by Mary Grow

China Planning Board members devoted their April 8 meeting to review of town ordinances, with references to the town comprehensive plan. They decided a joint meeting with China’s comprehensive plan implementation committee would be a useful next step; chairman Toni Wall will invite that committee’s members to the May 13 planning board meeting.

No more ordinance changes are proposed for the June 10 annual town business meeting warrant. Voters will be asked to act on any additional ordinance changes in November, at the earliest.

The June 10 warrant includes four questions dealing with ordinances (see the April 10 issue of The Town Line, p. 2). The only one needing a planning board recommendation is Art. 31, asking voters to amend sections of the Land Development Code. Select board and planning board members unanimously recommend approval.

Wall, some other board members and codes officer Nicholas French would like to see open space subdivisions allowed in China (see the April 3 issue of The Town Line, p. 3). Wall had distributed copies of Arundel’s and Belfast’s ordinances on the topic.

After discussion, Wall volunteered to draft open space subdivision regulations to add to China’s subdivision ordinance, for review at a future board meeting.

A second pending ordinance would regulate electric transmission lines through China. In November 2024 voters approved a 90-day moratorium on such lines, renewable by the select board for another 90 days, to give officials and voters time to create and approve an ordinance.

Wall had a copy of Benton’s, titled “Electric Transmission Facilities and Corridors Ordinance,” which generated questions and comments from board members. She intends to prepare a draft intended specifically for China.

The third ordinance discussion was about a significantly revised cannabis ordinance that would allow retail sales for recreational use. Wall said China now allows retail businesses for medical cannabis only; French said there are currently two in town.

If a majority of China voters have changed their minds since June, 2017, when they approved “An Ordinance Prohibiting Retail Marijuana Establishments and Retail Marijuana Social Clubs in the Town of China,” local regulation would require an expanded local ordinance.

French said the state regulates both medical and recreational cannabis facilities. Local regulations can be stricter than the state’s as long as they are not unreasonable.

Wall shared sample ordinances from Newport and Rumford.

Planning board members will not hold a second April meeting. The next regular planning board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 13.

by Mary Grow

The article in the warrant for China’s June 10, 2025, annual town business meeting that was not recommended by the budget committee on April 2 (see related story, p. 3) came back at April 7 meetings of the budget committee and the select board.

Six of seven budget committee members met first to reconsider their April 2 vote. The reworded article, numbered Art. 14, that Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood gave them asked voters to raise and appropriate not more than $770,000 from TIF (Tax Increment Financing) money, in accordance with the third version of China’s TIF program that voters approved in November 2024.

There was agreement that budget committee members did not intend to recommend voters allocate no money for TIF projects for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The April 2 committee majority objected specifically to the appropriation for the China Broadband Committee, intended to fund a cooperative program with Direct Communications and its Unity-based Maine subsidiary, Unitel.

Broadband committee chairman Robert O’Connor and member Jamie Pitney explained from the audience that until Unitel succeeds in getting a federal grant, the plan remains in limbo and no China money will be invested.

After half an hour’s wide-ranging discussion, budget committee members reversed their April 2 decision and voted 5-1 to recommend voters approve Art. 14. Timothy Basham, Taryn Hotham, Jo Orlando, Jane Robertson and Michael Sullivan were in favor; chairman Brent Chesley was opposed, on behalf, he said, of absent member Kevin Maroon.

An early item on the agenda for the select board meeting immediately following the budget committee meeting was an article-by-article review of the town business meeting warrant.

The June 10 warrant includes four questions dealing with town ordinances.

By mostly unanimous votes, select board members recommended voters approve each article – except Art. 14. Chairman Wayne Chadwick and member Jeanne Marquis voted to recommend the article; Edwin Bailey and Blane Casey voted not to; and Thomas Rumpf abstained. Rumpf is president of the China Four Seasons Club, which annually applies for and receives TIF funds for trail maintenance.

During the rest of the meeting, select board and TIF committee members continued discussion at intervals, with Pitney borrowing Hapgood’s office to work on revisions to Art. 14.

Much of the discussion was over how to explain that the $770,000 was in two parts: a request to raise and appropriate $265,000 in 2025-26 TIF funds, and a request to reallocate to broadband $505,000 that had previously been set aside for other projects, like, Pitney said, the discontinued revolving loan fund and job training program.

The result was a rewritten Art. 14 asking voters a) to raise and appropriate $265,000 in TIF funds for purposes listed in the TIF document; and b) to approve expenditure of not more than $505,000 previously raised and appropriated for the TIF program.

This article was recommended by select board members on a 4-0-1 vote, with Rumpf again abstaining, with thanks to Pitney.

