Title:فرصت ها و چالش ها در برنامه ریزی گردشگری روستایی

۰۳-۰۲-۲۰۱۲ ارائه دهنده: Anne Kreig این وب‌کست فقط برای مشاهده در دسترس است، برای اعتبارات AICP CM قابل استفاده نیست. فعالیت‌های مرتبط با گردشگری جزء مهمی از اقتصادهای روستایی هستند که درآمد و تنوع را برای جوامع روستایی فراهم می‌کنند. این وبینار به بررسی روندهای جاری در گردشگری روستایی می پردازد که با تغییر چشم انداز اقتصادی به سرعت در حال تغییر و تغییرات جمعیتی در حال انجام است. سخنرانان جلسه عبارتند از: Anne Krieg، AICP، معاون بخش، Small Town و Rural Division. و رابرت بیلینگتون، بنیانگذار و مدیر شورای گردشگری بلک استون ولی در رود آیلند.

قسمتي از متن فيلم: They are in listen-only mode hello my name is Brittany Kavinsky and I just want to welcome everyone it is now 1:00 p.m. so we will begin our presentation shortly today on Friday February 3rd we will have our presentation on opportunities and challenges in rural tourism planning given by Anne Krieg for

Help during today’s webcast please feel free to type your questions in the chat box found in the webinar tool bar to the right of your screen or call 1-800 two six three six three one seven for content questions please feel free to type those in the questions box and we

Will be able to answer those at the end of the presentation during the question and answer session here’s a list of the sponsoring chapters divisions and universities I would like to thank all of the participating chapters divisions and universities for making these webcasts possible this is the list of

The upcoming webcasts we have scheduled for the next few months to register for these upcoming webcasts please visit up wwu tah APA org slash webcast and register for your webcast of choice we are also offering distance education webcasts to help you get your ethics or law credits these webcasts are available

To view at WWE Utah APA org slash webcast archive you can now follow us on twitter at planning webcast or like us on facebook planning webcast series to receive up-to-date information on the planning webcast series sponsored by chapters divisions and universities to log your steam credits for attending

Today’s webcast please go to WWE ng org slash cm and select today’s date which is friday february 3rd and then select today’s webcast opportunities and challenges and rural tourism planning this webcast is available for one and a half CM credits we are also recording today’s webcast and it will be available

Along with a PDF of the presentation @ww Utah APA org slash webcast archive and also on behalf of Shana Johnson the participate the Professional Development Officer of the Economic Development Division I want to thank the EDD for sponsoring today’s webcast and can connect with the economic development development division via

Their website or their blog or on Twitter at APA underscore EDD and at this time I would like to introduce and create who was our speaker for today and Creek has but was the Planning and Development Director for the town of Bar Harbor on since 2002 up until on last

June her duties included serving as vice-chair of the cruise ship committee the vice-chair of the parking and traffic committee and the chair of the development review team she also served as a staff support to the economic development task force Conservation Commission planning board appeals board and design review board she was also the

Town’s public information officer and has presented throughout the country on the intersection of planning and tourism and rural landscapes Ann is on the board of the Maine Board of Maine association of planners and is the vice chair of special projects session coordinator and awards committee chair for this small

Town and world division of APA prior to coming to Bar Harbor and was the town planner for Reading Massachusetts and principal planner for the town of Danvers Massachusetts prior to public service and worked in the private sector in campus planning permitting and marketing and holds a Bachelor of Science and environmental studies from

The school of landscape architecture at SUNY College of environmental science and forestry at Syracuse University let’s welcome and Creek tonight thank you thank you so much Brittany um just to give a plug for Brittany she’s been a big help in organizing these webcasts and and giving me the training I need

For all the technology so I also want to say special hello to those members of the economic development division that are here today and especially to Shana and Adam plotz who had organized this web this webinar that is a somewhat of a repeat from the talk that I had given at

The national planning conference last April in Boston so they’ve been such a great support to me so I really appreciate their help also to those of you out there from the small town and rural division star this is a this topic is kind of goes between those two

Divisions in terms of its interest my friends at LinkedIn and a special shout-out to my friends from the suburbia world cyber BIA org is a great web organization of planners that we all are very supportive of each other ask great questions and perform some great liaisons professional and personal

Friendships so it’s a it’s a great place okay so to get started um show my screen this there we go this slideshow is actually if you are LinkedIn with me this slideshow is on my on my LinkedIn profile so if you want to take a look at any of these slides again

I shameless to use my children in my in my presentation so you’ll see them all there this first slide is one of the natural resources that is on Mount Desert Island Bar Harbor if you may not know it is actually on a bridged island off the coast of Maine called Mount

Desert Island and this shot of the Milky Way is really significant it’s probably one of the last places in the eastern seaboard in the United States anyway that has that has a full view of the Milky Way so it was denoted as a natural resource by the by Acadia National Park a few

Years ago and you know I I used this in here because as sort of a message to say you never really know and tourism what brings people to your area and the reason why we started really looking at dark skies as a natural resource at the municipal level in municipal planning

Level was we were doing some regional planning work as part of this effort called MDI tomorrow it was a regional planning group that had started many years ago and when we held a island-wide an island-wide session about what was important to people i’m not desert island

It was amazing that people all over the island and and we have four towns I’m not desert island and it’s amazing how different they are culturally and socially from each other so the fact that this dark skies was a resource that people felt was really important was amazing and what was further amazing

About it was that the local chambers of commerce had weighed in to say yeah we hear from visitors you know through our hotels and benham wreckfish that people come to Bar Harbor and they deliberately find dark spots in that in the park and you know outside of the downtown of of

Bar Harbor and all the other towns in the island deliberately to look at the Stars you know because if they’re coming from major metropolitan areas which our market area in Bar Harbor was definitely New York City Philadelphia Maryland the DC area and of course Boston so those

Areas don’t really have you know a dark sky as part of their part of their evening so it was so it was amazing so I guess the lesson from this that I want to convey to you is that you just you never know what is going to be important

To not just your residence but your visitors so you know keep your keep your eyes and ears open to what people are saying okay Bar Harbor by the numbers are the population is about 5,000 in the winter and it blossoms to about 18 to 20,000 in the summer there’s the every year it

Kind of changes depending on who you ask how many visitors we get but it’s anywhere between a million to three million and that number varies from year to year it obviously varies a little bit with the economy although the Bar Harbor is definitely blasting even spoiled because there there is some recession

Protection there because and I think it’s because Bar Harbor offers a vacation for just about every demographic you can go to Bar Harbor on vacation on the cheap and you know cook all your meals at your campsite you know the Acadia National Park is a couple of great campsite

It’s a very little cost or you can stay at you know one of these hotels that are in this picture in front of you and stay for you know you know four-star restaurants and four-star hotels and then everything in between so I think that really helps it did stay above the

