Town of Mt. Desert, Maine - Comprehensive Plan For The Town Of Mount Desert, Maine

This Comprehensive Plan, prepared by the Comprehensive Plan Committee of the Town of Mount Desert in compliance with 30-A M.R.S.A. section 4502 et seq., shall serve as a guide to the general development and land use of the Town as defined and described in section 4502(1) of the Act.

The Plan consists of a compilation of policy statements, goals, standards, maps, and pertinent data concerning the past, present, and future trends of the Town with respect to its population, housing, economics, social patterns, land use, water resources and their use, transportation facilities, and public facilities.

The Plan shall also serve as a guide toward maintenance and improvement of the safety, health, welfare, comfort, and convenience of an economically sound and stable community of year-round residents and their seasonal neighbors.

The policy statements adopted to make this Plan effective shall respect and maintain the character of the Town, protecting its environment, preserving its cultural and aesthetic aspects, and providing excellent education for its children.

The Town of Mount Desert is unique in its natural setting and in the character of its several distinct communities. The Town includes a considerable portion of Acadia National Park as well as many miles of beautiful shoreline and protected harbors. Summer residences of the wealthy and influential are in close proximity to the homes of the local population, and year-round and summer residents mingle without many of the restraints found elsewhere. Clearly, natural beauty, a clean environment, and the character of the inhabitants are the most valuable resources of the Town of Mount Desert. These make the Town not only a pleasant place to dwell and work but also form the basis of its economy.

Recreation in its broadest sense is the principal source of income, derived primarily from owners and occupants of seasonal homes. The major portion of the Town’s property tax revenue derives from seasonal homes and the business properties, which supply and serve them. Most of the money coming into Mount Desert is from the occupants of these homes, in payment for the services they require. Transient visitors make a comparatively small contribution to the economy of the Town, though their increasing numbers are creating many of Mount Desert Island’s

problems. Moreover, income from tourism fluctuates with general economic conditions, weather, and other factors beyond the Town’s control. Remote from sources of most raw materials and far from large markets, the Town of Mount Desert does not have the type of resources that attract an industrial economy. The Town of Mount Desert recognizes also that industrial and tourist economies can erode and jeopardize the natural environment, culture, and lifestyle that sustains and perpetuates the Town’s character and values.

Accordingly, each proposal for development or other change within the Town must be judged in relation to its effect on the preservation of natural beauty, a clean environment, and community characteristics. In particular, the development of services wholly or primarily for the transient trade must be carefully guided and controlled. Their character, appearance, and numbers must not mar or destroy the resources that attract seasonal residents, and which make the Town of Mount Desert a cherished community in which to live.

A. The Landscape of the Town: The Town of Mount Desert, 50 square miles or 32,000 acres in size, extends entirely across Mount Desert Island from Otter Cove on the east to and including 2,165-acre Bartlett Island in Western Bay. The town’s rocky coastline includes more than a third of the south of Mount Desert Island and nearly all of Somes Sound, as well as the shores of the Pretty Marsh Peninsula on Bartlett Narrows and Bartlett Island beyond. All or part of 11 freshwater ponds lie within the town, including all of Echo Lake and Jordan Pond, and nearly two thirds of the island’s largest freshwater body, Long Pond. Others are So3ues, Round, Little Round, Little Echo, Upper and Lower Hadlock, Little Long Pond, and half of Hodgdon Pond. The Town, like the island as a whole, lacks rivers, but several streams water the land: Hadlock, Hunters, Jordan, Kitteredge, Little Harbor, Richardson, Ripple-Somes, and Sargent.

Also within the Town are 17 of the loftiest summits of the rugged island, including its second-highest peak, Sargent Mountain (1,373 feet above sea level). Many of the summits are bare granite, rounded by glacial action. The glaciers also carved out a number of steep cliff areas, such as Jordan and Canada Cliffs, and the sea cliffs at Hunter’s Beach.

Once heavily farmed, the town’s landscape is now mostly wooded with spruce and fir, pine, hemlock, oak, maple, birch, beech, ash, and aspen. A few remnant fields remain, however, notably the rich agricultural area of Beech Hill, and also some remaining open lands near Oak Hill, in Somesville and Pretty Marsh, and around Seal Harbor and Otter Creek. The Town has extensive wetlands, particularly north of Somes Pond, west of Long Pond, and in the Pretty Marsh region.

B. The Cultural Communities: The Town of Mount Desert has five villages and three other distinguishable communities. Somesville, founded in 1769 at the head of Somes Sound, is the oldest settlement on the island, a much-admired traditional Maine village of white clapboard homes and steepled meeting house. It is an historic district on the National Registrar of Historic Places. North of the historic village is a small commercial district including a post office, bank, convenience store-garage and office space.