The June 10 warrant includes four questions dealing with town ordinances. Select board members unanimously recommended approval of all four.

Art. 30 asks voters to repeal China’s ordinance Prohibiting Retail Marijuana Establishments and Retail Marijuana Social Clubs in town. State law has made it unnecessary, Hapgood said.

Art. 31 asks voters to approve amendments to three sections of China’s Land Use Ordinance. The article says a copy of the ordinance is posted with the warrant and an electronic version is on the town website, chinamaine.gov, under the Elections tab.

Art. 33 asks voters to repeal China’s quorum ordinance for special town meetings, because, Hapgood said, the town attorney says it violates state law.

Art. 34 asks if voters will amend the town’s Budget Committee Ordinance. The major proposed change is to restore a seven-member committee, instead of the five-member committee in the current ordinance.

A public hearing on the warrant for the June 10 meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Monday, May 5, in the town office meeting room. That evening’s select board meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m.

In addition to these pre-town-meeting activities, China select board members heard a presentation by Regional School Unit #18 Superintendent Carl Gartley, accompanied by China’s representatives on the RSU board, Dawn Castner and John Soifer.

Gartley said China’s share of the RSU budget for 2025-26 will increase by about $324,500. Much of the increase is because the insured value factor, the extra local money for private schools like Erskine Academy for facilities maintenance, has risen from 6 percent to 10 percent of the tuition rate for next year.

The superintendent shared charts comparing China with 13 other area school units. China is near the bottom in per-pupil costs, at or near the top in academic performance.

Recent improvements at China schools include generators in both buildings, Gartley said. China Primary School, which dates from the 1990s, is slated to get new windows this summer.

Replying to Chadwick’s questions, Gartley said the school department paid for most of the riprapping along Route 202 in front of China Middle School, because most of the ditch is outside the road right-of-way; and the flashing signs warning drivers to slow down when school is opening and closing have been on order for months and are expected before classes start in the fall.

Select board members also:

— Approved a TIF allocation for the current year, $3,414 for the community garden project led by James and Jude Hsiang, to be located on the lot south of the town office complex.
— Agreed to send letters supporting requests for federal funds to Sen. Susan Collins’ office on behalf of Waterville’s and Augusta’s emergency dispatch centers and Delta Ambulance.
Hapgood reported for town departments:
— All departments will be closed Monday, April 21, for the Patriots’ Day holiday, and that evening’s select board meeting will be moved to 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 22.
— Timothy Hatch has resigned from the transfer station and public works department as of March 29.
— The transfer station will host a drug take-back day on Saturday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

by Mary Grow

China Road Committee members discussed several town roads, ways to improve them and related issues at an hour-and-a-half long March 25 meeting.

Their conclusions will become recommendations to the select board as that group considers the 2025-26 road budget.

Committee members had as background information a list of roads paved or – mostly – repaved since the summer of 2019, divided into four quadrants. Quadrant 2, in northwestern China, was due for most of this summer’s work; many of its more than 12 miles were last done in 2022.

In that area, Public Works Director Shawn Reed recommended 1.85 miles of fresh asphalt on Maple Ridge Road and 1.24 miles of chip-seal on Neck Road, south from the Stanley Hill Road intersection.

For the last three years, China has been redoing some roads with chip-seal, a less expensive method than adding a layer of liquid asphalt. Reed said he is mostly pleased with the way chip-sealed roads have held up; committee member Brent Chesley’s verdict was “So far, so good.”

The group discussed whether Maple Ridge Road is so bad it should be dug up and rebuilt, instead of just repaved.

Winslow town officials are rebuilding their part of Maple Ridge Road, Reed said. Not all of the major paving companies take on rebuilding projects.

Reed pointed out that some roads in Quadrant 3, in southeastern China, could also use work; he recommended redoing 1.66 miles on Hanson Road.

China officials plan to use a large amount of this year’s road money to rebuild and pave Town Landing Road, limiting other options.

Discussion of Town Landing Road, which leads from South China Village’s Village Street to a China Lake boat landing, focused on the need for improvements to control erosion into the lake, and to reduce annual maintenance costs. Reed foresees ditching, adding gravel and riprap and sloping the pavement, either from a higher center to both ditches or toward only one ditch.

Two unresolved issues are whether to try to create a turn-around near the lake and whether to plan on winter maintenance. Reed and Chesley favor plowing the road to ensure emergency access, even if the plow truck has to back out.

Another major project, Reed said, but not for this year, is Clark Road, which runs east off Route 32 (Vassalboro Road) and dead-ends on the west side of China Lake. It is the only remaining town-owned gravel road, and costs extra money for gravel and grading.

Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood suggested another alternative would be to ask voters at some future town meeting to discontinue the road, leaving maintenance responsibility to landowners.

Clark Road leaves Route 32 through property whose owner opposes paving it, several people said. It is named for, and provides access to, a house built by some of the Clark family who were China’s first settlers in 1773. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

China and Vassalboro have pooled their paving bids for some years, and Reed intends to do the same this year; he has been coordinating with Vassalboro Public Works Director Brian Lajoie. The group discussed whether China gained by combining and decided to investigate further before this time next year.

Committee chairman and town office staffer Jen
nifer Chamberlain said she expects to send out requests for bids early in April; April 17 or 18 might be the deadline to return bids.

Committee members did not schedule another meeting until select board members have reviewed their recommendations, and probably until bids come in. Reed suggested they might plan to meet quarterly the rest of this year to prepare to do something about Clark Road next year.

by Mary Grow

China Planning Board members spent most of their March 25 meeting arguing over whether to propose allowing cluster developments in town. Chapter Three of the current Land Development Code prohibits them.

One point of contention was whether “cluster development” is the proper name. A recognized alternative is “open space subdivision.”

In a conventional residential subdivision, available land is divided into lots that meet minimum lot size requirements (40,000 square feet in China) and a house is built on each lot. Subdivisions often have wooded buffers between houses and interior roads.

In an open space subdivision, one section of the land is divided into smaller house lots – board members and codes officer Nicholas French talked about 20,000 square feet as a minimum. The rest, perhaps more than half the total area, remains common space, which could be used for communal purposes like recreation, gardening or a playground.

Whether people who do not live in the subdivision could access the open space would depend on ordinance provisions, or on the rules of the association that homeowners established, board members said.

Whether there was a homewners’ association would depend mostly on who sold and who bought the lots. The developer might continue to manage the common area, including any shared roads, board member Dwaine Drummond suggested.

French is a proponent of open space developments. He said they would provide needed housing with less damage to China’s natural environment and rural character; minimize sprawl – avoiding “House, house, house, house,” he said, tapping the table to indicate a row of houses lining a road; minimize expensive road-building; and provide a more affordable alternative than a conventional subdivision.

And smaller lawns for homeowners to mow, board chairman Toni Wall added.

French and Wall think most China residents appreciate the town’s rural character and do not want sprawl. Adding open space development as an alternative would give planning board members another option that they think would support majority preferences.

Wall and board members Drummond and Milton Dudley mostly cited points in favor of open space development. Natale Tripodi and Elaine Mather had objections.

The first question they raised was whether apartment buildings would be included. The preliminary answer is only if the town ordinance says so, and it needn’t. French reminded board members of the new state law allowing a second residence on what used to be considered a single-building lot.

“Why do we need to solve the state’s housing crisis?” Mather asked.

French offered, “So town employees can afford houses” in or near town, citing statistics about area average incomes and housing costs.

Mather further asked for a definition of “open space” – in the ordinance amendment if the board writes one, Dudley replied – and whether adding the new option would mean the board denied future subdivision applications – no, Wall said.

Mather assumed the 1993 decision to ban cluster subdivisions was based on research. French suggested it was instead “a knee-jerk reaction to the name,” but admitted he couldn’t prove it. He and board members doubted 1993 records would answer the question.

Audience member Robert Bernheim proposed hypothetical scenarios about people sharing an open space development. Wall repeated that the answers would depend on ordinance provisions and their implementation.

The hour-long discussion ended with Wall planning to share copies of open space subdivision provisions in other Maine towns’ ordinances, in preparation for continued consideration at the next board meeting.

Also on the board’s future agendas are continued review of the entire subdivision ordinance, and development of a new ordinance to regulate high impact electric transmission lines through town before the moratorium voters approved last fall expires.

The Nov. 5, 2024, vote imposed a 180-day moratorium on such transmission lines, with the select board authorized to add one 180-day extension.

The March 25 meeting began with a five-minute public hearing on proposed amendments to Chapters 2 and 11 of China’s Land Development Code. Wall explained that the purpose of the amendments, which will be submitted to town voters in June, is to finish deleting references to timber harvesting. Regulating timber harvesting has been transferred from the town to the state Bureau of Forestry.

There were no comments from the public or board members on the proposed changes. They are available for review on the town website, chinamaine.org, under Officials, Boards & Committees; under that heading, under Planning Board; and under that subheading, “proposed edits” for the two chapters.

The next scheduled China Planning Board meeting is at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 8. After the March 25 meeting, Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood reported the board had agreed to skip a scheduled April 22 meeting, so that the China select board can meet that evening (the regular select board meeting would be Monday, April 21, the Patriots’ Day holiday).