Fray if you will of the economy because you can you can go there cheaply or you can go there hi so the assessed value this is kind of an old number but you know real estate comparatively in Maine Bar Harbor real estates very high I think the other the only other town that

Might be significantly higher is this Cape Elizabeth which is in southern Maine as well as parts of Camden so you know the land value in Bar Harbor is pretty high which puts as you as you know as planners when you have a high assessed value it’s wonderful but it’s

Also brings challenges because there’s a lot of pressure on land to perform so there’s always pushing the envelope of your zoning so your zoning is always under review shall we say in 2007 I worked on a comprehensive plan with a team of great consultants and came up

With a plan that received about 85% of the town meeting boat which for name is massive those of you in other parts of the country outside and New England probably don’t know what tell meaning is to our meeting is basically if you have open Town Meeting that means everybody

Comes and boats so your comprehensive plan is voted on by all the residents in the community and so there’s you know so obviously that has its challenges as well as when things do pass the good news is is that you know that people really liked it because you know because

Everybody has that opportunity to weigh in so the comprehensive plan I’ll give you no plug to say that it did win plan of the year for the Maine association of planners in 2008 so it’s a it’s a great plan it is on the town’s website so I

Encourage you to take a look at that I think one the best parts of the plan for Bar Harbor was the amount of public outreach that we did what we did was I as the the planning director at the time I I really ran the comprehensive plan myself so I

Went out and met with the different villages coffee shops standing on the pier there that you see in this photo and and talked to people and then assembled a plan from what I had heard you know I used the typical planning techniques of visioning sessions but in the beginning what started the process

Was what I called listening sessions and that’s when I went out there’s a few villages Salisbury Cove town Hill homes go that have little village halls and I went out there and with a blackboard very low tack and just said okay what’s so great about living in this village

And the conversations went from there and we filled the blackboard with everything that was important to people there and I I really feel that that initial step of just you know an informal even though it was a meeting it was a notice meeting and the whole bit

But it was still very informal that people felt comfortable coming out because you were going to them they weren’t going to town hall you know sometimes people are afraid to go into your Town Hall I know as planners that always sounds so strange because you’re

There every day but a lot of people are intimidated by that and especially in a smaller town so by going out to them you really earn a lot of respect and I think that’s really an important piece of when you’re working in a small town and especially when you’re working I think

In a tourist town because a lot of times in a tourist town residents will feel that their views are not being listened to you know that everything is run by the tourist industry nobody cares what we think as residents so you know there’s a there’s a stigma with that and

I think the more you as as the planner in that small town that has a tourist element you’ll go out to residents and not just the visitors and ask questions I think the better off you’re going to be subdivision filings you know it’s just like everywhere else

In the country are down and there’s it been surprisingly and happily a very steady school enrollment unlike other parts of rural Maine Barbara’s had a pretty steady school enrollment in part because we have a company called The Jackson Laboratory that employs about 1,200 barber residents so a lot of the

Residents actually may not work in the tourist industry at all but actually working at the lab as we call it and so that helps that definitely helps the school enrollment so that’s another word to the wise as we talk about the economy that if you have something I think it’s

Always important to have other things going on in the community other than tourism to really keep the town or the municipality itself vibrant and because you don’t have all your eggs in one basket in other words you know with the tax base in Bar Harbor is definitely the

Tourism industry I mean you know at the downtown definitely caters to there are a lot of year-round stores and there’s more and more that stay open year-round but still you know the tax base is by and large the hotels and bed-and-breakfast but the job base is in

Institutions so you know Bauer was in a really good position that way because they don’t rely on one thing to keep the community vibrant the Jackson Laboratory there’s a college called College the Atlantic there’s also expansions going on out at the MDI bio lab the bio lab

Used to just be a summer only kind of science retreat of doing you know research biological research on the water but it’s now become more and more which is great for Bar Harbor one more a year-round institution so it’s still though primarily seasonal I mean right now you know downtown Bar Harbor you

Can’t necessarily go bowling down Main Street but you can certainly walk down means and everybody that you pass by is definitely going to be somebody that you know it really for me living in Bar Harbor I really like that change I like the vibrancy of a busy summer of

Different people coming in all the people from all over the country there are families that actually write down the different license plates for every state in the country that come to my Harbor and they’ve got in all 50 states even Hawaii if you can believe it so you

Know so even though it’s seasonal I you know there still is the excitement of you know when things start to open in the spring and we you know sort of there’s a couple of places when they close in the in the winter time we recall it okay it’s dead low dead low

Tide in Bar Harbor because this particular you know restaurant has closed so so it does have that element that I think as a resident is great it does have its trials there aren’t always going to be and I’m sure many of you that work in the tourist tourist towns especially down in Cape

Cod probably hear the same thing that you know the groans of the tourists coming in in the summer or if it’s a winner tourism in the winter what’s I think what’s what really helps Bar Harbor and this is something I would encourage you to encourage in your tourist towns is that the commercial

Businesses in the downtown by and large are locally owned the town does not have the typical chains that you that you see there’s no gap there’s no McDonald’s there’s nothing the only chain that you’d recognize there is a little subway that’s locally owned by a great guy and

A couple of gas stations but that’s it and I think that is what really sets Pearl Harbor apart from other tourist destinations because a lot of people have you know anecdotally I’ve overheard people say it’s really nice to you know just see things that aren’t that they

Can’t get at home you know when people travel they’re traveling to leave home and not have the same things that they have at their house and and they’re you know where they’re coming from so there’s no you know none of the typical mall places and you know

Even our coffee shops are local it’s not even a Dunkin door that’s in town so it’s it’s definitely very local I know the jury’s out in planning law about whether or not you can control you know chains in your in your town and I would encourage you if you’re thinking about

Doing that just to talk at length with your town attorney because it hasn’t been upheld in some cases so I would discourage you from doing that but at the same time there are ways that you can encourage it like for example in Bar Harbor there is a ban on

Drive-throughs except for banks and I I think that’s one of the reasons why we don’t get some of the chains that other than other places get I also think it’s because of the just the specific season that the town has even though the season has extended in the fall for the cruise

Ships that we’ll talk about later it still is there still is a dark you know winter time when business goes low and just you know talking to somebody I met years ago at uh that works for Starbucks in looking at locations they said the reason why they wouldn’t go into a place

Like Bar Harbor is because because there’s such a downshift in the business that they need to have in order you know in order for them to locate someplace they need to have business at a certain level every month and so the fact that things go dead in the winter where and

The concept of even closing is just is not in their interest so I actually think more than just having no Drive thrus I think just the fact that we have such a specific season I think keeps a lot of businesses those chains away I’m not saying chains are bad but I mean but

My point is is that the visitor that comes to Bar Harbor wants that unique experience we hear it from cruise ship people that come we hear from our land-based visitors we hear from second home owners that they like coming in and having the businesses owned by people that live in Bar Harbor

