PORTLAND — Portland’s initiative to ease waterfront zoning restrictions drew disapproval in a state review, but that could change in a couple of days.

Even before the City Council adopted the changes last month, state regulators raised objections to the zoning that allows more nonmarine businesses on first floors of waterfront buildings. But with a new administration taking office this week, different people will be overseeing the state departments that will review the rules.

Additional Photos

New zoning was adopted last month for Portland’s central waterfront – the cluster of piers and wharves between the Maine State Pier and the International Marine Terminal. Essentially, it repeals a ban on nonmarine uses of the first floors of most waterfront and pier buildings. John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Gov.-elect Paul LePage’s appointees will oppose “arbitrary rules that limit opportunities for development,” said Dan Demeritt, spokesman for the LePage transition team. “A LePage administration would look for every opportunity to get through that red tape that’s slowing stuff down.”

Demeritt said LePage is expected to announce nominees next week for commissioners of the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Marine Resources, two key agencies that will consider the rezoning.

The City Council adopted the new zoning for Portland’s central waterfront – the cluster of piers and wharves between the Maine State Pier and the International Marine Terminal. Essentially, it repeals a ban on nonmarine uses of the first floors of most waterfront and pier buildings. It allows owners to rent as much as 45 percent of that ground-floor space to nonmarine uses after they have tried to rent it to businesses that need immediate access to the docks and berths.

Donna Gormley, director of education and outreach for the DEP, said the rezoning is subject to the department’s approval because it affects shoreland zoning, which is overseen by the state.

Portland must show “special local conditions” if it wants to make the zoning more lenient, Gormley said.

In a letter to the city written before last month’s vote by the council, the DEP’s assistant shoreland zoning coordinator, Mike Morse, said changes approved in 2006 “served as the limit of departure from the state’s minimum requirements” for shoreland zoning.

In 2006, the council loosened zoning rules to allow more nonmarine businesses on the waterfront, while maintaining the ban on those uses in first-floor spaces. Morse said the city hadn’t provided any information that “a further departure from the state’s minimum requirements is justified.”

The Department of Marine Resources also weighed in, telling the DEP in a letter that the easing of rules since 2006 hasn’t been given time to work, particularly given the fact that a recession hit soon after that zoning was adopted.

Deputy Commissioner David Etnier said his department is concerned that nonmarine and marine uses often conflict with each other, and the result could be less berthing space for commercial vessels.

Etnier also said that when nonmarine uses are allowed in waterfront space, that space almost never reverts to marine use. “It’s a one-way slide,” he said.

Etnier said that if city officials really believe that nonmarine use of parts of the first-floor space is needed, they could start with a figure lower than 45 percent, then increase that over time if it doesn’t prove effective.

“Have the last changes really been given a fair chance to work … and do we need to go right away to 45 percent?” he asked.

Penny Littell, Portland’s planning director, said the new rules and figures are the result of close collaboration among city officials, the fishing industry and waterfront property owners.

She noted that the city’s rules don’t allow nonmarine uses to displace marine uses, and said the relaxed rules will give property owners more revenue that’s needed to maintain wharfs and piers, where repairs are expensive.

“If there’s no investment in that infrastructure, nobody wins,” Littell said. “Fishermen need to have it maintained as much as anyone.”

Portland isn’t trying to transform its waterfront as much as keep it operating while the fishing industry struggles, she said.

“We don’t want a Faneuil Hall marketplace on our waterfront,” she said, “but there’s a recognition that something else needs to be allowed.”

Littell said she expects to have the city’s package of zoning changes and its arguments in support of them sent to Augusta in the next week or so.

Etnier said his last day on the job will be Wednesday. Gormley said her last day will be Friday.

Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at: emurphy@pressherald.com

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