The Cape Elizabeth Town Council swore in newly elected members, appointed a new chair and sent town center and L.D. 2003 zoning amendments to the Ordinance Committee and Planning Board, respectively, at its meeting on Monday.

New officials

Jonathan Sahrbeck, Elizabeth Scifres and Andrew Swayze were sworn into the Town Council Monday evening.

Christopher Boniakowski, Peter Joy Engel and Lee Schroeder took the oath of office on Monday as well after winning seats on the school board in November.

Jordan appointed chair

Town Councilor Penny Jordan was appointed chair of the council on Monday evening.

“I’d like to express how much it means to me to be serving as chair of Cape Elizabeth Town Council,” Jordan said, adding that she is planning to work collaboratively and leverage the experienced minds of town staff and department heads.

Jordan served on the council from 2009 to 2011 and again from 2017 to the present. She is the co-owner of a fifth-generation farm in town, Jordan’s Farm.

“Many of you know that Cape Elizabeth has always been my home,” she said. “I’ve seen the town evolve from a farming and fishing community of the 1950s to the prized community for the many people who call Cape Elizabeth home.”

Town center amendments

The council received proposed zoning amendments for the town center from the Planning Board and forwarded them to the Ordinance Committee for review on Monday.

The changes would permit a 33-unit senior housing development in the town center that was proposed by developers in August. Developments that are 125 feet or more from a public road in the town center, like the one proposed, would have some restrictions loosened if the amendments pass.

The amendments would permit a maximum building height of 50 feet rather than 35 feet; a density of 1,500 square feet per unit rather than 3,000 square feet; and a building footprint of 12,000 square feet rather than 5,000 square feet for developments meeting the 125-foot setback requirement in the town center.

L.D. 2003 changes

The council forwarded supplemental amendments to the town’s L.D. 2003 state-mandated zoning ordinance to the Planning Board on Monday. The Legislature passed the law in 2022, which requires all municipalities to adjust zoning requirements to encourage the development of affordable housing.

Councilors passed zoning amendments last December proposed by then-Chair Tim Reiniger that were intended to implement the minimum amount of changes L.D. 2003 required.

A memo from Town Planner Maureen O’Meara states that those amendments “do not completely bring the Cape Elizabeth Zoning Ordinance into compliance with state law requirements” and that “Town Attorney Mary Costigan provided advice on deficiencies with the adopted amendments and all of these items should be addressed in the supplemental L.D. 2003 amendments.”

The Planning Board is scheduled to review them and send them back to the council for a workshop, public hearing and eventual vote. However, some councilors questioned why the Ordinance Committee was not scheduled to review the changes ahead of the council, similar to the town center zoning amendments.

“It just strikes me as very unusual that a set of ordinance changes wouldn’t go to the Ordinance Committee,” Councilor Stephanie Anderson said. “I just wonder why.”

Councilor Jonathan Sahrbeck, former chair of the Planning Board, noted Reiniger’s amendments were implemented without the Planning Board or Ordinance Committee reviewing them. He also said the council could decide to send the changes to the Ordinance Committee for review in the future.

“I’m fine with how it’s presented as is and if the council thinks we need to tweak this language, most likely going through the Ordinance Committee, we can do that at that time,” he said.

Some other councilors said it could be beneficial for the whole council to review the proposed amendments before sending it to the Ordinance Committee.

“We would workshop it, have a public hearing and determine (what to do) moving forward,” Jordan said.

The council ultimately voted 6-1 to send the amendments to the Planning Board with Councilor Tim Thompson, who also questioned why the Ordinance Committee wasn’t already scheduled to review them, opposed.