It also makes downtown Bar Harbor very livable and walkable I think because a lot of people that own businesses in Bar Harbor actually live downtown so you have people and we have a very high percentage in the state of Maine I forget what the number is up hand but

There’s a very high percentage of Bar Harbor residents that actually walk to work so I think you know having those local community businesses owned by local residents is huge okay so pressures on tourism one of the big issues for Bar Harbor is the employee housing situation because it is as we

Said as I said so seasonal and you know people will only hire people for just four to six months at the most six months most of the time it’s it’s four to five months at the most and you know they need someplace to live and it is an

Island its bridged island but still it’s an island so there’s only so many places people can go and a lot of people their own homes in Bar Harbor you know want to there’s a lot of vacation rentals in Bar Harbor so you know they’re not as willing understandably because of the

Market they’re not going to rent it to somebody just working for four months when they can get you know two thousand a week for a vacation rental so people that come to work for the summer have a really hard time finding housing and a lot of major employers that the hotel’s

Most notably have a hard time finding housing for their employees so and there has been some housing issues where you know people too many people in a house and you know it really just becomes very crowded and it can be very loud Bar Harbor does have a nightlife and so when

The the hotel’s you know when the hotel staff it’s out when the restaurant staff goes out you could have it sometimes you have conflict in your neighborhoods between people that live in the downtown and people that are there working for the summer so having a good time I met when

They get out of work so in terms of addressing that as an issue I think definitely allowing it in certain places and having some requirements on and how many people can be in a house I think is important having some kind of inspection of that you know if that residents to

Make sure that it’s safe you know to make sure there are two ways out and the whole thing and the electricity is up-to-date because when you have a lot of people in the house you know it can be we have had a couple of instances where you know some safety issues were

Hampered by having too many people in a house so I would encourage you if you do have these issues is to have some kind of at least some kind of an inspection in place to make sure that people are safe that’s a basic code issue that I

Don’t think you should have any problem getting through parking just like a mall that needs a lot of parking in the at Christmas time you know the town of Bar Harbor and other tourist towns you all have parking issues in the summer or in your high season and you know I always

Used to say to downtown merchants when they complain about parking I would say well the fact that you don’t have a lot you know the fact that you have a parking problem it’s the good news because that means a lot of people want to be here so the I think the issue with

That though is you know if you provided just like at a mall if you provided enough parking at a mall just serve your Christmas crowd well you know half your town would be paved and it’s the same thing in Bar Harbor if you provide enough parking for to peep the number of

People that visit the downtown in the summertime I mean you’d have your downtown would get paved and then you lose you lose what’s what’s important about and what’s great about a town like Bar Harbor it’s you it’s a 3-story pretty much a three-story town in terms of the size of the

Buildings it’s very pedestrian and it’s not vehicular and so it’s you know it’s very walkable so you really have to be careful to not lose what’s special about your town in trying to provide for parking so you know I encourage things like parking garages and things like

That and so that so that your visitors have a place to park and to park all day because the problem of course with two-hour parking is if they go on a whale watch and they want to go have lunch they’re going to come back to a

Ticket so you know you have to look at that to to make sure you’re providing adequate space for people that want to be there all day because you want them there all day so pedestrian safety is is always you know when you have an older community like a Bar Harbor where the

Sidewalks where the roads are very narrow and the sidewalks are very narrow it’s you know it’s a constant challenge especially when a cruise ship is in because all pedestrians so you know we have to constantly look at the location of crosswalks and making sure they’re clearly marked so that so that people

Have convenient and safe ways to get around the downtown so that’s something you always have to take a look at Public Safety always is something that has to have an increase in the in the summertime and it’s very difficult in a police department especially because of the training requirement somebody who

Works as a summer police officer needs the same training as somebody who works year-round so what the police department’s done in the last couple years is instead of training people to just work for the summer and then they go work for someplace else they just

Have gone to a full full time staff so if there’s you know and and it’s worked very well for the last couple of fiscal years for that department and even though there are more people in the winter and what they do in the they’re doing more outreach to the

Community outreach you know to the schools to the high school to the elementary school has more of a friendly police presence with the students working with the students so I think that has been a real positive for the community so there’s creative ways that you can you know have that that stronger

Number of staff and then giving them other things to do in the winter time the fire department definitely and the ambulance department if we have that issue because there are more instances obviously there’s with the park with the Cady National Park there’s a lot of more instances of

Injuries and things like that so firing ambulance definitely get pushed to their limits in the summertime and as is this is happening nationally it’s very difficult to find people to volunteer for those for fire you know there used to always be volunteer fire fire personnel but now it’s very difficult to

Get that people are very busy and again there’s a training requirement even if you’re a volunteer firefighter you need to have the same training as a professional firefighter so there’s a real challenge for that because you have to make that investment as the community and then they’re a volunteer which you

Know means that if they move away or something like that you know you’ve trained them and they’re not there so it’s just something to be mindful of infrastructure maintenance this was definitely an issue it continues to be an issue for Bar Harbor you know Bar Harbor technically under

You know in Augusta the state capital at Maine d-o-t you know seized by harbors a town of 5,000 people although that attitude has changed positively over the last few years so a lot of your infrastructure monies are based upon a population of 5,000 people which you

Know is a very small town but but when you have a couple of million people visiting Bar Harbor that puts incredible incredible pressure on the roadway system and if you’ve been to not desert island there’s only a few ways to get through you can’t get there from here as they

Say in New England and you really can’t there’s you know some some some of the roadway systems are just really in that shape and so that’s the constant situation for the town because they’re their annual budget can’t possibly give the capital improvements that are required to keep up with that

Infrastructure but it’s really hard in a state like Maine that is it’s a it’s a large state there’s bad roads everywhere and and as a lot of you in other states in the country know there’s not a lot of state money out there and there’s and there’s not always a lot of federal

Money to fix roads so you know that’s that’s just a constant situation that that you’ll have when you have a small town but a significant amount of visitors the town has an economic development task force this task force was created from the comprehensive plan and what their job was was to create an

Economic development strategy because one of the things that came out of the comprehensive plan is that there wasn’t a clear direction on economic development in terms of what is our strategy what do we really want one of the the the outcomes of their work was redoing the downtown zoning the downtown

Zoning had this bizarre line that was just going through properties it didn’t have a clear measurement off of Main Street in Bar Harbor so it you know it was just kind of a crazy district so the task force literally went lot by lot meeting with different property owners different neighborhoods within the

Downtown to come up with his own district that allowed for you know a lot of intense businesses on the Main streets which are cottage cutter Street Main Street and West Street but as it bled into the neighborhoods to kind of downzone things so that if you aren’t on Main Street you know necessarily

Have a bar because again you know you have that conflict with people living downtown with as family as young families in many cases and having uses that conflict you know in terms of noise and and hours of operation so that was a positive thing that came out at that

