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BAR HARBOR—The Bar Harbor Planning Board Chair Millard Dority, August 6, expressed frustration that the board has not yet had a presentation about the town’s infrastructure capacity in relation to the ongoing lodging moratorium and worried that it’s delaying their ability to focus on ways to look for more housing opportunities for year-round residents.
“This is a very frustrating situation and we planned months and months and months ago, to plan to gather all the information necessary,” Dority said.
He said that the moratorium was a top priority for the town, but that they couldn’t get a meeting scheduled about that infrastructure capacity.
“It’s the last piece and we’re on a time table here. I think it just feels like we’re letting the community down,” Dority said. “We just have to have it.”
Dority categorized the presentation as the last piece that the board needs.
“It’s not you,” he told the planning staff. “It’s not on you.”
Staff Planner Hailey Bondy said the planning department is also working on going through building permit files as well as making headway about finalizing conversion work, and historical lodging work.
However, an important piece of the data is the town’s infrastructure capacity. The public works director is meant to present to the planning board about that, but that meeting hasn’t yet been arranged.
“We’ve done everything else. We’ve interviewed everyone else,” Dority said.
He later expressed frustration that the board can’t focus on housing because it’s still trying to finish the moratorium work.
“We’re trying to get the moratorium out of the way so we can concentrate on housing,” Dority said.
Bondy said that Housing and Community Planner Cali Martinez has some things related to housing for later in the year.
The town council has tasked the planning board with reporting to the council about how lodging may be straining the current town systems and if the approval process within the town’s land use ordinance is “inadequate to prevent serious public harm.” The moratorium began November 2024 and has been continued. The last continuance occurred on July 1 when it was modified.
There will be no construction and authorization and review of the lodging uses specified in the moratorium’s language. The July 1 extension followed two emergency moratoriums and the last regular moratorium, which means that any potential lodging development has been frozen since November 19, 2024.
During that time, the town’s planning staff and planning board have collected data and had meetings to look at, according to the moratorium itself, the “development and operation of certain transient accommodations, including impacts on health and safety, environmental quality, quality of life, adjacent property values, size, and the approval process, especially for accommodations approved without Planning Board review.”
Data collected includes the number of guest rooms and maximum guest capacity, conversions from residential use to lodging, mapping of lodging by district and neighborhood, mapping locations of short-term and long-term rentals, mapping areas serviced by public sewer and water.
Bondy said she’s hopeful that they will have the public works moratorium workshop this month.
Dority asked if they could just set a date, maybe that would make it happen.
Gagnon said she expected the public works department to have that meeting with the planning board soon and that it was the department’s busy season.
“We have made incredible progress organizing” the information from that department and meeting with its representatives, Gagnon said and that it’s a matter of finding a date that works for everyone, but that she’s confident that they will find a date soon.
Gagnon said, “A lot of work has been done and a lot has been accomplished. Now it’s just a matter of being able to get that to you.”
In the last five days, she said, their ability to work on coordination matters has been limited because of the cyber breach that shut down multiple systems and email in the town.
Dority said he wasn’t questioning that the planing department is trying to get that meeting scheduled.
“We’ve been talking about this way before this became a busy time for everyone. That’s the frustration. We’ve been asked to do our job and we can’t do our job until we collect all the information necessary,” Dority said. He hopes for an intelligent report with data to back up whatever the report illustrates. “It’s just really frustrating. And it just takes time away from housing.”
The planning board has met for moratorium workshops three times in February, March, and April. The work is categorized as “approximately 75 percent complete.”
Planning board members, Guy Dunphey, Kathy St. Germain, and Teresa Wagner were not at the meeting, which saw one member of the public, other than the press, attending.
Thomas Last attended to question aspects of an application to build seven 1± acre lots off Sand Point Road. The project involves a total of 7.5 acres and is inIreson Hill Residential and Ireson Hill Corridor. Last and others had concerns about the ledge on the property and seven wells and seven septic systems being built on the site.
In a July 29 letter, Julia Miller, an abutter wrote, “Not only will this development negatively impact my property and the neighboring properties, it will also harm wildlife, upset the existing ecosystem, and mar the tranquil nature of Sand Point Road specifically and Mount Desert Island generally. My family’s property lies atop the bedrock ledge described in the Haley Ward Hydrogeological Assessment Report. This ledge is continuous, extending beneath the properties on the bay side of Sand Point Road, below the road itself, and up Ireson Hill. This includes the proposed locations of Lots #6 and 7. The ledge provides drainage for water from Ireson Hill, directing runoff under Sand Point Road and onto our properties before emptying into Frenchman Bay. Just last year, a large construction project was required to repair the roadway and drainage system just a few hundred feet from our driveway. These repairs were necessitated by significant erosion caused by severe storms and large amounts of rainfall during the preceding winter. Climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of storms in the future.”
However, the board’s purpose on August 6 was not to decline or approve the project, but to determine whether or not it was complete or incomplete. It unanimously determined it was incomplete and moved it to a public hearing in September.
The project still needs capacity statements or letters from police, fire, public works, and Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife; and additional information about movement of water along the road; and details about a new road proposed at the back of the lots, and clarification about site distance on the site plan itself.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
- Data collection overview and roadmap (uploaded 02.18.2025)
- Updated Moratorium Timeline (uploaded 05.01.2025)
- Workshop #2 (March 27, 2025) Meeting recording (uploaded 04.09.2025)
- MDI Historical Society presentation starts at: 04:50
- Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce presentation starts at: 31:17
- Workshop #2: Staff Discussion Guidance Slides (uploaded 03.27.2025)
- Workshop #2: MDI Historical Society Presentation (uploaded 03.28.2025)
- Workshop #2: Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce Presentation (Trends in Tourism Economy) (uploaded 03.27.2025)
- Maine Office of Tourism 2023 Economic Impact & Visitor Tracking Report (uploaded 03.28.2025)
- Maine Office of Tourism Downeast & Acadia 2023 Economic Impact & Visitor Tracking Report (uploaded 03.28.2025)
- Workshop #3: Staff Discussion Slides (uploaded 05.01.2025)
- Public Safety: Calls for Service Graph from 2018-2024 (uploaded 05.01.2025)
Lodging Moratorium Extended as Bar Harbor Continues to Collect Data
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Jul 2
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