Dec 11, 2024
BAR HARBOR—The Bar Harbor Harbor Committee Monday, December 9, unanimously voted to ask the Bar Harbor Comprehensive Planning Committee to strike “satellite parking” as a use for the town’s land on Route 3. The land currently hosts Bay Ferry’s CAT, which brings people to Nova Scotia and is the site of a potential marina. It also is an Island Explorer bus stop and has parking spots.
“I want to go on record about this,” Robert Garland, a committee member announced.
Satellite parking usually means a parking area that isn’t necessarily abutting the area it is serving, so a parking lot that is off-site.
While needs for parking and on-street congestion are often cited as issues in downtown Bar Harbor, the committee said Monday night that it wants the lot to be used as a potential marina, not as a place for satellite parking. Instead, it wants those spots to be used for people using the water.
During a Bar Town Council workshop, December 3, Councilor Earl Brechlin stressed that he didn’t want more parking spaces in Bar Harbor, worrying that more parking spaces would mean more people and their vehicles.
A HISTORY OF THE SITE AND MARINA PLAN
In October 2023, Dan Bannon, project manager for GEI Consultants, presented a draft proposed plan for that marina to the Bar Harbor Harbor Committee.
The site on Route 3 was built in 1956 for the Bluenose. In the early 1980s, it was adapted for the Bluenose 2 and the CAT ferry. Service stopped in 2009.
The town acquired the site from the Maine State Ferry Service in 2019. Multiple studies were undertaken about the use of the site. The CAT began ferrying passengers and vehicles again from Bar Harbor to Nova Scotia, Canada in 2022.
Earlier in the meeting, Jon Carter, a longtime member of the committee, mentioned that the town’s inner harbor has a limited amount of moorings because historically, there was a limited amount of parking at Ells’ Pier.
For many, the recommendation to approve the plan, back in December 2023, felt like a long-time coming in a process that involved a ferry advisory committee back in 2017. Harbor committee member Pancho Cole was on that committee and said after the vote, “Wow, this is an official step. Maybe something will happen when I’m still on this earth.”
“It will,” someone else murmured.
GEI’s conceptual plan for a marina has multiple potential phases for the site. Each phase can be separated into smaller phases.
MARINA AND COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
Committee Chair Micala Delepierre had distributed a summary of language in the town’s proposed comprehensive plan that refers to the ferry terminal and parking. The terminal is mentioned in a section labelled “A Diverse Economy,” and it says that the town should “continue to develop plans to improve the ferry terminal property and identify funding for implementation.”
It’s also mentioned in a section about transportation, where it reads, “continue to pursue the use of the ferry terminal as a transit hub, satellite parking location and pedestrian connection.”
Delepierre also asked the group if members considered the site a transportation hub and if they viewed satellite parking as an appropriate use.
“Using the ferry terminal for satellite parking is the poorest use for that property,” Garland said. Pancho Cole, another member, quickly agreed.
At a Bar Harbor Town Council workshop last week, Councilor Earl Brechlin and others discussed parking. Brechlin worried that more parking meant more congestion. The topic came up because congestion on the streets downtown has been discussed in relation to the current emergency moratorium on many types of lodging and previously. There are 806 public parking spaces in the town. Some have said that there needs to be more to accommodate visitors in personal vehicles. Others have said that in-town short-term rentals have decreased that need.
During their Monday meeting, harbor committee members also discussed the phrase “transit hub,” which is also mentioned in the proposed comprehensive plan. They wondered if the site already met the requirements of that language because of the ferry and the Island Explorer.
“I think transit hub can be defined many different ways,” Harbormaster Chris Wharff said.
Some committee members were more worried about the ferry parking being considered an overflow parking spot and that becoming ingrained in the town’s thinking.
“I don’t want it to become parking and a bus stop,” Cole said.
What the members wanted, they agreed, was for it to be a marina and parking to be used for the marina. There is currently little mention of the marina in the proposed comprehensive plan.
There is, however, outside of that vision for Bar Harbor’s future, a draft plan for a marina on the Route 3 site. Town staff are currently looking at grants to fund that plan.
Wharff suggested reaching out to Bar Harbor Planning Director Michele Gagnon to ask what to do. The committee voted to recommend to the Comprehensive Plan Committee to strike “satellite parking location” from the recommended use of the ferry terminal property.
On Tuesday, Gagnon said that the broad question is whether “parking to serve a marina at the Ferry Terminal instead of standalone parking (would) be in conflict with the BH 2035 Comp Plan.”
According to Gagnon, the land use ordinance (LUO) “allows and would continue to allow parking when it serves a primary use. If there is a marina, then parking would be allowed. Parking as a standalone use is different as it is not allowed in all districts but in this case could be allowed as the comprehensive plan speaks to that.”
Another large question is the nexus between the comprehensive plan and the LUO.
“The legal requirement is that our LUO must align with the general recommendation outlines in the comprehensive plan namely, in this case, as it deals with the Future Land Use maps,” Gagnon said. “This means the LUO and proposed development must be consistent, or not be inconsistent, with the broader community vision expressed in the comprehensive plan. In summary, standalone parking at the ferry terminal is consistent with the comprehensive plan and parking to serve a marine is definitely not inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. The ‘not inconsistent with the comprehensive plan’ view is that we have to recognize that a plan is (a) big picture plan and not every single issue will be specifically addressed.”
The Bar Harbor Comprehensive Plan is over 100 pages long and years in the making. When the data and the other reports are included, the page count tops over 700 pages.
It’s been state approved, found consistent with the state’s growth-management law, tested and formed in public interaction and engagement and surveys and listening sessions. The state required no changes.
“There was nothing to be changed and that is a very rare occurrence,” Gagnon said earlier this month.
Now, town staff hopes that the town’s proposed comprehensive plan will be approved by voters in June 2025. Comprehensive plans are meant to guide an area’s plan for the future. This plan is intended to look toward 2035.
Comments on the proposed plan are due Tuesday, December 31 at 5 p.m.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Bar Harbor 2035 Comprehensive Plan (September 2024) – not including appendices
Implementation Plan (September 2024)
State statute and rules about comprehensive plans
Draft Master Plan for Marina Unveiled
The Broad Vision for Bar Harbor’s Future
Bar Harbor Story is a mostly self-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for being here with us and caring about our community, too!
Thanks for reading Bar Harbor Story ! This post is public so feel free to share it.
If you’d like to donate to help support us, you can, but no pressure! Just click here (about how you can give) or here (a direct link), which is the same as the button below.
If you’d like to sponsor the Bar Harbor Story, you can! Learn more here.
Discover more from Bar Harbor Story
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.