Group the other one was the that hasn’t had as much success was trying to Reaver right the agricultural zoning to allow for more agricultural uses with less permanent and and to try to jump on to something that you see I know I’ve seen a few of them over in Vermont the Agri

Tourism where you go and and you live or you know you stay on a farm for a week with your family and you know you get to participate in the agricultural work of that farm and as part of your trip that’s the purpose of your trip and so

We worked on some zoning to try to allow for that and it was really difficult there was definitely a lack of a lack of trust really I think to the process that you know the if we made it a special permit with the Planning Board to have

This type of thing that some big hotel wasn’t going to go into a residential area and then plant you know I think the the example that was given a big hundred room hotel with an acre of carrots next to it and and calling it Agri tourism so

It was you know so that’s a work still in cross and in part and progress with the the Planning Board but it’s been it’s been very difficult so I’m sure you all have your war stories about trying to to do a you know a good piece of

Zoning and having a hard time with that communication so again meeting with residents and making sure you have a process that people believe in and will accept I think is crucial if you’re going to try to insert something like this because most of the farms in Barr

You know they’re not on the major corridors there’s a couple of them but a lot of them are nestled in two residential neighborhoods and so you’re you know that again creates a potential conflict in the eyes of people so that’s something to be mindful of is to make

Sure that you’re meeting you know very informally person face to face with with the neighbors on those situations the other thing that you know in the nine years that I was in Bar Harbor the one thing I would always hear about was the year-round community that the town

Wanted a year-round community and you know I just give a caution to that only because as I was talking before the chains stay out of Bar Harbor in part because of the season so if you have a year-round population that can support a chain business then they’re definitely

Going to come I mean they do they they do their demographic work they’re their marketing people are amazing they do great studies I would love to get my hands on some of them because they give you great data but but if you have the ear around community but the good news

Is you have a year-round community but the bad news is you can also support the type of businesses that you may not want to have and you know for for a town like Bar Harbor that has such high assessed value again the the challenge with the highest value is you have very high

Taxes for those commercial properties and sometimes a moment business can’t afford either the taxes or in in Bar Harbor it’s mostly the rents that really prevent people that’s why there is business turnover every year in certain buildings in Bar Harbor because of those high rents so you know the role of

Government can we can debate what the role of government is in there but definitely be careful about you know going for that your own community if you don’t have one right now cruise ships town of Bar Harbor gets about 120 visits a year they everything ranging from a

Smaller American cruise line you know which has a couple hundred people on it to some of the just shy of a mega ship where they’re you know 35 3,500 to 4,000 people on a ship and remembering that the year on population and barbers 5,000 you know you basically at times on a to

Ship day you’re bringing in more people that actually live in Bar Harbor so there there was a lot of backlash a lot of conflict between residents and some business owners even been in breakfast community that really had a concern about the numbers of cruise ships and

How it was being managed it’s not just their pedestrians in their mind it’s the busing because there’s cruise ships as you know if you’ve been on one there’s when you get off the cruise ship there is a line of tour buses waiting for you to take you you know whatever tour that

You’ve purchased so you know a to ship day you’re gonna have close to 20 buses and jam-packed in a small area and in that first slide that where I let me go back to it I’ll just show you this area really quick this area here you can see

There’s a ship there at the at the head of the town pier I mean that’s the area that the cruise ships come into they do not the only ones that can actually dock at the at the pier are these smaller ships that you see here that the other

Ones have to tender in have tender operations coming in but you can see how congested that would be to have that number of buses in there so what the Chamber did which I thought was wonderful they worked with the state and they got some money to do a destination management plan and destination

Management plan addressed a lot of these issues with busing and you know to have the bus not queuing rate you know rape next to the pier that you know they are brought in from another location so that there isn’t so much pressure and so much

Blocking of the pier a lot of people go down to the pier in the morning with a cup of coffee is part of their day so we didn’t want to have to have that stop for people especially residents so the destination management plan addressed things like having a passenger cap and

In the beginning a passenger cap when that had the media was not viewed as a positive thing because it you know the word cap you know to the cruise industry at the time was wait a second they don’t you know Bar Harbor doesn’t want us there which wasn’t the case so again I

Always caution people about you know get ahead of the message so that whatever industry that you’re controlling understands what the reasoning is behind it so there’s a passenger cap in the summer that’s pretty low it’s only thirty five hundred but then it goes up to fifty five hundred and up in

September and fall because most of the cruise ships that come to Bar Harbor are in the fall and the reason why it’s lower in the summer is the land-based visitor really rains in the summer I mean July and August August especially is when most of our land-based butter’s

Visitors are coming to Bar Harbor so there’s just so much that that that small pier that I showed you can handle so that’s really sort of a a visitor management effort on our on the town’s part to have you know to have that cap and also a different fee system before

It was just sort of a docking fee it was this generic fee and then there was a bus fee and what the committee did was they came up with a fee system that has a fee to cover the operation cost what we did was we figured out how much

Police time how much of the planning directors time how much ambulance time and Public Works the Harbormaster how many hours do they need to dedicate to this industry to provide them with services and we to feed to that so that was an operation speed and then the town coupled that

With a sort of a enhancement fee that allowed you know that with that all of the the cruise ships when they came in had to pay this fee sort of a capital improvement B so that the town could take that that money and do capital improvements for example the town built

New bathrooms right near the pier rate you know the bathrooms down on the pier you know there’s only a couple of stalls in each bathroom and you know they were always backing up and you know it was a really nightmare for on a to Christian

On a to ship day so the town built where the buses are stacked and a gonna park above the both appear they they put in some nice new bathrooms using that fee so again just like with any fee I would caution you to make sure that you’re

Using that fee to cover costs you know do the analysis of how many hours you’re dedicating you know for that particular service for the particular user and assign a fee and make sure when you do any kind of an enhancement or capital fee that that the projects that you’re

Picking our projects that serve that industry I mean the nice thing about doing something like bathrooms is it also helps the land-based visitor because there’s you know if you are in a tourist town you know that you never have enough bathroom so so that’s always a welcome thing as well as for residents

That are down in that area so definitely be careful when you set your fees to make sure that there’s that nexus there also if you are working with crew if you are a destination port for any type of cruise ships you know work directly with

The industry I think it was one of the best investments of time was having staff work directly with the industry to come up with something that they understood so you know because this was an exponential increase in fees for them so it was really important again to get ahead of that message and

Working directly with them so that they understood where their money was going a couple of other things is working on a second bus stop because the bus is going back down to the pier if you’ve been to Bar Harbor there’s a huge Hill coming up from that pier and a lot of older

Passengers weren’t you know the average age of a cruise ship passenger is pretty high so a lot of the passengers weren’t going to other parts of the downtown so again we were able to work with the industry work with a tour bus company to come up with a second bus stop to give

You know to give that ability for the older passengers to be able to go to other parts of the downtown so that all of the businesses you know reap the benefit because they as as one merchant had said to me the best the best thing about the cruise ships coming is you

