RESIDENTS OF SCARBOROUGH, MAINE - Creation of a Comprehensive Plan is a State of Maine requirement and is viewed by our town management as the long-term blueprint for responsible change. An outside group has been contracted and allocated in excess of $150,000 to develop this plan for our town. During September of 2018, Neighborhood Meetings and website comments will be the method of gathering feedback (www.scarboroughengaged.org). Please be aware of some of SMARTaxes' major concerns about the present document including - 1) a complete lack of focus on cost or affordability for initiatives, 2) a desire to narrow and slow Route 1, 3) limited if any mention of beach access or commercial marine business, 4) a desire to make our community walkable in spite of significant distances and winter temperature extremes, and 5) less than 1% of the residents contributing to the current plan. Following are links to the current draft and the earlier 2006 Comprehensive Plan. Warning - the linked documents are long and time consuming to review. Compliments of Susan Hamill, SMARTaxes is proud to provide a summary of serious concerns with the existing draft.
2018 Scarborough Comprehensive Plan Draft Review
Section 1: Key Areas of Concern
Section 2: Detailed Analysis
Some General Observations
Details
P.12 How to Use the Plan Statements like “The Guiding Principles in this Plan reflect the ideas of an entire community and include many differing points of view” falsely assumes that this is a document supported by a majority of the town population when less than 1% of the population had any input. This is not a valid participation rate for drawing any conclusions.
P.30 Guiding Principles The plan states that these principles, “Embody the core philosophy and common vision expressed by the community”. Again, these nine items were expressed only by a small group of participants. These principles are like motherhood and apple pie, hard to disagree with, but not grounded in specific actions and measurable goals. How do they contribute to the plan?
P.33 The State of Affairs It is unclear whether this section is background data—a town inventory--or “insights” as stated in the description.
P.34 Demographics The demographic data needs to include more emphasis on the number of residents without school aged children and the number of residents who expect their Scarborough tenure to be 5 years or less—who are “passing through”.
P.37 Age Dynamics This section does not include any information on how town demographics will soon change as so many new housing units come online and the population makeup of the town will change dramatically.
P. 39 Income It would be helpful to provide a chart or graphic that shows the breakdown of household income to make readers aware of the distribution of household incomes from low income to very affluent. Almost a third of households have income of $50,000 or less. Many households are under significant financial pressure. For many of these households, the property tax bill is one of their three largest annual expenses, if not the largest. This is an important consideration for future tax policy.
P. 40 Housing Tenure There should be more information on the seasonal housing stock which is very important to Pine Point and Higgins Beach, as well as camping in Scarborough; the 2 largest campgrounds contain over 800 campsites and operate for almost 6 months of the year bringing over 3,000 “part-time residents” to Scarborough. There should be some way to also include information on how Scarborough is affected by the huge influx of summer residents, including over 10,000 people staying at campgrounds in Old Orchard, and who are on the trolley route passing through Scarborough and come to Scarborough beaches, restaurants, and other attractions.
P. 43 Job Growth There is no mention of tourism or marine-related industries and the seasonality of many jobs related to these industries. The photo on P. 45 needs updating to reflect the current state of business with Ready Seafood—a large new business processing seafood--replacing Nestling Duck.
P. 47 Retail Sales There is no need to include information on local option sales taxes—this is not a town issue.
P. 53 Village Character Connecting Dunstan and Oak Hill by redeveloping this corridor ignores the fact that the road is built on the marsh, and is affected by tides; any growth beyond the border of the road would be prohibited, and flooding will become more of an issue in the future. Suggesting that the 3 miles separating Dunstan and Oak Hill might be walkable or bikeable ignores the reality of the distance, the weather, town demographics. It might make sense for the team who wrote the plan to try walking the route themselves, especially in the winter. Narrowing Rt. 1 and trying to redevelop the corridor between Oak Hill and Dunstan cannot be a realistic goal.
P. 54 Scarborough’s Neighborhoods Farmland preservation/encouragement is not addressed. How many operating farms do we have left? Is it important to preserve them into the future? If so, do we have, or should we have policies in place to encourage their preservation (as opposed to becoming the sites for more housing)? Have affected parties been contacted and asked for input?
