Our Town Damariscotta - The Petition

After forming OurTown and starting an email network, we called a lawyer to talk about strategy. We chose a Portland attorney with experience with fighting Big Box stores in other communities. She recommended passing a building size cap as a proven strategy to keep Big Box stores out of town. With her help, we wrote a petition asking for an amendment to the zoning ordinance to put in place a building size cap of 35,000 square feet on new retail stores.

The petition reads:

We, the undersigned registered voters of Damariscotta, numbering more than 10% of the number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, wish to encourage reasonable retail development while preserving the small town character of our community. The town’s Comprehensive Plan describes the village center as a “thriving, charming commercial area” (Supplement, p.103) and prioritizes the need “to enhance the viability of the Downtown” (Supplement, p. 109). We believe that the construction of huge retail stores will threaten the viability of the Downtown, create traffic congestion, and put an undue burden on our town’s infrastructure. We believe that amending Damariscotta’s land use ordinance to include a 35,000 square foot size cap in all commercial districts will support the local economy and preserve the scale and character of the Downtown. We therefore petition the Board of Selectmen to call a special town meeting within 60 days to vote on the following changes to Article 5 of the Damariscotta Land Use Ordinance:

AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE 5, SECTION A (Purpose), to state as follows:
To provide general retail sales, services, and business space within the Town of Damariscotta in locations capable of conveniently servicing community wide and/or regional trade areas. To preserve the scale, character, and economy of the Downtown in accordance with the Comprehensive Plan by implementing a 35,000 square foot size cap on retail development in all commercial districts, effective as of November 1, 2005.

AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE 5, SECTION B (Downtown Commercial District (C1)), 3b (Space Standards), to add, at the bottom of 3b, the following language:

No single retail store whether located in a single building, a combination of buildings, single tenant space, and/or combination of tenant spaces shall exceed 35,000 gross square feet of floor area in the aggregate. This size restriction shall apply to new retail stores and expansion of existing retail stores, effective as of November 1, 2005.

AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE 5, SECTION C (Other Commercial District (C2)), 3b (Space Standards), to add, at the bottom of 3b, the following language: No single retail store whether located in a single building, a combination of buildings, single tenant space, and/or combination of tenant spaces shall exceed 35,000 gross square feet of floor area in the aggregate. This size restriction shall apply to new retail stores and expansion of existing retail stores, effective as of November 1, 2005.The provisions of these amendments shall apply to all proceedings, applications and petitions pending on, or commenced after, the date of filing this petition with the Town Clerk’s Office of the Town of Damariscotta on November 1, 2005

On the advice of our attorney, we were very careful this time around: only Damariscotta voters collected signatures and signed petitions. Nearly all of the signed petitions were notarized. On November 1 we submitted 320 signatures, 287 of which were certified by the town clerk. Because this number was well beyond the threshold of 105 (representing 10% of the voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election), the petition was certified as a referendum that would come before town voters.