BATH
The Bath Planning Board will take an early look tonight at plans for a new CVS Pharmacy at the corner of Court and Floral streets.
The Planning Board meets at 6 p.m. at Town Hall tonight and will discuss the proposed project during a pre-application workshop for site plan approval and contract zoning. A pre-application workshop is an opportunity for the planning board and staff to give advice and direction to the developer before an official site plan application is submitted.
Vanasse Hangen Brustlin submitted the application in April on behalf of G.B. New England 2 LLC. According to the application, the new CVS Pharmacy would be located on a 1.8-acre site comprised of four parcels located at the corner of Court and Floral streets. They include 131 Court St., where a 1,657-square-foot seafood restaurant — Gilmore’s Seafood — is located, and is listed as a retail structure in the city assessing database. Vacant land with an asphalt parking area is located on the 127 Court St. parcel. The lots at 82 and 86 Floral St. contain a single family residential dwelling and a three-unit mixed residential and commercial building, respectively.
The applicant plans to demolish and remove the existing structures as part of this project and replace them with a new, approximately 13,225-square-foot CVS Pharmacy with a drive-through window, according to the application.
CVS Pharmacy currently has a story in the Bath Shopping Center near the new proposed site.
The proposed project would include site improvements such as controlled access, improved buffering and additional landscaping but to do so the applicant is seeking not only site plan approval but also a land use code map amendment and a contract zone change. The first would change three of the four parcels from the mixed commercial residential district to a Route One Commercial Contract District abutting the site; as well as the fourth parcel located in the high-density residential district.
Andrew Deci, Director of Planning and Development for Bath, writes in a memo about the pre-application workshop that the development project requires site plan approval and may also require a contract zone to allow for setback modifications.
The applicant also argues that the unique shape and size of the four combined lots will require flexibility such as with respect to yard area setbacks, and so contract rezoning “will enable the applicant to work with the city to create ‘a safer and more visually appealing gateway’ in the Route 1 corridor,” as well as providing for adequate buffering between the Route 1 corridor commercial uses and established residential neighborhoods.
The Planning Board will also consider a request by Bath Iron Works to grant an extension of the previously-approved ultra hall expansion project at the south end of the shipyard. Deci writes in the memo that the approved site plan loses validity May 27, six months after the City Council approved the contract zone for the project. The applicant is requesting to extend the approval period by six months to Nov. 27. Deci notes no ordinances or standards have changed since the initial project approval.
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