P. 58 Supporting Infrastructure Transportation, travel patterns, commuting, connectivity and walkability—all related and important. Until new options become more feasible, getting people out of their cars simply is not realistic with the distances between destinations in Scarborough. No one will ever walk or bike to Hannaford from Dunstan or Pine Point or Higgins Beach and then carry home their groceries. School children will not be walking from North Scarborough, the beaches, or Dunstan to the school campus at Oak Hill. We will always have large numbers of commuters driving through Scarborough. The goals of reducing reliance on vehicles, improving walkability and bikeability are nice to keep in mind but cannot be overriding goals for Scarborough.
The plan also needs to acknowledge that the state controls many roads in town and Scarborough has limited ability to make any changes, including bike lanes.
The full-page diagram on vehicle impact speed vs pedestrian injury (P. 67) should be taken out.
P. 71 Town Facilities and Services The section is repetitive and covers much of what is included in the Town of Scarborough Annual Report. This is a big waste of space. The section on Parks totally ignores Scarborough’s beaches and ocean access, P. 75. The section explaining how Portland Water District flushes the water mains and maintains proper pressure—why is that even in here, P. 78? The section discussing how continuing development is limiting the “water system’s ability to wax and wane” needs to be reviewed for accuracy of content, P. 82. Statements about residential well flow rates dropping cannot be anecdotal when guiding town policy, P. 83.
P. 91 Government Finance Scarborough has a long history of defeating proposed school budgets. The most recent school budget passed by fewer than 100 votes out of more than 5,200. Many residents are unable or unwilling to support tax rate increases in more than the inflation rate. This fact emphasizes the need to carefully evaluate the financial impact of any new programmatic or facility expansions suggested in the plan. Excise taxes collected go into the general fund and are not dedicated exclusively to Public Works, P.95.
P. 98 Plan Framework Is this the primary goal of the plan—to preserve the marshes, beaches, and rural landscapes by using a framework for conservation and targeted growth in the identified existing centers of activity? If so, it should be identified as such.
P. 105 Regional Activity Center The Scarborough Downs development is the largest development project in the town’s history. It receives a one-paragraph treatment in the plan. While the project is obviously in flux, the plan should provide more robust guidance on this once-in-a-lifetime project.
P. 107 Streets and Connectivity Civilizing Rt. 1 by slowing down traffic cannot be a realistic goal.
Many of the concepts introduced in this section make good sense for future development. Mixed use buildings, parking at the rear, and improving street connections all make sense for future development as opportunities develop; at the same time, discouraging development in areas with little or no infrastructure, especially areas west of the turnpike, seems logical and preserves open space.
P. 114 Dunstan Narrowing Rt. 1 cannot be a goal.
P. 123 Livable & Resilient Scarborough This seems to be the section which identifies more concrete steps which can be taken toward measurable progress on certain identified goals. Sorely lacking in this section is any consideration of costs to the taxpayer. Many of these goals seem very pie in the sky—“Increase Energy Conservation & Efficiency”—is identified in this section, for example. Most everyone understands that adopting solar energy and electric vehicles are steps in the right direction, but very few residents of Scarborough can afford to make the switch until costs come down. Suggesting that the town lead by example and be a model for resource efficiency and renewable sources needs to be balanced with the added costs and reasonable tax rate increases. Completing an energy audit of Town Government, P. 124, focusing on energy efficiency, makes great sense—we should start with the Tri-gen project.
P. 125 Considering Climate & Infrastructure The section recommends that we plan and build for all four seasons—how have we survived as a town if we haven’t already been doing this already? Statements like these suggest that the writers of this plan simply did not know and understand Scarborough—this is just nonsense.
P. 126 Consider Zero Waste Initiative This needs to be balanced with the cost of the program. Scarborough does not want to be another Burlington or Austin as the plan suggests.
P. 127 Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Scarborough is frequently at the mercy of state and federal agencies and directives in decisions affecting preparedness and repair activities. For example, many of the major roads in Scarborough are state roads. Scarborough can try to influence state policy and coordinate with the state to be sure future road maintenance and rebuilding conforms to Scarborough’s needs to prepare for sea level rise, etc. The plan calls for hiring a full-time emergency coordinator—at what cost?—decisions like these need to consider taxpayer ability and willingness to pay, P. 130.
