Gateway 1: An innovative, community-led land use & transportation
planning project for Maine’s midcoast.
Click on map below for individual town information.
June 2009: Gateway 1 Plan Approved by Steering Committee
After a series of four-hour meetings in April and May during which the many final comments on the Gateway 1 Action Plan were received and discussed, on June 10 the Steering Committee voted unanimously to approve the 153-page Plan for presentation to Corridor municipalities.
This landmark vote marks the end of the general planning phase and the start of the implementation phase of Gateway 1.
Gateway 1 was launched four years ago to find a way to better connect land use and transportation planning along Mid-coast Route 1. Twenty communities identified a series of escalating problems that stemmed from a combination of increasing traffic levels and existing land use trends. From this, the Study Team and Steering Committee developed a flexible Plan that asks municipalities to make adjustments to their Comprehensive Plans to support more densely built core growth areas, protection for specific viewsheds and wildlife habitat, and a more defined level of roadway access management.
Implementing the Plan will positively affect the functionality and aesthetics of Route 1, as well as increasing municipalities’ ability to attract new jobs, support transit and provide affordable housing.
At the same meeting, the Steering Committee voted unanimously to recommend hiring Stacy Benjamin and her team as the interim Gateway 1 Administrator. MaineDOT will endeavor to finalize a contract for this interim position over the next month.
The Study Team is now in the process of incorporating all approved changes into the Plan document. The goal is to have the Plan available to municipalities, via their Steering Committee member, in July. Shortly thereafter, the Plan will be posted on this site.
Stacy and each Steering Committee member will meet with each municipality to go over the Plan, answer questions and ask for the City or Town Council or Board of Selectmen to sign a Start-up Agreement by October 2009. Once 12 communities sign on, the process of officially forming the Gateway 1 Corridor Coalition can begin. An immediate benefit for participating municipalities will be immediate access to planning grants from MaineDOT. Forming the Coalition also paves the way for municipalities to have a deciding role in regional and local transportation project prioritization. For more details, see “The Home Stretch: March 2009” update below.
The Study Team and MaineDOT would like to thank all Steering Committee members and Alternates for their hard work, perseverance and insistence on innovative thinking over the past fours years.
The Home Stretch: March 2009
The Steering Committee met on February 11 and March 4 to debate the structure of the new proposed entity (tentatively called the Gateway 1 Corridor Coalition) and fine tune the first draft of the Plan. Those discussions can be viewed in detail in the February 11 Meeting Report and the March 4 Meeting Report.
As the Steering Committee moves toward finalizing details of the Plan and the new Coalition, the timing and organization of the transition period between this planning project and the new organization also are becoming clear.
The Plan will be completed in June, at which point communities will have 90 days for their governing body to sign a preliminary agreement to develop a formal inter-jurisdictional agreement among the communities, MaineDOT and the State Planning Organization. Once 12 communities sign, planning grants will be available to the member towns. Once the inter-jurisdictional agreement is signed by 12 communities in 2010, project grants will be available (subject to MaienDOT budget availability), as well as other incentives. And at that point the Coalition will start to move into its role of helping to prioritize the corridor’s transportation project proposals for MaineDOT.
Other news is MaineDOT’s agreement to hire a transition administrator as of July 1. This person will work with the Steering Committee and the municipalities to obtain the first 12 signatures and will then be instrumental in developing and generating acceptance of the inter-jurisdictional agreement.
What is the Gateway 1 Corridor Coalition? The Gateway 1 Corridor Coalition (GCC) will be a newly formed regional planning entity open to the 21 towns along the Route 1 corridor from Brunswick to Prospect. Its purpose is to support implementation of the Gateway 1 Action Plan, a collaboratively developed plan that recognizes the link between land use and transportation needs. The GCC is one of the many positive outcomes of the Gateway 1 Study initiated by corridor communities, the Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) and the State Planning Office (SPO).
Implementing the Gateway 1 Action Plan will positively affect the functionality and aesthetics of Route 1, while also creating long-term economic savings for communities as well as increasing their ability to attract jobs, support transit and provide affordable housing.
The next Steering Committee Meeting will take place April 8, from 4-8 pm at the Rockland City Council Chambers.
December 2008 Progress Report
Since October, the Gateway 1 Steering Committee has met three times – Oct. 22, Nov. 12 and Dec. 3. These meetings were focused on refining the contents of the Plan, due to be completed in the first quarter of 2009. In essence, the Plan will ask communities to make, over the long term, specific changes in their comprehensive plans and ordinances that are designed to:
At the October 22 meeting the Steering Committee focused on the specific changes, or Actions, needed to implement the Plan. They also discussed a subcommittee report on the feasibility of eventually including a Transfer of Development or Trip Rights process into the Plan. The meeting minutes and that discussion can be viewed here.
The November 12 meeting continued the discussion of the Actions that would be acceptable to communities, as well as the timelines needed to implement the Actions. The timeline agreed on by the Steering Committee is three to five years for Basic Actions. Advanced and Transformational Actions will take longer, perhaps as much as or more than ten years in some cases. Any community can decide to adopt any Action earlier in order to qualify for MaineDOT Gateway 1 Incentives. MaineDOT Actions will also be required as part of the Plan. Full minutes from this meeting, which also included details on each community’s capacity and need analysis, can be viewed here.
At the December 3 meeting Steering Committee members took two more major steps: they reviewed the Study Team’s suggestions on where in each community a new growth core might be located, and they began serious discussion regarding the proposed shape and potential powers of a new corridor entity to implement the Plan on an ongoing basis. The growth core maps are currently being reviewed in the communities (comments/changes due back by mid-January) and the details of these critical meeting discussions can be viewed here.
Finally, the Study Team met individually with representatives of 18 of the 20 communities’ governing boards (select board or city council, planning board and comprehensive plan committee) during the October-December time period. The final two meetings will take place in January. A glimpse at a sample presentation from Lincolnville shows content; the discussions and questions at these meetings increased community awareness of Gateway 1 and the current transportation/land use environment as well as helped to give the Study Team and Steering Committee valuable insights into what will be needed to make the Plan a success.
The next Steering Committee meeting will take place on Wednesday, January 28th at 4 pm at the Rockland City Council Chambers.
What Gateway 1 will achieve: Overall, the Gateway 1 plan will preserve the valued character of the Midcoast - its New England villages and rural qualities - while supporting new jobs, affordable housing and transit opportunities. We will achieve this by providing incentives to locate jobs close to housing, by managing traffic and by encouraging the preservation of viewsheds, wildlife habitat and the Maine quality of life. |
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Early Fall 2008 Progress Report Early Spring 2008 Progress Report |
Gateway 1 is a landmark long-term strategic land use and transportation planning project for the Midcoast Route 1 region in Maine. A collaboration amongst communities and state agencies, Gateway 1 explores new ways of combining transportation and land use decision-making. By doing so, the project will balance community growth and local values with transportation services and needs. For Gateway 1 to be a success, we need to hear your opinions. Please click on Public Involvement to find out more.
The Gateway 1 project begins in Brunswick at the junction of I-295 and extends for 110 miles to Prospect. It directly affects the 21 communities (see interactive map above)through which U.S. Route 1 passes and also considers their interaction with the larger region, especially those peninsular or island communities whose residents, workers and visitors must use Route 1 for access.
