 |
|
|
|
Please pass on your
comments or suggestions about this
inaugural e-newsletter to Marian
Alexandre
Famous Pop Singer Lady Gaga helped
Julia with tough GIS questions on
Halloween.
Julia is starstruck!
Crows attack SMRPC staff!
Marian pulls extra duty scaring away menacing
birds.
SMRPC staff celebrating the end of fiscal
year 2009 and the start of the fiscal year 2010.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SMRPC and PREP
Collaboration
The Piscatuqua Region Estuaries
Partnership (PREP) is one of only 28 programs across
the country with the “estuaries of national
significance” distinction. The PREP
region covers 42 New Hampshire
and 10 Maine communities,
and includes the watershed areas for the
Salmon Falls
River ,
Great Works
River ,
Piscataqua
River , and
Spruce Creek, and significant land areas in ten
Southern Maine communities:
Acton , Berwick, Eliot,
Kittery , Lebanon
, North Berwick
, Sanford ,
South Berwick , Wells, and
York .
 SMRPC staff recently
attended PREP's State of the Estuaries Conference
in Somersworth ,
NH
. The conference highlighted the
results of the 2009
State of the Estuaries Report, which revealed that
the environmental quality of the Piscataqua Region
estuaries is declining primarily due to population
growth, and the associated increases in nutrient loads
and non-point source pollution.
SMRPC is involved involved in several ongoing
PREP projects:
- PREP Region
Conservation Plan
- PREP Region
Management Plan Update
- Growth potential in
shoreland zones within Maine
- Eliot Conservation
Plan
Sea Level is Rising and We Must
Adapt Sea level is rising, and
coastal municipalities must adapt. SMRPC has
been tasked to get this message out in many ways and in
many places. Thanks to funding from the Maine
State Planning Office and the Maine Coastal Program, a
variety of efforts are underway:
- A regional challenge grant has been awarded to the
Saco Bay municipalities of Scarborough, Saco, and
Biddeford, to establish a Sea Level Adaptation Working
Group to work on regional capital planning and
coordination of floodplain management and building
codes.
- In a continuation of the Coastal Hazard Resiliency
Tools Project, SMRPC will be helping to create model
floodplain regulation and shoreland zoning texts for
the towns of Kennebunk and York. These
towns will receive detailed GIS analysis of predicted
future inundation, based on two feet of sea level
rise, projected to the year 2100.
Click here
to see a presentation SMRPC gave at the Maine Coastal
Waters Conference in Northport and at a Statewide
Consortium on Climate Change at Bowdoin College.
Contact JT Lockman for
further information. Energy Efficiency and
Conservation Block
Grant
Most communities are now aware of the Energy
Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program
being run through Efficiency Maine with federal stimulus
funding. The program provides funding for communities to
develop local energy plans, energy audits and project
funding for energy efficiency projects on the local
level.
All communities (with the exception of
those who received direct funding from the Dept. of
Energy) are eligible. In fact through the “template”
grant portion of this program it appears as if all towns
who apply can expect some funding.
SMRPC is currently working with six
communities in southern York County to set up a
revolving loan fund to provide low interest loans for
residential and small business energy efficiency
projects. We hope to get funded for this regional
effort through these grant funds.
Changes to Local Road
Inventory
Reporting
Changes have recently been instituted by state
agencies to simplify the process of updating road names,
locations, lengths, jurisdictions, etc. The changes
eliminate the inefficient practice of different town
officials reporting road changes to both Maine DOT and
E-911.
Previously, the town Addressing Officer would
report new road names and addresses to E-911 as soon as
they were granted/approved, while the town public works
department was required to submit a complete road
inventory to MDOT every four years. Often the road maps
coming out of each state agency did not match.
Addressing Officers will now be the sole conduit to
report road changes to the Maine Office of GIS (MEGIS).
Towns will now report ALL road changes (public &
private 9-1-1 roads) directly to MEGIS, and will no
longer send changes to MDOT. A one page MSAG
Update Form will be used for all road changes.
MDOT will now automatically get the public road
information needed to calculate URIP payments from MEGIS
as changes happen, ensuring more accurate payment
amounts.
Memorial Bridge to Reopen by
Thanksgiving
Memorial Bridge, connecting Portsmouth and Kittery,
will reopen in time for Thanksgiving according to state
transportation officials. Its long term fate however
will hopefully be determined once the Maine/NH
Connections Study (a bi-state feasibility study
designed to identify long term transportation needs
affecting the three bridges that connect Portsmouth and
Kittery) is completed in mid 2010. HNTB (the study
consultants) in cooperation with the two transportation
departments are in full swing collecting and analyzing
traffic, land use, economic, historic and environmental
data.
 Multiple public meetings
have been held in Portsmouth and Kittery ensuring the
public is kept up to date with study findings. And, an
$80 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating
Economic Recovery) grant application to rehabilitate the
Memorial Bridge was submitted back in September. The
state won’t know if it was successful in its application
for funds until January 2010. CDBG 2010 Grant
Deadlines
The Maine Department of Economic and Community
Development, Office of Community Development’s 2010
Community Development Block Grant program will begin
accepting letter of intent and applications for various
programs in December, 2009.
Copies of the Final Statement and applications will
be available from Southern Maine Regional Planning
Commission or from the Office of Community
Development. Assistance in the explanation of the
programs and to provide information on the development
of applications is available from SMRPC at no cost to
the municipalities.
These services are financed through a contract with
the Department of Economic and Community Development
made possible as a result of your annual dues
payment. We are able to meet with you to explain
the types of activities eligible under the various grant
programs, match the grant programs to the community and
economic development needs of your community, or provide
information on the development of an application.
Information on the
various CDBG programs, including application deadlines,
funding amounts, program descriptions and the Final
Statement is available at the Office
of Community Development .
SMRPC Traffic Count
Program
 SMRPC has a traffic count
program that can help your community monitor traffic
volumes, identify heavy truck traffic and analyze travel
speeds. Each summer staff put on their wonderful
(100% polyester) orange vests and set out to count
traffic at five locations with in the KACTS MPO -
Kittery Rte 1 and 236, South Berwick Rte 236, North
Berwick Rte 9 and Lebanon Rte 202. They also, upon
request from the communities, set up counters through
out the SMRPC region to assist with transportation
planning studies.
 This summer was no
exception. We counted traffic in Fryeburg during the
Fryeburg Fair, York Village, and in the communities of
Biddeford, Old Orchard Beach, and Saco. Contact Julia Dawson for more
information.
2010 Planning & Land Use Law
Books
|
|
To
update/change your account click here 