P. 132 Economy & Jobs This part of the plan devotes a large section to the goal of creating and supporting entrepreneurship and developing creative spaces. The rationale for job growth is not clearly explained-- the growth of commercial real estate generally provides a benefit to residential taxpayers by spreading taxes over a larger base of assessed value, but there is nothing financially advantageous to job growth per se.
Scarborough can update zoning rules to accommodate new types of businesses, but spending money and effort trying to develop an “entrepreneurial ecosystem” in Scarborough is unrealistic. The plan needs to recognize that Scarborough has only 20,000 residents and a certain density of population is necessary for this to happen. Scarborough does not have a stock of old underutilized brick textile mills and shoe factories like many towns that have attracted entrepreneurs.
There is no question that Scarborough is a great place to work from home online and Scarborough can encourage small home-based businesses, but Scarborough will unlikely ever become a tech hub.
P. 142 Continue to use Tax Increment Financing District(s) TIFs should not be a goal in themselves. Scarborough should never be able to make bets on future developments and count on them to pay back the town for its investment. Scarborough’s recent track record with TIFs is not good and the business landscape is changing too fast. Any proposed TIF should be reviewed for financial impact by an appropriate independent consultant, and the terms of the TIF should be meaningfully presented to the public.
P. 144 Thinking of the Region The section of the plan which focuses on regional coordination seems very high level—not focused on specific steps which can be taken.
P. 146 School Budgets and Property Taxes Scarborough’s municipal budget, as well as its school budget, is a continual financial challenge for the town. This section seems like a lot of happy talk with no concrete ideas on how to better prioritize and stretch the tax dollar. This is an ongoing problem and cannot be solved through a focus on “communication challenges” as the plan suggests. There should be a discussion of a reasonable, achievable tax increase goal for Scarborough and how to ensure that the goal can be met in the long run.
P. 148 Leveraging Investments Developing and adopting an infrastructure investment strategy makes good sense, and should be done in conjunction with a town-wide long-range capital plan, for both municipal operations and the schools. The plan identifies – and endorses – several possible elements of the Town’s facilities program over the next 10 to 20 years: library expansion P. 152, multi-purpose community center P. 154, school expansion P. 151. However, the list of possible projects is incomplete and, importantly, there are no costs associated with the projects. The Town has not presented a complete long-range capital plan (including all potential school needs) in more than two years. Since the comprehensive plan obviously envisions continued significant population growth over the plan horizon, it is imperative that we have a thorough and thoughtful facilities plan that includes the impact of continued growth. Only with this information (including reasonable cost estimates) will the Town be in able to evaluate the affordability of proposed future facility expenditures and prioritize them.
P. 154 High-Speed Broadband Internet Improving high-speed broadband needs to be done by the private sector, not funded by the town.
P. 155 Active Living This section addresses the public spaces provided by the town, but does not emphasize the need for Scarborough to better manage and promote what we already have more cost efficiently. The most important and largest natural resources Scarborough has, the beaches, marsh and ocean, are almost completely neglected in this section. This is what most outsiders know Scarborough for. More and better access for all should be a big part of Scarborough’s Comprehensive Plan as it was in the 2006 plan. It has been completely omitted from this update.
P. 159 Community & Neighborhood Design The review of 7 principles of good community and neighborhood design includes many themes touched on throughout this plan, and many can be implemented over time with changes to zoning.
The goal of improving walkability is simply not realistic for most of Scarborough.
Cost considerations need more emphasis because of the financial implications of many of the plan’s recommendations.
P. 168 Arts and Community Scarborough cannot be all things to all people. Scarborough is a small town. Right next door is Portland which offers a huge assortment of restaurants, cultural and arts resources. Scarborough cannot and should not try to compete with that, nor can it provide these items for its residents the way this plan seems to recommend.
P. 170 Home Affordability & Availability Very little progress has been made by the town to solve this problem, and in fact, it has probably gotten worse since 2006. This plan does not offer anything that is new in the way of recommendations for solving this ongoing problem.
P. 182 Setting Targets The plan identifies a set of desired targets for various functions of the town. These directives should be the subject of far greater discussion by town residents before outside consultants decide what is right for Scarborough; these include the “Jobs-Labor Force Ratio” and police per resident, for example. The Balanced Budget target says that we “should not borrow large sums of money from reserves to cover regular operating expenses.” This seems like a very low bar for setting financial performance.
