services. As GrowSmart Maine moves forward with our “Governing Maine in the 21st Century” project, we expect to look to these cities for examples of creative, entrepreneurial government.

For instance, the two cities collaborate on economic development with the Lewiston Auburn Economic Growth Council. All too often, neighboring towns compete with each other with loans and tax breaks as they try to locate new businesses inside their boundaries. But Lewiston and Auburn work together as a region to bring new businesses and jobs to the area: even if a business decides to locate on Auburn’s side of the river, Lewiston’s residents and taxpayers still benefit from increased employment and spending power, and vice versa.

The Greater Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce is now pushing a similar concept for Cumberland County. Maine’s largest city has left its chief economic development position vacant in the wake of city budget cuts, but a regional approach could make economic development more successful and more affordable to its constituent municipalities.

In L/A, merging other public offices in order to save taxpayer money is the focus of an ongoing “Citizens Commission on Lewiston-Auburn Cooperation.” The Commission is working with the two cities to share more city services and save millions of dollars annually. Already, the cities are sharing some public works equipment and staff, and looking into coordinating their code enforcement, tax assessment, and technology offices, among others.

A report that the Commission produced in early 2006 even suggested that the two cities might merge completely to create a single municipality, whose population would rival Portland’s.

So there’s no shortage of big, bold ideas for government in L/A. And the cities are reaping the benefits of these creative ideas: new businesses are creating jobs, downtown storefronts are being renovated, existing businesses are growing, tax rates are declining, and the cities’ populations are growing for the first time in decades.

A few months ago, CEOs for Cities published a report, “Driven to the Brink,” which presented a compelling case for the role of rising gas prices in households’ inability to meet mortgage payments, and the larger housing crisis in general. To be sure, subprime lending gimmicks also played a big role, but the sudden jump in gas prices was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back.

CEOs for Cities recently produced a short video that gives a general outline of the study’s arguments and findings. It was recently featured on the front page of YouTube and has had over 120,000 viewings so far:

Here in Maine, Portland Press Herald business reporter Tux Turkel found a bright spot in the local housing market when a recent auction for 13 condos on Portland’s Back Cove drew hundreds of attendees and produced robust prices. Turkel interviewed several local real estate brokers at the auction, and many of them cited the condos’ close-in location as a reason for the auction’s success:

Location is key, according to Tom Landry, owner/broker at Benchmark Residential & Investment Real Estate. Landry advised Webster [a condo buyer] in his bidding. The turnout and bidding prices, he said, signal that buyers see value in an attractive location that’s near downtown, as commuting times and gasoline prices rise.

Newly proposed bipartisan legislation in Washington would offer Maine households an escape from high gas prices by expanding funding for public transit and encouraging insurance companies and mortgage providers to provide incentives for households that drive less.

Besides increased support for transit agencies and expanded transportation choices, the bill also would encourage a number of measures that would make in-town housing, close to jobs and services, more affordable for Maine families. For instance, “location efficient mortgages” would reward homebuyers who drive less with better loan terms that take their reduced transportation expenditures into account. Similarly, “pay as you drive” auto insurance would let insurance companies reward motorists who drive less (and are less likely to be in accidents as a result).

By providing transportation choices and rewarding in-town living, this bill would provide the financial and regulatory framework to help the American Dream survive and thrive in the 21st century. And unlike offshore drilling, which will take years to get underway, this proposal would provide immediate relief.

At this point, the bill still needs more cosponsors in Washington. We’ve set up an action alert where you can send an e-mail to Rep. Allen and Rep. Michaud to encourage them to add their names to the bill’s list of supporters. A sample letter is provided, but in order to make it as effective as possible, please edit it to include personal stories about how this bill might benefit your household or your hometown.

Mark your calendars for our August 27th Smart Growth For’Em (5:30-8 pm at SPACE Gallery in Portland). GrowSmart Maine is collaborating with some of our colleagues in the smart growth development community to host a public gathering and discussion on smart growth real estate development. This will be a chance for developers, architects, planners, historic preservationists, and other enthusiasts of Maine’s built environment to gather and learn about some of the exciting new projects that are currently happening all over the state.

Here’s the event description:

‘Smart Growth’ projects are reviving Maine’s historic downtowns with workspace and housing for Maine’s creative economy. GrowSmart Maine presents this social and informational For’Em for YOU to meet the architects, developers, and designers working to bring Maine’s “good bones” back to life.

Featuring:

• Paul Boghossian of Waterville’s Hathaway Creative Center
• Kevin Mattson of Mattson Development and the Saco Island project
• a smattering of creative projects from local designers

Doors open at 5:30pm, program begins at 6:00pm

www.growsmartmaine.org

www.hathawaycreativecenter.com

www.mattsondevelopment.com

Contact:
Jesse Baines, GrowSmart Maine events coordinator

Directions to SPACE Gallery

The lead editorial in today’s Portland Press Herald gives us a shout-out for our “Governing Maine in the 21st Century” project, a new report and grassroots effort to make Maine’s governments more effective and less bureaucratic in the face of persistent and worsening budget shortfalls - what the Press Herald calls a “permanent fiscal crisis” in the public sector.

“Adjusting to the new reality will require us to take a hard look at where we spend our resources and what we get for them,” the editors write. “The GrowSmart study, which is projected to be released next spring, could provide some insight into what we would gain and what we would give up. That will give us a place to start a conversation that has been needed for a long time.”

Visit our “Governing Maine in the 21st Century” project webpage to learn more about the proposed report and grassroots implementation plan. Fundraising for the report is ongoing, and we won’t be able to begin research for the report until we have pledges for at least half of the project’s budget. If you, your business, or anyone you know can contribute, please call project manager Rich Livingston at 847-9275 ext. 306.