Reporting on City Manager Jon Jennings’ appearance at a recent Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce event (Page B1, Jan. 7), the Portland Press Herald paraphrased him as having “noted the importance of rezoning the land along the western waterfront to allow for a 70-foot cold storage facility to be built there … (a proposal that) has generated opposition from West End residents, who are concerned about losing their water views.”

Most of us West End residents are fine with construction of a cold-storage warehouse within the city’s International Marine Terminal. We understand its importance to Portland’s economy.

What we object to are the scale of the proposed warehouse and the likelihood that it will store significant product that neither arrives nor leaves by ship – in violation of zoning restrictions on Portland’s western waterfront to activities “dependent upon deep water and which contribute to port activity.”

A warehouse that serves the port’s cold-storage needs can easily be designed at 45 feet, which current zoning allows. Americold and the city’s Economic Development Department are proposing something quite different: a 3-acre, 70-foot warehouse storing both dry and frozen product, much of it never coming near a ship.

West Commercial Street and Interstate 295 connector truck traffic would increase exponentially, aggravating existing congestion and forcing commuters back onto peninsula streets.

Current zoning is intentionally consistent with the city’s long-standing practice of placing taller buildings on the peninsula’s spine, with heights dropping toward the waterfront. This preserves not only visual access to the water but also the character of the adjacent historic neighborhoods.

The huge warehouse as proposed would dominate the waterfront, blocking views of the water, the harbor, Casco Bay Bridge and the hills of South Portland to all. This is an issue of concern for all Portland-area residents, not just for a few homeowners who might lose personal views.

Jo Coyne

Portland


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