Know having that number of pedestrians that are in the downtown you know they don’t come in cars they’re here you know they’re walking off the ships so it’s you know it’s a real boon for the merchants and again it you know there’s there’s always going to be conflict a

Lot of residents will say oh I don’t you know I don’t like to go downtown when there’s a cruise ship and but at the same time you know the merchants and even the restaurants he needs so much in a cruise ship do you think they wouldn’t

Want to eat when they come ashore but they do and and they are there all day so they’re eating meals in the harbor so a lot of restaurants add staff they you know they get the cruise ship schedule and they add staff on those days so you

Know definitely you know go door to door with the merchants to talk to them and and restaurant owners to talk to them about you know how do you respond to different times you know throughout the season you know what do you do so that you can address those okay a candy

Nationalpark Bar Harbor is made up 40% of our Harbor is a Katie National Park so it’s a the largest land owner if you will in the town so it’s important for the town to work directly with the park you know and having a good relationship I worked very well with the park planner

It was great that the park had a had a park planner so that you know you had a counterpart right there to work with so we were able to work through issues because obviously the park being 40 percent of Bar Harbor they you know they have a an understanding concern that you

Know the developments in Bar Harbor are going to have a negative impact on the park in a natural resource way but also in a congestion way because you can see with this this view you know there’s still a good tree cover you know even though my daughter’s looking out and to

Downtown Bar Harbor there still is you know there’s still a lot of tree cover there it still is a lovely view of a small town so you know you really have to have a good as your gateway community if you have if you have a national park

In in your area you know you’re considered a gated community and the most positive relationship you can have with them but better off it’s gonna be there’s always a lot of pushback though you know you’re gonna have residents that have a fear that you know the park

Is selling the town what to do it’s a federal government you know you’re going to have some of that bias there that you have to work with but but it’s important as a professional that you prefer that you establish that professional relationship with the National Park Service or Forest Service or whatever

Federal properties that you have in your community because they’re really an important piece it’s a very you know technically it’s a symbiotic relationship I mean people you know for Herbert’s lovely downtown but there’s a lot of lovely towns along the Maine coast so you know what sets us apart is

That people can come and do their shopping and and and have fine dining in downtown Bar Harbor but then they can they can go into the park here and you know and walk on trail never see another person you know all within 10 minutes of each other so you

Know that’s that’s really an important piece you really want to have that positive relationship there Acadia National Park had done some visitor surveys and some visitor management plans they were very controversial and they were released because there was a fear in the business community that you

Know that there was going to be some kind of you know visitor management in the same sentence you know can be a very difficult phrase to kind of work through if you’re a business because you’re saying wait a second we want as many people as we can and you guys want to

Manage it and I think the key here is is to again try to get ahead of that message for businesses saying there is a super saturation point in in a tourist community where too much is going to have people go someplace else and you don’t want to have that happen so you

Know having the part put its financial resources to do this visitor management plan I thought it was great because you can see where that tipping point is they did they did a great survey where they showed different congestion along the park loop road which is the vehicular Road that goes through Acadia National

Park you know at what point do you feel too congested as a visitor and they so they were really able to kind of give us a feeling of where that super saturation point is and you want to stay a little bit ahead of that and some of the ways

To do that you know it’s difficult in terms of role of government there but you know the park does things like limiting the amount of parking that’s available in the park you know the town allowing you know so many only certain districts allowing hotels and bed-and-breakfast because you know you

Want to have you definitely want to have people staying in your community don’t want them staying off island but you also want to make sure that you have just the right amount of people to keep it busy keep it vibrant but not having people walk away with a negative impression

So challenges I love this picture the whole concept of local being from away you know Bar Harbor has a large population like myself I moved to Bar Harbor in 2002 from the Boston area so you know I’m definitely list from away and now to locally have to be a local

You have to be there for a couple hundred years as your family so you know so there’s always you know you’re always going to be as the planner if you if you’re in a community like that where you you know you have to earn that respect also I always think that there

Is a challenge for any planner when economic development is also put on your desk technically it shouldn’t be because you know a big part of our comprehensive plan is planning for growth it’s not just planning against growth it’s planning for growth so again to try to

Marry that and make sure that is well communicated to people so that they understand that yes it’s a duplicate of role but the concept is is that we want growth we want growth to go here and and also as I’ve been saying throughout this presentation there’s that large

Population shift from the summer to the winter and that again you know culturally socially can put a lot of pressure on the community I think one of the things that I used to do and I would encourage you to do that too if you’re in a tourist town is do a Google Alert

For the name of your town and what’s kind of cool about doing that is you get a lot of travel blogs from people that you know that it’s like their family blog or whatever it is that they have posted photos of you know in this case Bar Harbor and they talk about what

Their trip was like and yes it’s anecdotal information absolutely it’s not something that you can you know take the town meeting but it does give you a sense of what is important to people you know that’s where I learned about people saying juice they have they have things

In their stores and they have stores and restaurants that we don’t have at home you know I learned that from reading all of those blogs so I’m encourage you to do that and even just go into places I call Telecom and looking at what people are saying the reviews of course people

Hardly ever write good reviews but at least you can read what people are concerned about and you know again that’s where anecdotally I found out you know certain visitors that are that do feel you know Bar Harbor has gotten a little crowded and so it’s an interesting it’s an interesting way just

To get to garner those comments from people because again you know the visitor they come in and they leave and you know they know they’re not going to stuff in town hall and let you know how their trip was so you know you have to find other ways of getting that

Information the chamber always is a great resource as well to give you information about visitors and visitation in general so I would encourage you to always have that a good relationship with with the chamber to get that information from them so the lessons from this is you know staying

Competitive is always necessary and and I think for Bar Harbor this this is a challenge for them because Bar Harbor has never felt and and it’s understandable that they ever needed to be competitive because you know they have a Cady National Park this is a public picnic area in the park down at

The other end of the island called seawall and you know there’s just all these great spots so you know there’s sort of that attitude of we don’t really need to compete but you know in Maine in particular you know the Mid Coast is changing its marketing efforts to you

Know to attract more tourists the Maine North Woods whether you feel it’s a good idea or not at some point you know parts of the Maine woods North Woods are going to be developed and over the next decade or so and so that will be that will

Become you know my prediction is that will become a major competitor so you know what matters it always is good to keep you know to keep ahead of that competition and to see what other communities are doing you know for example design review has always been a very it’s been a very challenging

Concept in for Herbert design review has been reviewing facades and signs and barber for a long time long before I got there and but it’s always been a difficult one because of its subjectivity but you know as the message that I always delivered what that was

You know when you’re a tourist town you need to stay competitive and it matters how you look and it does matter what color the building is and and that the you know that the building itself is at a pedestrian scale because most of your visitors are at the pedestrian scale

