Aug 30, 2025
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Swan Agency Real Estate.
BAR HARBOR—In the next-to-final step before heading to the voters in November, the town’s warrant committee weighed in on four different ways that the town’s land use ordinance might change this November if voters give the changes the go-ahead.
At a July 2 meeting, planning board members moved to recommend all the proposed amendments to the town council for a public hearing at the council level. The board also unanimously recommended that each amendment be passed if the council moves them forward, which it did.
On Monday night, August 25, the warrant committee’s general government subcommittee presented its recommendations to the full warrant committee. No members of the public attended in person or on Zoom, but the warrant committee meeting could be viewed live on cable and Town Hall Streams.
There will be one final public hearing on the amendments before the election. That will be during a town council meeting in October.
All the votes to recommend the changes were unanimous except for one vote concerning site plans and subdivision process and definitions, which had a lone dissent.
THE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS
DWELLING, TWO-FAMILY
Subcommittee Chair Carol Chappell said the warrant committee’s task is just to ask questions. It could not change any of the wording in the amendments.
The first amendment is meant to clarify that the definition of “two-family” does not include two detached single-family homes on the same lot.
Code Enforcement Officer Mike Gurtler said at an earlier planning board meeting that one and two family are quoted in the state’s building codes and the proposed changes in the town’s LUO would make it consistent with those state codes.
If they used the term “duplex,” they’d have to change the LUO every time “two family” is mentioned, Planning Director Michele Gagnon had said earlier to the planning board.
The subcommittee unanimously suggested the committee vote to recommend it to voters. The warrant committee unanimously agreed.
CAPACITY LETTERS
The subcommittee also unanimously recommended that the warrant committee recommend a proposed change regarding procedures about when capacity letters should be submitted in the planning process. The warrant committee again agreed.
A capacity letter is basically a form that is signed by a department head confirming that the project complies to the town’s standards for capacity.
“Most projects go through the planning board twice,” Gagnon said.
The first meeting is for completeness review. That’s to see if it is complete and has all documents.
The second meeting before the planning board is the compliance meeting. And that’s where the planning board determines if the project meets the performance standards, Gagnon explained to the warrant committee.
Currently, the planning board has to keep finding applications incomplete because department heads don’t always have design plans that are fully developed because of the way that the procedure currently plays out.
The change would make it so that the department heads can sign the capacity letter at the second meeting rather than the first. That would align it with ensuring that the project meets capacity standards, Gagnon said.
Department heads also have a separate technical review meeting about projects, Gagnon said during the conversation with warrant committee members.
SITE PLAN AND SUBDIVISION PLAN
The changes deal with land use ordinance definitions and procedures.
The intent is to clarify the four different types of plans that the town reviews, Gagnon said in a June planning board meeting. It also takes away a mandatory site visit requirement for subdivision plans.
“It’s going to allow the planning board and the planning director to decide whether a planning board site visit is necessary for both a major subdivision and a major site plan,” Gagnon said at an earlier meeting.
Currently a site visit is not an option for major site plans.
Warrant committee member John Kelly said that while he voted in subcommittee in favor of it he was concerned that the proposed change might “swing too far” and wanted to make sure it didn’t diminish the residents’ abilities to be aware of developments.
“I think it’s important to maintain in some cases and not all,” Kelly said about the changes that would make a sketch plan review elective.
“It’s important to note that the only place where sketch plans are currently required are a subdivision,” application, committee member and former planning board secretary Elissa Chesler said.
Chesler added that most of the subdivisions that come before the town’s planning board are small with one property owner dividing a lot in two or three.
“Rarely are they very large,” she said, referencing a lack of large parcels that can be turned into subdivisions within the town.
The issue centers on if the small property owner should have to go through a process that’s more onerous than bigger projects.
The planning board and department would still be able to ask for a sketch plan for larger projects, Chesler said.
Gagnon said it isn’t necessarily about an expedited or streamlining of the process, but if the process is equal and fair across the board.
This proposed amendment would “integrate regulations” from multiple articles and “reorder the sections to better align with the typical progression of an application from submission to approval,” according to town documents.
It would also make a more realistic timeframe for the overall approval of site plans, increasing the approval time from 15 days to 30 days. Currently, the planning board has less time to approve big projects than the code enforcement office does.
Committee member Vicky Smith asked if there was a more clear-cut way to define which projects are given a sketch plan review in relation to these questions. However, any attempt to do so could not be done in this current iteration since the language has already proceeded this far.
Committee member Barbara Dunphey said she was fighting a bit with herself over the amendment. She wasn’t sure how to judge the value of what needs a sketch plan or not. The extremes would likely be obvious (large projects and very small projects), but the in-between ones are less so.
Vicky Smith voted against the recommendation in the 13-1 full warrant vote.
SHORELAND ZONING
The final proposed amendment is about shoreland zoning. These are the rules for the land in Bar Harbor that is in this specific zone. The change would make the town’s rules in compliance with the state’s mandatory Shoreland Zoning Act. Many of the changes deal with additional language about vegetation and revegetation.
It also defines hazardous tree, storm-damaged tree, and outlet stream and clarifies language around RVs in that zone.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Site plan and subdivision review
- Decision of the First Circuit Court of Appeals
- More documents in this and other legal cases on the Cruise Ship Information page.”
Disclosure: Shaun Farrar is a member of the Bar Harbor Warrant Committee. He is my husband.
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