Section 1: Key Areas of Concern
- The plan leaves out concrete and specific goals and objectives, policies and plans, and most important, there is no clear way forward on how to implement what is included in the plan—there is no implementation plan, as required by state law. The 2006 Plan reviewed 13 subject areas and developed “vision statements” for each, with policy objectives and implementation strategies, timetables, and accountabilities for these items, including Scarborough’s population and economic growth, affordable housing, safeguarding farmland and marine resources and many others. In contrast, this plan seems far too vague to guide policy. Much of the plan could be used in a classroom as a primer on "smart growth". This plan is not a document you'd refer to if you needed guidance on whether a new town policy or town action conformed to the town's Comprehensive Plan. It’s far too vague.
- The Plan is not a reflection of what the population of Scarborough truly wants.
- This plan had input from only 200 people, which equates to 1% of town population; totally inadequate participation by any measure. Many of these 200 participants were town employees. Claims that this plan is the “culmination of an extensive and transparent process” are simply not true. The online engagement (p.19) was weak and the website was up and running for several weeks - but no staffers were aware of it to alert and enable them to respond to questions and comments from residents. No detailed survey of residents was undertaken to assess residents’ priorities, thoughts, and needs. The July-August 2018 six question survey seems more like an afterthought to enable plan developers to say that a survey was undertaken.
- Many parts of the plan seem to ignore the fact that the large geographic size of Scarborough, combined with the presence of the marsh separating neighborhoods, presents many challenges to creating a plan for a more cohesive community.
- Walkability is a goal that will never fit with Scarborough. The plan feels like it was developed by someone who doesn’t really understand that: Scarborough is a town with a number of small hamlets separated by a large body of water in the middle; we have winters that are really long and cold and snowy, and that Dunstan and Oak Hill are over 3 miles apart with 11 traffic lights, and that expanse across the marsh will never be easily walkable or bikeable.
- Many of the recommendations in this plan fail to acknowledge that a certain density of population is necessary for them to make sense and Scarborough does not have the necessary population. Scarborough is a small town and will never be all things to all people and it should not try to be.
- Leading by example is a theme repeated in many sections but is not necessarily the strategy that Scarborough should follow. Many residents are content with the way things are now; that is why they stay here and why many residents have moved here.
- The plan does not appear to address residential growth over the plan horizon, a critical component of a comprehensive plan. There are no guidelines on the numbers and types of residential growth. There is very limited data on the existing housing stock broken down by single and multifamily units. What data there is does not acknowledge the very significant number of multifamily units that are either approved or being planned. A significant shift in the mix of new housing toward lower cost apartment units will add stress to the current budget challenges by lowering the tax revenue generated per household.
- There is a glaring omission of Scarborough’s marine resources. Scarborough’s beaches, ocean access, and marine resources are left out almost entirely from this plan. There is no mention anywhere of our working waterfront and the fact that there are still many residents who rely on the ocean in many various ways to make a living.
- Costs of implementing many of these recommendations are never discussed in the plan. Decisions on major projects simply cannot be made without a thorough cost / benefit analysis and considering fully the financial impact, and long range implications.
Section 2: Detailed Analysis
Some General Observations
- The organization of this plan is confusing. It is unclear what the various sections of the draft represent—which is the background and inventory, which section describes the goals and objectives, where is the policy section, and where are the implementation section and timetables and accountabilities?
- There is no discussion of “How did Scarborough do?” in implementing its 2006 plan. There is no mention of the 2006 Plan, no lessons learned, no building on identified areas of success in that Plan.
- One of the real strengths of this plan is its readability and the way it introduces the themes of “Smart Growth” and the principles of good community and neighborhood design—walkability, connectivity, mixed use, housing diversity, preservation and protection of open space and much more. This is a document which could be given to new Councilors and Committee members, with the expectation they could and would read it cover-to-cover in a couple of hours.
- The plan itself—the goals, policies and implementation strategies are very vague and high level. It is unclear in many areas exactly what the goals are, and it lacks specific policies and action steps to guide implementation. It totally ignores cost considerations which are so important to this community. It is difficult to imagine how this document can be used to guide policy.
