BIDDEFORD — On Wednesday, the Biddeford Planning Board unanimously motioned to send two positive recommendations regarding zoning amendments to the City Council.

The board unanimously approved the deletion of all performance standards related to hotels, motels and inns as they currently are in the city’s land development regulations. Those performance standards include design requirements related to lot, building and rental unit size, and proximity to other structures.

Another of the standards defined a hotel room with cooking or eating facilities as a dwelling unit, making the hotel required to meet all city standards for multi-family developments.

City Planner Greg Tansley said he and Daniel Stevenson, the city’s director of economic development, stumbled across the performance standards and felt that they were too strict to allow for hotel development in the city, including projects like the hotel planned as part of the mill district redevelopment.

“Myself and Mr. Stevenson had uncovered the standards that are in place for hotels, motels and inns that we in all likelihood weren’t even aware of,” Tansley said. “In reviewing them, it basically came to our attention that a standalone hotel couldn’t even occur with our standards.” 

Tansley mentioned that several of the hotels recently developed in Portland and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, could not exist in Biddeford under the standards, and that the city already has an extensive site plan review process that renders the performance standards unnecessary. 

“It occurred to me most of what we have out there are probably already nonconforming,” he said. “And so this is really not needed anyways, in our opinion.”

The board also moved to redefine a “dwelling unit” as a space, “designed for and used or held for use as a permanent residence by one family.” Members of the board said firming up the definition and deleting the hotel performance standard would make it clear that a hotel room is not a dwelling unit.

The Planning Board also unanimously approved a waiver provision to the land development regulations by which the board has the authority to waive a required 30-foot vegetative buffer between commercial and residential properties.

Commercial projects by ordinance are required to maintain a 30-foot vegetative buffer of coniferous or deciduous trees between residential properties to minimize adverse effects on the environmental or aesthetic qualities of abutting residences.

The topic has been a point of concern in the city in recent months. Recently, the issue has been brought up by residents in the area of Summit Street regarding plans to construct a multi-business development including a Starbucks at the corner of Alfred Street (Route 111) and U.S. Route 1. Those plans were recently approved.

Plans to construct an additional business along Alfred Street as part of the development were contentious between developers and residents because there wasn’t adequate space in which to put a vegetative buffer. 

On Wednesday, the board approved a provision to waive the requirement in cases where it can be demonstrated that the waiver is warranted or necessary due to existing conditions, such as space limitations, or where other measures can provide the same effect, such as the installation of stockade fences or noise barriers. 

“A one-size-fits-all standard in this case may not be the best way to go,” Tansley said. “This gives the latitude for the Planning Board to look at those different considerations, the context of the situation as well as what other abutting property owners say.”

Following public comment, the board added language to the waiver provision stating the board may not grant waivers for buildings within institutional zones that abut suburban and coastal residential zones and rural-farm zones. Those zones require a larger 50-foot buffer between the structure and the adjoining zone.

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or [email protected].