Needing more “field-level” details to make its decision, the Planning Board decided Monday to table Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority’s request to subdivide nearly 400 acres of the former Brunswick Naval Air Station.
Board members hope to reconsider the item again during their Jan. 29 meeting, Town Planner Jeremy Doxsee said.
MRRA intends to divide what is currently a single tract of 399 acres — inherited from the U.S. Navy when the base was decommissioned in 2011 — into 43 separate lots that eventually would be marketed to commercial tenants.
The tract includes most of the land east of the runway and Brunswick Executive Airport, between Bath Road to the north and Neptune Drive to the south, running east to a fence line that extends due south from Anchor Drive.
Lot sizes would range from less than one acre to more than 65 acres, “to allow for a potential broad range of redevelopment opportunities,” according to a project description by engineering firm Wright-Pierce.
The Navy didn’t have to worry about local municipal zoning or code requirements. But for MRRA — and ultimately the town — to attract development, the land has to meet municipal standards.
The application contains “reconnaisance-level analysis of vernal pools, wetlands and Resource Protection zones,” Doxsee said. “But the board needs more field-level verification done, to better map the extent of the environmental constraints on site.”
To quicken the process, MRRA likely will separate the application into lots that are raw land from those with already developed — whether with a building, concrete slab or pavement — before it resubmits the request.
“They’ll probably come back and look for approval on lots that have been developed to some extent already, and return later with a plan for other, undeveloped lots that may have constraints on them,” Doxsee added. “That way, at least they can get approval for lots that are ready for redevelopment and start the process of selling or leasing them.”
Either way, approval is only the first step.
“This is just putting lines on paper,” Doxsee said. “If there’s a change to the intensity of the use of those lots, most — if not all — of them will have to come back to the town for further … review.”
jtleonard@timesrecord.com
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