They’re not driving through town they’re walking through town so those design concepts that we as planners you know understand completely you know we’re really sometimes difficult for a lot of your local businesses because somebody else is looking at the work that they’re investing their money in so you have to

Respect that and respect that property right but at the same time you need to get that message across that you know we got to keep the place looking good to keep people coming here so I think I think that’s important I always find when there’s you know during the

Comprehensive Plan I always used to joke that you know controversy brings people together when you have something that’s a target it’s you know it actually gets people talking and and you can get some really good dialogue out of it you’re exhausted as the planner after the controversy is over but you’ve actually

Got to see the community coming together in a good way and in a small town that you know that something that always has to be honed and again you know protecting your resources is you know maintaining that stature as a tourist community it’s really important to protect what’s special about where you

Are bar harbors in a good position because Acadia National Park you know already protects its own property so what you know the main thing that brings people is for that area is already protected but you know you may be in a community where you know if it’s a

Waterfront and there’s a lot of private ownership and in that waterfront you may want to start looking at having some public investment in owning you know some of that areas that are special to people so that they are protected so that people will come or keep coming and

So that’s something that I would encourage you to do I think that is probably I think I’m at a point where I’m ready to start taking questions Brittany I don’t know how okay great okay well our first question comes in from Eric Olson what role does public transportation or transit or tour buses

If any play in your area it is seen as an economic development tool in terms of advertising opportunities reductions in need of parking a downtown trolley etc yep absolutely I forgot to mention that so thank you for mentioning that one of the products of the NDI tomorrow effort

Was creating the island Explorer bus Friends of Acadia which is a local nonprofit had worked with this group MDI tomorrow and one of things that came out of it was to have an island-wide bus system and they worked with LL Bean and main d-o-t to come up with it’s a three

Bus that goes you know all over the island in and out of the park through the park and it’s and it’s just an amazing every year the numbers go up and what’s funny is there’s a huge spike in bus usage on the days that a cruise ship

Is in but also in those summers that we’ve had just a skyrocketing gas prices we’ve had an incredible increase in use of buses so the island Explorer has played a huge role in connecting downtown Bar Harbor with the park the challenge with that is we try to get the hotels to encourage

Their the people that are staying there to leave their car at the hotel and not bring their car into Bar Harbor and get on the bus to get on the bus at their hotel because most of the the bus lines go you know right next to hotels because

What we’re finding is you know we have sort of this all day parking all over the place in Bar Harbor for people that are getting on the bus to go into town so you know so we’re again there’s an outreach with the hotel industry to try

To get them to use that we have it’s part of the cruise ship work try to do an in town bus system so that again the people that are down on the pier can walk up that big hill to the top of the hill and to go to stores up there until

It’s green so that’s still a project that is pending it’s been it’s been difficult coming up with the route because because the streets are so narrow actually the downtown can get pretty congested with vehicles so so thank you good question okay great our next question comes in

From James poni can you discuss the level of organization or involvement by the merchants of his organization yeah there is a a group that stemmed from the chamber called the Bar Harbor Merchants Association and they have become a very strong I was a lobbying group because can be seen as negative because there’s

Been so positive with them they have worked really well coming up with new new language for Design Review to make it a little bit more specific to have certain types of signs not have to go you know to the Design Review Board and the Chamber the you know the Bar Harbor

Chamber of Commerce has worked directly on those things so so yeah they you know they work directly with our regulatory authorities and with the town and come to the town council pretty much every meeting you know for some kind of check with them so I you know I think that’s

Been a positive positive change over the the nine years so that was there okay our next question comes in from Douglas Martin do tours ever complain about overly strict parking enforcement do year-round residents have a difficult time seeking certain services grocery or other stores they’ve to drive a long

Distance to on the mainland yeah every year there there always was the people coming into the police station with their their ticket to say you know this this you know doesn’t make me want to come here I mean you’re always going to have that that tourist or a few tourists

That come in every year but by and large you know one of the things that the police department did which is very subtle but it really helped with the complaints was instead of the ticket saying parking ticket it’s a parking fee so and you didn’t get multiple tickets

Like in in Boston if you you know you can get three tickets for you know in the time that you’ve left your car over time but in in Bar Harbor you just get the one ticket if you’ve left your car somewhere and and so just that little

Subtlety that when you pick up that slip of paper it says parking fee and that parking ticket I think did reduce the complaints a little bit because it’s just sending the message that you’re in a two hour zone and but we didn’t tell your car we but

You got to pay us you know 15 bucks so and keeping your ticket prices low is important to in terms of local residents yeah absolutely I mean locals if they don’t live downtown always have a hard time finding parking especially people that work downtown because a lot of the lots that

In the winter are free and can find a parking spot pretty easily get filled up pretty fast in the summer so that’s always a challenge but most of the residents figure out the little hiding places in different neighborhoods and things to to stow their car okay our next question comes in from

George the barge on the slide with the economic development task force you skipped the notes about good deeds going unpunished can you share your gain to pain ratio yeah you know it’s like the the it’s really relates to their work on agricultural tourism I mean they really

Had you know here this is as an economic development task force which you know a lot of people lot of planners and people would envision you know a bunch of starchy business type people at that group but it was really a group of people that were very forward-thinking

And really trying to do good things and you know so they worked really hard with the planning board with the Conservation Commission I mean they brought in so many different people to help you know work on that language and and and it really went I mean it didn’t just get

Defeated it just went down in flames and you know and so there’s there’s always that you know you’re trying to do what you think is good planning and and it ends up you know failing it tell me ending miserably in this case okay I’m sorry next question comes in from Jason

Langley what projects are you working on now I’m not with the town right now so I am you know working you know getting some contract work and looking for my next gig so and then I’m in between gigs right now so I’m not with the town okay

Um our next question comes in from Rush Wix how have gas price spikes and dips affected the tourism to Bar Harbor is this something taken into account in the planning process during the peak months um definitely I you know I think like I say with the island explorer they got a

Huge peak that summer I forget what year it was that the gas prices were just out of control so you know we saw you see a big spike in the use of the island Explorer bus and don’t there was a slight dip in people coming but amazingly like I I started out with

By harbours in an NB Bowl I think position to welcome people from all demographics so yeah you may spend more getting here because of the gas prices but once you get here you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot I mean the restaurants will will say it’s it’s an interesting editor the restaurants

Will say it’s a efficient ship summer as opposed to a lobster summer but people still come they may not spend as much because they’ve had to spend more on you know and gas to get here but they still come the numbers still are there so they’re really in an enviable position

Okay our next question comes in from Allison low do any of your restaurants and hotels work with the nearby farms to source and promote local food is there an opportunity to do that yeah there’s a great group it’s not sanctioned by the local government it’s sort of a group

That grew if you will out of itself or from interested people for Community Supported Agriculture they’ve worked with in fact it was in the comprehensive plan to get that going is to you know to encourage community supported agriculture like schools for example are trying to use more local farms we you