- Scarborough seems to have forgotten an important lesson it learned in the early 2000’s on the importance of not simply developing a good, thorough Comprehensive Plan, but also making sure that it is implemented properly. The town experienced a very difficult and divisive few years when it approved a contract zone for a large development (Dunstan’s Great American Neighborhood). The approval was soon overturned when citizens collected signatures and forced a referendum overturning the contract zone. The developer went to court and a Maine Superior Court judge agreed with the developer, ruling against the town, saying that the town had not properly implemented sections of its then in place 1992 Comprehensive Plan, which would have allowed precisely the type of mixed use, connected, compact, walkable development which had been proposed.
- Anyone who cares about this plan owes it to themselves to take at least 15 minutes to look at Scarborough’s 2006 Comprehensive Plan, which was truly deserving of the title “comprehensive”. One look at that plan highlights how much this draft falls short, and in so many areas.
Details
P.12 How to Use the Plan Statements like “The Guiding Principles in this Plan reflect the ideas of an entire community and include many differing points of view” falsely assumes that this is a document supported by a majority of the town population when less than 1% of the population had any input. This is not a valid participation rate for drawing any conclusions.
P.30 Guiding Principles The plan states that these principles, “Embody the core philosophy and common vision expressed by the community”. Again, these nine items were expressed only by a small group of participants. These principles are like motherhood and apple pie, hard to disagree with, but not grounded in specific actions and measurable goals. How do they contribute to the plan?
P.33 The State of Affairs It is unclear whether this section is background data—a town inventory--or “insights” as stated in the description.
P.34 Demographics The demographic data needs to include more emphasis on the number of residents without school aged children and the number of residents who expect their Scarborough tenure to be 5 years or less—who are “passing through”.
P.37 Age Dynamics This section does not include any information on how town demographics will soon change as so many new housing units come online and the population makeup of the town will change dramatically.
P. 39 Income It would be helpful to provide a chart or graphic that shows the breakdown of household income to make readers aware of the distribution of household incomes from low income to very affluent. Almost a third of households have income of $50,000 or less. Many households are under significant financial pressure. For many of these households, the property tax bill is one of their three largest annual expenses, if not the largest. This is an important consideration for future tax policy.
P. 40 Housing Tenure There should be more information on the seasonal housing stock which is very important to Pine Point and Higgins Beach, as well as camping in Scarborough; the 2 largest campgrounds contain over 800 campsites and operate for almost 6 months of the year bringing over 3,000 “part-time residents” to Scarborough. There should be some way to also include information on how Scarborough is affected by the huge influx of summer residents, including over 10,000 people staying at campgrounds in Old Orchard, and who are on the trolley route passing through Scarborough and come to Scarborough beaches, restaurants, and other attractions.
P. 43 Job Growth There is no mention of tourism or marine-related industries and the seasonality of many jobs related to these industries. The photo on P. 45 needs updating to reflect the current state of business with Ready Seafood—a large new business processing seafood--replacing Nestling Duck.
P. 47 Retail Sales There is no need to include information on local option sales taxes—this is not a town issue.
P. 53 Village Character Connecting Dunstan and Oak Hill by redeveloping this corridor ignores the fact that the road is built on the marsh, and is affected by tides; any growth beyond the border of the road would be prohibited, and flooding will become more of an issue in the future. Suggesting that the 3 miles separating Dunstan and Oak Hill might be walkable or bikeable ignores the reality of the distance, the weather, town demographics. It might make sense for the team who wrote the plan to try walking the route themselves, especially in the winter. Narrowing Rt. 1 and trying to redevelop the corridor between Oak Hill and Dunstan cannot be a realistic goal.
P. 54 Scarborough’s Neighborhoods Farmland preservation/encouragement is not addressed. How many operating farms do we have left? Is it important to preserve them into the future? If so, do we have, or should we have policies in place to encourage their preservation (as opposed to becoming the sites for more housing)? Have affected parties been contacted and asked for input?