Northeast Harbor, the Town’s largest community and the seat of Town government, is gathered on the west side of one of Maine’s busiest yacht harbors. Its one-street business district is surrounded by year-round and seasonal residences, some of them of exceptional size and architectural quality.

Farther east, two communities, Otter Creek and Seal Harbor, are largely residential centers clustered along Route 3. Most Otter Creek people are year-round residents, but near the village is Blackwoods Campground, Acadia National Park’s principal camping facility. Seal Harbor has many large and handsome summer homes on the hillside above the harbor and village center, as well as along the coast between Seal and Northeast Harbors.

As its name implies, Hall Quarry on the west side of Somes Sound, was founded as a granite-quarrying center. Now, with the exception of a boatyard and some campgrounds, it is largely a residential community commanding wide views of the Sound. Pretty Marsh, occupying a scenic, cove-notched peninsula on the western coast of the Town, comprises both year-round and seasonal homes. Though semi-rural in appearance and without a village center, it is generally regarded as a distinct Town community. So are The Sound, Oak Hill, and Beech Hill, residential areas to the east, west and south of Somesville.

Elsewhere in the Town except for the national parkland, year-round and seasonal homes are scattered throughout the landscape with a few business enterprises. Many of the homes are hidden in woods, and, as a result, substantial parts of the town still retain a rural-woodland aspect. Some large tracts remain undivided.

The population of the Town of Mount Desert comprises approximately 2,200 permanent residents, but an annual influx of seasonal residents quadruples that number in summer to nearly 9,000. Despite this annual ebb and flow, the Town’s population appears to be much more stable than is the usual case elsewhere in that many of both the permanent and seasonal families have been residing in or coming to the Town for a long time.

A. To adopt zoning, subdivision, land use, and such other ordinances as will, in the best interests of the Town, reasonably preserve the characteristics of the land and communities within the Town boundaries.

D. To encourage land use programs which will permit orderly -growth without overburdening municipal services, and which will provide, where appropriate, for public access to shore and other areas having scenic recreational attributes.

F. To permit, where appropriate, uses of the land, which will accommodate small businesses without adversely affecting the surrounding land area. To encourage the development of commercial interests in parts of the Town where facilities and services are accessible, having due regard for the natural resources, beauty, and cultural character of the community.

VI. Transportation: The character of every town is strongly influenced by the character of its roads. Most residents and visitors travel by motorcar, but the Town should resist in every possible way attempts to accommodate increasing numbers of motor vehicles primarily by widening and straightening roads and by expanding parking. The Town of Mount Desert is on an island, not a thruway, and there is no need for high-speed roads. On the contrary, roads should adapt to the Town’s natural beauty and be, in all practical ways, as unobtrusive as possible. Any road construction, maintenance, and redesign, as well as placement of signs, shall be done only to promote safety, not to increase capacity, and to fulfill the needs of local communities, not tourist or other demand. Roadways, traffic, noise, lighting, and parking must be controlled in ways which preserve the village, neighborhood, and scenic rural character of the Town.

The Town also should support other forms of transportation, encouraging the provision of greenways and other byways for bicyclists and pedestrians that can link communities quietly, and pleasantly together without total reliance on motor roads.

The Town of Mount Desert is a municipal corporation providing services. If the Town did not provide services it would need no assets and no financial plan. With the ownership of assets comes the responsibility, to care for and replace them. The Capital Budget Plan will examine services offered and how they should be provided.

Create and maintain specific Capital Reserve accounts, to accumulate funds over several years, sufficient to replace major assets on a periodic, as needed, basis. Accomplishment of this objective will allow less reliance on borrowing for short-term needs or to balance annual budgets.

The town maintains assets, not including land of about $24,000,000.* Over four million of this total is buildings and another ten million is roads, bridges and dams. The town owns unused land worth about $8,000,000 and land committed to municipal uses such as recreation, parking, sewer treatment, public works, etc. worth approximately $15,000,000. A complete list of assets is contained in the Capital Budget Plan.

The Town should maintain a general surplus fund of $500,000 (20% to 25% of the annual -operating budget) for -several years. This fund is to cushion cash flow problems and to meet temporary cash flow needs in the event of catastrophic loss of significant tax base. Interest earnings on this money help fund annual operational expenses. In addition to the surplus fund the Town maintains reserve funds to be used for specific capital improvement or capital equipment replacement. Annual capital needs under $500 or under five years useful life should be funded in the annual operating budget.

The evidence of deferred maintenance in several major assets including, roads, bridges, storm and sanitary sewers indicates that current taxes are insufficient to meet the physical asset needs of the town. Some alternative funding may be required. Alternative funding is discussed in. the Business Management Plan.