Know we have a great dairy farm we have great produce we have a good pig farm and you know so more and more restaurants are trying to use more local food and as well as our our schools so yeah there is a group but it’s a group outside of the town government they

Started that on their own okay our next question comes in from Stephanie McBrayer please talk about the role of the arts and cultural tourism in your economy also is there any sort of Native American or First Nation cultural presence and the canoe in the community and its economic makeup there is most of

Our the Native American population is more in what’s called Downeast Maine which is north of Bar Harbor we do have we’re very lucky to have as one of our downtown anchors a museum called the abbey Museum it’s a BBE I’m not desert street and that museum is dedicated entirely to showcasing the Native

American life and population I’m not desert island parts of Mount Desert Island were actually summer locations although there was a went to population but a lot of of our Native Americans that were in the Bangor area actually would travel to Mount Desert Island to do summer fishing and

Relaxation with their families so it’s been a summer place for a long time but in terms of a population there now I I’m not aware of any it’s mostly in the form of a museum it’s a wonderful Museum and they and they do great work and communicating that to our visitors and

They have good visitation numbers and I forgot what the other part of the question was I didn’t write it down what she was talking oh um please talk about the role of the arts and cultural tourism in in the economy of Bar Harbor well traditionally Bar Harbor was seen

As and still continues to be seen as an arts community there there are a couple of our tours you know open houses were you know because a lot of our artists work in their home and so they’ll do sort of art tours where you can go to

Their home studio to see their work so you know the island itself in Bar Harbor definitely still have that community one of the projects they didn’t list here in this economic development piece was some of the zoning work that they did was to encourage and allow a retail element if

You’re if you’re a if you’re an artist and you have your studio at home right now we the town consider that a home occupation but what the zoning change added to it was that you could have a retail element to it as well so that you

Could have a studio on your property and allow people to come and buy so that you know just to keep encouraging artists to be able to live and work in Bar Harbor because again you know the downside of a high assessed value in your downtown is it makes it

Really difficult for galleries of local artists to really be able to afford that rent we do have a couple of wonderful galleries but people that have been there their whole lives that said there were a lot more before and I and I attribute it to the high rents that make

It difficult for them to be downtown so this is a way for artists to be able to sell their wares and and not have to you know be part of that that high rent I would prefer that they be downtown I think it’s an important element of the

Downtown but at least to give them that ability to live and work in Bar Harbor all right great our next question comes in from sue Fox did you work closely with the sheriff and emergency services for your plan absolutely I mean my position also was the public information

Officer so we had to do a lot of training under Homeland Security O’Town because of the number of cruise ships the number of visitors to town the good side of that is you do get a lot of homeland security funding so with you our tourist town definitely look into

That before it dries out but so I did a lot of training with Public Safety as part of my job which I really enjoyed that we did a full-scale mass rescue exercise last May you know where we had to we had to tender boats which are the

Boats that bring in people from the cruise ships to the pier I had a we staged a collision of those tender boats and and how what our response would be so we had you know actual media there and it was it was a great event so yeah I did work very

Closely with Public Safety and and I was really grateful for that okay our next question comes in from Peter Johnston is there some mechanism in place for assessing the return on public investment in tourism hmm you mean some kind of attack I assume he means some kind of a tax type thing

The town has tried in the past it’s very controversial as you can guess of trying to do some kind of a hotel tax that you know Local Option tax so that some money’s from the hotel rooms could you know funnel back from the state from Augusta back you know to Bar Harbor so

That again Bar Harbor would be able to get some capital monies to be able to serve the population that comes I mean technically it appear to make sense but it’s been it has failed a couple of times in Augusta because even though there’s Home Rule in Maine you still

Need to have in order to tax like that you still need to have an act of legislature to do it so it hasn’t been a positive experience trying to get that through some I don’t know if that answers this question okay well our next question comes in from Michael Smith

This might be on a similar note what it what’s the role of room occupancy taxes in Bar Harbor if you have them where the revenue spend and how does it play into the planning efforts yeah like I say it really it’s it’s failed you know it’s

It’s too bad in a way because it you know it would definitely be taxing the user and I think most visitors that most of us that travel I know I’ve you know traveled all over the country and you know you just get used to seeing that

Tax on the bill you know you just kind of factor it in but but you know the local hotel yours especially the smaller ones we’re really concerned that that was going to turn business away from them and you know so there so there was a local concern about it and again at

The state level the state legislature denied the ability the couple of times that it did get to that level okay well our next question comes in from a mere cost people in mountain resort communities have a hard time accepting change do you have any advice on how to deal with

Public with a public that is in denial that their community is in the transition phase in becoming a business hub and not just a community for millionaires yeah that’s you know that’s just that day-to-day trying to get ahead of the message thing I mean I I found a

Lot of success was when I went out to them like I said I went out to different villages and met in their little village houses and I mean I went to I went to a couple of tea parties even at people’s homes you know to you know to get to

Work with them on a one-on-one basis you know because remember people live in a small town because they like the personal touch of living in a small town so if you as a government official or as a professional can you know work on that one-on-one level with them I know it

Takes a lot of time but it does pay off and I know the times that I didn’t do that it didn’t go as well so I you know I think investing that time and I know it’s a lot of time I think does pay off great our next question comes in from

John Valdez if you have an economy dependent on tourism that you want to diversify what steps do you take to ensure the appropriate industry mix that will not harm the tourism or special areas yeah that’s always a challenge in planning so you don’t you know do spot

Zoning you know I think I think one of the the downtown zoning things that the economic development test first said that I thought was really effective was allowing certain uses uncertainty that had you know four Lots that had frontage on it on the main road like I say you

Know using bars as the example you know there’s there’s a huge population of our Harbor that lives in the downtown area so you know trying to kind of keep that conflict at bay by only allowing you know bars on the Main Street and not on the side streets you

Know that type of thing I think you can use those types of zoning techniques where you really look at frontage you know where where is this property going to go I mean you know what type of land use on this particular property I think using things like the special use permit

You know sort of special permit whatever you know they call it in your state I think is also a good thing although you know I always caution the special permit because sometimes you’ll get some backlash because it is so it’s a suggestive one of a subjective permit

It’s not as a bright type of thing so you know sometimes you get a little backlash on that but if it’s a use that you’re kind of wincing at saying well this would be good here but not everywhere you know that’s something you know that’s when you look at the special

Permit so I think you know those type of zoning techniques I think can really can really help you but yeah I mean if you allow hotels and in your business districts then and you have to assume that you may get a huge build out of

That and and the market yes I you know I understand that the market will fix itself but in the meantime you may have empty buildings and you know you just have to try to make sure that your district is small enough or large enough to accommodate you know the uses that

You want to have or control the uses that you don’t want too much of great our next question comes in from Brian McClay is there a destination management plan as you discussed available for viewing electronically yes there is I don’t know if it’s on the town’s site