P. 58 Supporting Infrastructure Transportation, travel patterns, commuting, connectivity and walkability—all related and important. Until new options become more feasible, getting people out of their cars simply is not realistic with the distances between destinations in Scarborough. No one will ever walk or bike to Hannaford from Dunstan or Pine Point or Higgins Beach and then carry home their groceries. School children will not be walking from North Scarborough, the beaches, or Dunstan to the school campus at Oak Hill. We will always have large numbers of commuters driving through Scarborough. The goals of reducing reliance on vehicles, improving walkability and bikeability are nice to keep in mind but cannot be overriding goals for Scarborough.
The plan also needs to acknowledge that the state controls many roads in town and Scarborough has limited ability to make any changes, including bike lanes.
The full-page diagram on vehicle impact speed vs pedestrian injury (P. 67) should be taken out.
P. 71 Town Facilities and Services The section is repetitive and covers much of what is included in the Town of Scarborough Annual Report. This is a big waste of space. The section on Parks totally ignores Scarborough’s beaches and ocean access, P. 75. The section explaining how Portland Water District flushes the water mains and maintains proper pressure—why is that even in here, P. 78? The section discussing how continuing development is limiting the “water system’s ability to wax and wane” needs to be reviewed for accuracy of content, P. 82. Statements about residential well flow rates dropping cannot be anecdotal when guiding town policy, P. 83.
P. 91 Government Finance Scarborough has a long history of defeating proposed school budgets. The most recent school budget passed by fewer than 100 votes out of more than 5,200. Many residents are unable or unwilling to support tax rate increases in more than the inflation rate. This fact emphasizes the need to carefully evaluate the financial impact of any new programmatic or facility expansions suggested in the plan. Excise taxes collected go into the general fund and are not dedicated exclusively to Public Works, P.95.
P. 98 Plan Framework Is this the primary goal of the plan—to preserve the marshes, beaches, and rural landscapes by using a framework for conservation and targeted growth in the identified existing centers of activity? If so, it should be identified as such.
P. 105 Regional Activity Center The Scarborough Downs development is the largest development project in the town’s history. It receives a one-paragraph treatment in the plan. While the project is obviously in flux, the plan should provide more robust guidance on this once-in-a-lifetime project.
P. 107 Streets and Connectivity Civilizing Rt. 1 by slowing down traffic cannot be a realistic goal.
Many of the concepts introduced in this section make good sense for future development. Mixed use buildings, parking at the rear, and improving street connections all make sense for future development as opportunities develop; at the same time, discouraging development in areas with little or no infrastructure, especially areas west of the turnpike, seems logical and preserves open space.
P. 114 Dunstan Narrowing Rt. 1 cannot be a goal.
P. 123 Livable & Resilient Scarborough This seems to be the section which identifies more concrete steps which can be taken toward measurable progress on certain identified goals. Sorely lacking in this section is any consideration of costs to the taxpayer. Many of these goals seem very pie in the sky—“Increase Energy Conservation & Efficiency”—is identified in this section, for example. Most everyone understands that adopting solar energy and electric vehicles are steps in the right direction, but very few residents of Scarborough can afford to make the switch until costs come down. Suggesting that the town lead by example and be a model for resource efficiency and renewable sources needs to be balanced with the added costs and reasonable tax rate increases. Completing an energy audit of Town Government, P. 124, focusing on energy efficiency, makes great sense—we should start with the Tri-gen project.
P. 125 Considering Climate & Infrastructure The section recommends that we plan and build for all four seasons—how have we survived as a town if we haven’t already been doing this already? Statements like these suggest that the writers of this plan simply did not know and understand Scarborough—this is just nonsense.
P. 126 Consider Zero Waste Initiative This needs to be balanced with the cost of the program. Scarborough does not want to be another Burlington or Austin as the plan suggests.
P. 127 Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Scarborough is frequently at the mercy of state and federal agencies and directives in decisions affecting preparedness and repair activities. For example, many of the major roads in Scarborough are state roads. Scarborough can try to influence state policy and coordinate with the state to be sure future road maintenance and rebuilding conforms to Scarborough’s needs to prepare for sea level rise, etc. The plan calls for hiring a full-time emergency coordinator—at what cost?—decisions like these need to consider taxpayer ability and willingness to pay, P. 130.
