Cityscape

Development woes

By Noah Bruce

Before it has even filed any paperwork, the Campaign for a Comprehensive Plan and its effort to regulate development in Portland through a proposed referendum is having an effect on building in the city.

According to sources at the governor’s office, the Portland Economic Development Office, and the Portland Chamber of Commerce, a New York-based financial-services company is considering building a regional office in Portland, but is having second thoughts because of the proposed referendum. The referendum — for which the group has yet to file signatures — would create a citizens advisory committee to counsel the city planning department in the creation of the comprehensive plan — a plan that maps out future development in the city. If the referendum were to pass, city developments that meet a certain criteria would be put on hold until the plan was created.

“[The company has] not made a final decision yet, but if they decide not to move here, the petition will definitely have had an effect on the decision,” says Joe Wischerath, director of Maine and Company, a nonprofit organization that markets the state of Maine to perspective businesses.

According to John Ripley, press secretary for Angus King, the governor has met with top-brass from the company in efforts to woo them to Portland.

The company — of which no one involved would divulge the name due to confidentiality requirements — is considering building at the corner of Commercial Street and Franklin Arterial. Sources say the company would bring 200 white-collar jobs to the city.

If it chooses Portland and decides to build at the site before the referendum is voted on, at the earliest, in April of 2001, the company takes a big risk. If the resolution passes, it effectively makes all permits granted after October 16, 2000, for commercial buildings over 10,000 square feet and within 300 feet of a residential neighborhood null and void until the completion of a comprehensive plan. That could be as late as 2003, the date the state requires the document to be completed.

What happens if the company is in the midst of building when the resolution passes is unknown.

“Would the building have to be torn down? That is not clear,” says Gary Wood, corporation counsel for the city of Portland.

According to Jim Brady, vice president of acquisitions and development at Olympia Equity Investors which owns the land in question, the company “has a fairly critical timeline and needs the office space by a particular date.”

Janet Ham, spokesperson for the campaign, says the referendum is primarily an attempt “to have an opportunity for citizens to participate in the developing of the comprehensive plan . . . The mayor says there are all these ways for citizens to get involved, but really there is nothing involving citizen input in the development of the comprehensive plan itself and that’s very important. We need to know what the vision for the city is.”

She is skeptical of reports of the financial-services company moving to Portland.

“If this company is really interested in doing business here and the only thing stopping them is our petition, then we should hear more about it and have more details . . . Why is everything done in secret?”

“I sympathize with many of the group’s concerns,” says Brady. “But many people don’t understand the economics and how this [company] could better the city in many different arenas.”