While Bar Harbor weighs lodging reforms and a possible moratorium extension, Southwest Harbor works to update ordinances and streamline development review.
Jun 08, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Edward Jones Financial Advisor: Elise N. Frank.
SOUTHWEST HARBOR AND BAR HARBOR—Two Mount Desert Island Planning Boards are moving forward in different ways as they try to organize processes that could have future planning implications for their respective towns.
For Bar Harbor, the town’s Planning Board has been working on local land use ordinance (LUO) changes to be presented to voters—or not—that deal with the town’s lodging rules all while emergency and regular moratoriums have stopped all lodging construction and extensive remodels since November 2024.
Emergency moratoriums can be adopted at the same meeting as they are proposed. They stay in place for 60 days. Non-emergency moratoriums can be in place for 180 days.
Bar Harbor is not the only town in the Mount Desert Island region looking into its growth and how its land is being used.
In Southwest Harbor, the Planning Board and town staff are working to update the town’s own Land Use Ordinance to comply with state mandates, and also to revise a citizens’ initiative about soil standards that stemmed from concerns about a subdivision being built next to an uncontained land fill.
In a small meeting without a quorum, earlier last week, the Southwest Harbor Planning Board met with Matt Williams from the Musson Group.
Three members attended.
Southwest Harbor is currently lacking its own code enforcement officer. Tremont is sharing its CEO with the town.
The Southwest Harbor Select Board also tabled the appointment of a member during its last meeting when Planning Board Vice Chair Lee Worcester was up for reappointment.
Worcester had applied for reappointment. Former Select Board member Chapin McFarland had also applied for the five-year term. Another application had also come in the day of the Select Board meeting.
BAR HARBOR’S DRAFT OPTIONS ON UPCOMING JUNE 10 AGENDA.
In Bar Harbor, the staff of the planning and code enforcement office is larger than in Southwest, but the town—which is a major thoroughfare for Acadia National Park visitors—is dealing with multiple pressures on its aging infrastructure, lawsuits about cruise ship ordinances and its applications, and has been doing work with consultants on multiple projects including Safe Streets, a recently approved Comprehensive Plan, and a Sustainable Tourism Task Force.
Multiple tweaks to the Bar Harbor LUO face those voters Tuesday, June 9. Some of the more far-reaching tweaks include creating maximum guest capacity for some lodging types, which is question 6 on the ballot.
If that passes, future changes that the board is working on that deal with lodging would once again rename the lodging types and replace them with different numbers and systems such as Lodging-12A.
That would be part of the potential new graduated lodging scale the staff and Planning Board have been working on. It is still in draft stage.
For anything to move forward to the November ballot, the Bar Harbor Planning Board has to meet by June 10 and schedule a public hearing in July. Council review would then be later in the month and if it is moved forward it would be voted to do so in August.
“It is complicated. There’s a lot of work,” Planning Director Michele Gagnon said to Planning Board members last week about potential changes.
One of the work pressures is to try to create changes in time for either June or November elections, which is a pressure Southwest Harbor has also faced this year when trying to tweak its Soils Ordinance and other potential Land Use Ordinance changes needed to comply with more recent state statutes passed by the Maine State Legislature.
A question for Bar Harbor’s Planning Board and staff, Gagnon said, is what is attainable in the next four months?
She said a small slowdown of effort might be welcome for staff and the board, though they would still work at an accelerated rate from now through the beginning of October.
For Bar Harbor, the question is bigger than lodging, Gagnon said. It’s about the Comprehensive Plan, sustainable tourism, Safe Streets project, a parking and mobility study, and the reconciliation of all the town’s work with the Council goals. At least one new member will be elected to that Council, June 9.
“We’re highly committed to this and actually very excited,” Gagnon told the Planning Board.
The town also wants to do a build-out analysis of downtown. They want to make a positive change for the future, Gagnon said.
Wonderful work has been done, Bar Harbor resident Carol Chappell said during that meeting, about the potential changes, but there’s been little community interaction during this most recent round where workshops are not televised and often occur midday.
“You’ve worked long and hard and you have good stuff,” Chappell said.
She believes, however, there needs to be more time for citizen engagement before November.
Discussion at that meeting then moved to the lodging moratorium.
The current moratorium ends in the last week of July. To be extended, it has to be done prior to June 28.
“The council has to decide on this very quickly,” Chappell said. She suggested the planning board have a public hearing on June 10 on whatever aspects of changes might work.
That would put it into the process for the November election.
Chappell said a one six-month moratorium extension wouldn’t be long enough to get things done. The moratorium needs to continue for a year, she said, to get all the changes and good discussion and community involvement.
The Planning Board will meet again June 10 to decide what actions to take and recommendations to make.
The current Planning Board packet’s iteration of the proposed Graduated Lodging Scale changes include:
- Changing lodging terminology to new terms, which show the caps of guests.
- Language and changes about non-conforming lodging intensity that only permits changes in existing lodging if they do not increase guest capacity or guest units.
- Changes to parking requirements for lodgings.
- Design standard changes for certain areas.
The draft order about aligning Bar Harbor definitions with state housing law includes changing or adding the following definitions:
- area median income
- comprehensive plan
- designated growth area
- lot
- potable
SOUTHWEST HARBOR’S LAND USE WORK
In Southwest, in its own hour-long Planning Board meeting, the three attending board members agreed on a new annual schedule, agenda template, and a Site Plan Review checklist that Williams presented to add structure and transparency to the application process. However, because there was no quorum, the board couldn’t take actions.
Williams said he could also do a checklist for other subdivisions and shoreland requests as well.
Select Board liaison Natasha Johnson asked about last dates for revisions to projects. The only time it’s finalized is after the board’s final vote on the application, Williams said.
He also explained, when asked by a board member, that site visits had to be posted, according to state law.
“All site visits should be posted. Now, if you do a site visit individually, like, I wouldn’t tell you to do that. Like, I don’t think that’s a good idea for a board member, even individually, to go to a site,” Williams said.
The town is contracting with the Musson Group to update multiple aspects of its Land Use Ordinance. Some of the discussion this week focused on fire safety and when certain requirements are applicable.
Some updates are about the language; some are state-required; and some involve the clarification of the citizens’ initiative related to soil testing.
In May, the Select Board approved an ad hoc advisory committee consisting of one Select Board member, one Planning Board member, and five at-large members, all of whom are to be legal residents of Southwest Harbor.
APPLY TO JOIN THE SOUTHWEST HARBOR LAND USE ORDINANCE REVIEW COMMITTEE
The Town of Southwest Harbor is forming a Land Use Ordinance Review Committee and is looking for citizens who are ready to get engaged and support improvements to the town’s land use related ordinances. No prior experience with law or land use is required. Multiple knowledge bases are valuable for the committee.
Applications are due June 11 at 5:30 PM
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