P. 132 Economy & Jobs This part of the plan devotes a large section to the goal of creating and supporting entrepreneurship and developing creative spaces. The rationale for job growth is not clearly explained-- the growth of commercial real estate generally provides a benefit to residential taxpayers by spreading taxes over a larger base of assessed value, but there is nothing financially advantageous to job growth per se.
Scarborough can update zoning rules to accommodate new types of businesses, but spending money and effort trying to develop an “entrepreneurial ecosystem” in Scarborough is unrealistic. The plan needs to recognize that Scarborough has only 20,000 residents and a certain density of population is necessary for this to happen. Scarborough does not have a stock of old underutilized brick textile mills and shoe factories like many towns that have attracted entrepreneurs.
There is no question that Scarborough is a great place to work from home online and Scarborough can encourage small home-based businesses, but Scarborough will unlikely ever become a tech hub.
P. 142 Continue to use Tax Increment Financing District(s) TIFs should not be a goal in themselves. Scarborough should never be able to make bets on future developments and count on them to pay back the town for its investment. Scarborough’s recent track record with TIFs is not good and the business landscape is changing too fast. Any proposed TIF should be reviewed for financial impact by an appropriate independent consultant, and the terms of the TIF should be meaningfully presented to the public.
P. 144 Thinking of the Region The section of the plan which focuses on regional coordination seems very high level—not focused on specific steps which can be taken.
P. 146 School Budgets and Property Taxes Scarborough’s municipal budget, as well as its school budget, is a continual financial challenge for the town. This section seems like a lot of happy talk with no concrete ideas on how to better prioritize and stretch the tax dollar. This is an ongoing problem and cannot be solved through a focus on “communication challenges” as the plan suggests. There should be a discussion of a reasonable, achievable tax increase goal for Scarborough and how to ensure that the goal can be met in the long run.
P. 148 Leveraging Investments Developing and adopting an infrastructure investment strategy makes good sense, and should be done in conjunction with a town-wide long-range capital plan, for both municipal operations and the schools. The plan identifies – and endorses – several possible elements of the Town’s facilities program over the next 10 to 20 years: library expansion P. 152, multi-purpose community center P. 154, school expansion P. 151. However, the list of possible projects is incomplete and, importantly, there are no costs associated with the projects. The Town has not presented a complete long-range capital plan (including all potential school needs) in more than two years. Since the comprehensive plan obviously envisions continued significant population growth over the plan horizon, it is imperative that we have a thorough and thoughtful facilities plan that includes the impact of continued growth. Only with this information (including reasonable cost estimates) will the Town be in able to evaluate the affordability of proposed future facility expenditures and prioritize them.
P. 154 High-Speed Broadband Internet Improving high-speed broadband needs to be done by the private sector, not funded by the town.
P. 155 Active Living This section addresses the public spaces provided by the town, but does not emphasize the need for Scarborough to better manage and promote what we already have more cost efficiently. The most important and largest natural resources Scarborough has, the beaches, marsh and ocean, are almost completely neglected in this section. This is what most outsiders know Scarborough for. More and better access for all should be a big part of Scarborough’s Comprehensive Plan as it was in the 2006 plan. It has been completely omitted from this update.
P. 159 Community & Neighborhood Design The review of 7 principles of good community and neighborhood design includes many themes touched on throughout this plan, and many can be implemented over time with changes to zoning.
The goal of improving walkability is simply not realistic for most of Scarborough.
Cost considerations need more emphasis because of the financial implications of many of the plan’s recommendations.
P. 168 Arts and Community Scarborough cannot be all things to all people. Scarborough is a small town. Right next door is Portland which offers a huge assortment of restaurants, cultural and arts resources. Scarborough cannot and should not try to compete with that, nor can it provide these items for its residents the way this plan seems to recommend.
P. 170 Home Affordability & Availability Very little progress has been made by the town to solve this problem, and in fact, it has probably gotten worse since 2006. This plan does not offer anything that is new in the way of recommendations for solving this ongoing problem.
P. 182 Setting Targets The plan identifies a set of desired targets for various functions of the town. These directives should be the subject of far greater discussion by town residents before outside consultants decide what is right for Scarborough; these include the “Jobs-Labor Force Ratio” and police per resident, for example. The Balanced Budget target says that we “should not borrow large sums of money from reserves to cover regular operating expenses.” This seems like a very low bar for setting financial performance.
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