In years when capital improvement needs exceed property tax capacity, short term borrowing has been considered with repayment over a three to five year period. This practice has the effect of raising future taxes while helping to hold the mill rate down in the current budget year. Short-term borrowing should therefore be used only for unusually high capital requirements of a given year and not as standard practice. If capital needs are consistently greater than annual funding levels, the annual budget commitment to capital should be increased to more accurately reflect the cost of maintaining town assets.

Existing town assets should be periodically reviewed to identify unneeded or underutilized assets. Equipment replacement or capital needs of over $500 with a useful life between five and fifteen years should be anticipated ahead of the actual need and funded with reserves set aside for that purpose. In this way, the taxpayer is replenishing the asset value at approximately the same rate, as it is depreciating. Capital needs for items with useful lives of over fifteen years should be funded with borrowing. In this way, the taxpayer enjoying the use of these long-term assets in future years will be paying for them as they are used up.

The Town of Mount Desert enjoys a high level of government services. In addition to primary services such as fire and police protection many other less important services, such as refuse pickup, sewer service, septic pumping, building inspection, document copies, parking and recreational facilities are provided, also without user fees.

Better management of services, will allow additional control over future tax requirements. Better advance planning will allow funds to be used more efficiently and with less fluctuation in the annual tax rate.

In order to more accurately identify the true cost of any given service, a change in budget reporting format should be made to allow prorating of employee benefits, town wide insurance and administrative costs. Any new service to be offered must include an analysis of initial capital cost and continuing annual expense before being considered.

Interest earned on surplus and reserve funds has traditionally been used in the annual budget to offset annual operating expenses. Interest earned on the reserve funds should remain in the reserve fund, in an undesignated reserve (not specifically earmarked for a fire truck, etc). Interest earned could then be applied to various projects as needed to help the reserve fund keep pace with inflation or, be transferred to the annual budget to reduce taxes, as conditions may warrant.

A Capital Budget Plan should be updated periodically. This plan will contain a listing of all town assets necessary to provide services as reviewed and approved above. The plan will include a timetable for replacements anticipated over the subsequent five year period for all existing assets and will make a projection of costs, in current dollars, for replacements or renovation.

Each year’s capital budget requests will be reviewed in light of the Capital Budget Plan and all other capital needs for that year. Public health and safety, as well as maintenance of the existing assets and programs should normally have priority. New programs or services should only be considered after existing programs are fully funded or to replace a service which will be discontinued.

As with any Business Management Plan, economic conditions, current debt level and current needs will temper the capital budget for each tax year. Short-term borrowing may be necessary in extreme cases to keep the tax rate from fluctuating when capital needs are great and postponement of the replacement or repair is not deemed prudent.

A balanced economy is essential for the well being of the Town. Although seasonal residents have historically been the base of the community’s economy, locally owned year-round small businesses should be encouraged. A viable year-round economy must also include types of businesses other than those related to seasonal residence, preferably those which provide year-round jobs for the local population.

In order to preserve its vitality as an active and energetic community, the Town will pursue an aggressive course of action designed to increase the number of year-round working residents. This policy is paramount and will prevail over any interest in developing seasonal housing or accommodations for tourists.

Recognizing that seasonal occupancy will continue to be a substantial base of its economy for the foreseeable future, the Town nevertheless adopts as fundamental the principle that its best interest will be served by fostering year-round residents.

It is the policy and intention of the Town of Mount Desert: To preserve and protect its natural beauty, clean waters and water supplies, wildlife habitat, open spaces, farmland, shores, hills, cliffs, and unique natural areas. To preserve and protect marine resources: the harbors, shellfish areas, shorelines and public access to them. To provide educational opportunities of high quality. To preserve and protect public cultural and recreational resources as well as private ones that contribute to and enhance the amenities and character of the Town. This effort shall include preservation of those parts of the villages which contribute to the Town’s character: the churches, schools, libraries, museums, monuments, neighborhood programs, small shops and stores, and other unique features. To seek solutions to problems caused by waste, protecting resources of the Town and other parts of the State by encouraging waste reduction and recycling, and energy conservation. Also, to prevent or control light and noise pollution in the Town.

The Town of Mount Desert recognizes that it does not exist alone and independent of neighbors and neighboring influences. The life of adjoining towns and the existence of Acadia National Park with its millions of visitors present both opportunities and problems that only cooperation can realize or solve. This plan shall encourage and count upon the cooperation of all governmental units, working together to address matters of mutual interest, benefit, or concern.

The Town Planning Board shall maintain a map showing the various resources in the Town and the districts specified in the Land Use Ordinance. This map shall be kept on file in the Town Office, available for public inspection during normal working hours.

The implementation of this Plan has been entrusted to the Selectmen, Town Planning Board, and Appeals Board. The Plan shall be reviewed by the Town Planning Board periodically, but at least every five years, or upon call from the citizens to do so. It shall be revised when, in the opinion of the Board of Selectmen and the citizens of the Town, change is desirable.