Anymore but I believe it’s on the website for it’s it’s called cruise Maine it’s all one word so if you google cruise Maine and you go on to her website any powers as the director she’s very helpful so you know you may want to I am 99%

Sure it’s still on her her website under Bar Harbor so you might want to look there I don’t think it’s on the town’s website anymore although I if it is it would be under Planning Department so I’d encourage you to look there – and that’s Bar Harbor Maine cough

Okay I’m our next question comes in from Patricia how would you characterize the community’s planning relationship with other adjacent coastal communities and she’s writing in from the counting plant County Planning in beautiful Lake George New York wow I look like George I grew up in Syracuse went to Lake George a lot

The you know I the town of Bar Harbor is the only town they don’t in fact they’re not having they’re not replacing the position they’re not gonna have a planner anymore but they but when I was there I was the only planner on the island so the other towns do not have

Another professional planner so if I interface with them it was with their you know somebody I know they’re planning board or the town manager town administrator someone like that so yeah I mean I definitely was on an island with that but I think by and large you

Know we the you toe managers meet on a monthly basis island wide to go over you know what they’re working on and to have that interface and I think that has been very positive relationship there and the park is there and some of the direct off island communities as well as of islands

Because there’s a few islands that feed on to amount desert island from you know they’re fairies and to our school system so we also need to do outreach with them but it’s mostly through the town managers and not necessarily through the planner okay sorry our next question comes in from I might

Pronounce this wrong Q’s ow I do residents and businesses feel overwhelmed by visitors and pollutions from the l.l.bean buses well most of the beam buses are have gone to elect a well propane or electric I believe I don’t think there’s very many left that aren’t so I don’t see that too

Much as an issue with that but yeah I mean every year people definitely complain about residents complain about congestion in the downtown and I mean that’s you know that’s gonna happen everywhere in a in a tourist community and again and I think you know having like with the cruise ship situation you

Know going through the process working with a professional that has worked with the industry like we did mark it’ll is his name’s he was absolutely wonderful and you know coming helping us come up with a destination management plan I think was really important because it

What it did was we were able to come up with like I say a bus cueing plan we were able to come up with a better area for taxis and you know better controls on that situation and you know just really I think it’s important as the professional and you know going through

The effort of being with stakeholders which is what we did as part of that process and then coming up with a way to to get people through the area safely and efficiently okay our next question comes in from Andy Andrew door what can small tourist towns or islands with high

Assessment values do to ensure affordable home and business opportunities for year-round people or families yeah that has been I didn’t have that as a slide and I probably should have housing probably is one of the biggest issues for Pearl Harbor over the years right now the housing markets kind of

Dead so it’s kind of hard to talk about housing that’s probably why it’s not on there but in past years housing has been a huge issue like the the hospital for example they have a really hard time recruiting you know the island it’s in Bar Harbor

MD a hospital they have a hard time recruiting because even doctors say oh it’s really you know I have to get such a small house and you know because of the housing value so it is really hard and even multi-generational Bar Harbor residents it will say Jesus I grew up

Here but I can’t live here I have to live off Island now if you go if you go to the bridge at the head of the island it’s just a steady stream of cars coming onto the island every morning you know going to the lab going to Hinkley boat

Company I mean there’s it is it’s clearly an issue we have tried a couple of housing projects with the Housing Authority and they’ve been difficult you know because what we try to do is we try to do good planning and do you know cluster development but you know

Somebody moving here from Long Island and you know they want their two acres you know they don’t want to be in a cluster so even market you know we have a market issue of trying to do affordable housing for people that are coming here to work at the lab and you

Know they’re looking at the house saying well this neighbor is no different than the neighborhood I left and they like I say they want their own space so it’s so we have a market challenge as well as a cost challenge and it’s you know it’s just gonna be a perennial issue I

Believe okay our next question comes in from Randall is Bar Harbor seen as a destination for retirees and if so does the comprehensive plan address this also would you say the downtown caters more to tourists or residents well I think you know the average age definitely has

Gone up in the in the 2007 comprehensive plan I think it was it was like at 47 years old and in 1990 which was the last comprehensive plan prior to that one you know it was like 44 so you know obviously yeah I mean there’s a lot of

People I noticed it on the different boards and committees that were when I would say young retirees you know they’re in there in their late 50s early 60s still very healthy and vibrant and and they you know they moved to Bar Harbor and telecommute in some cases and

And move there so there’s definitely an increase in that population because you know for them you know they sell their home in their major metropolitan area and they make you know good money on that sales so 350 thousand four 3-bedroom Cape to them is a good deal they’re coming from Connecticut where

That same Cape would have been 700,000 so you know that it does and that kind of pushes up those housing sales that and the vacation rentals definitely push up the price of housing and is having that population so it makes it harder for you know younger families that are

Just starting out to buy a house in terms of services I know the the why are local YMCA with a great YMCA they they have done a lot of more services for that aging population the town itself is not but the YMCA has really has really

Picked up the ball on them and in terms of the downtown commercial it’s funny the ones this stores you know it’s it makes perfect sense the stores that closed in the winter are the stores that really cater to the tourists and the ones that stay open year-round of the

Things the places we all go to you know the kitchen supplies the the book store that’s sort of like almost like a five-and-dime as well as a book store places like that they stay open year-round but yeah a lot of you know things that sell t-shirts and things

Like that yeah they do shut down okay I think this will be our last question it comes in from Susan poplin are there significant differences in design standards along the Main Street compared with those back from or off the Main Street in Bar Harbor no but that’s a

Good idea they probably should be know the design standards really just speak to things like having the scale like if you’re putting in a new building having the scale be in line with what’s around it so it’s a very much of in relying on the environs

Of that building so you know so the board goes and looks at the area to see what’s around it and you know some of the more controversial projects were because the the building the proposed building was at a scale that was that much larger than the buildings around it

We did try for a little while having a performance standard of floor area ratio and the floor area ratio was an average of all of the abutting properties floor area ratios and that was what was assigned to you it was a great idea and it worked well for a while but then you

Know you have those anomalies that drive us all crazy as planners you had those anomalies where you know somebody would just be trying to put in a little shed off the back of the house and they wouldn’t be able to because of you know because of this F AR thing so it ended

Up we ended up taking it out of the ordinance but I’m still not saying that fer isn’t a bad approach but you just have to really be careful about those little anomalies if you use that approach okay great well I’m thank you and so much for this presentation today

Also thanks to the Economic Development Division for sponsoring it today and so for the attendees who are still here I’m going to go over a few reminders and just in just a moment after I get my screen loaded thanks again Ian thank you okay well for those of you who are still

With us I’m going to go over a few reminders first off to log your cm credits for attending today’s webcast please go to WWE and org slash cm select today’s date Friday February 3rd and then select today’s webcast opportunities and challenges in rural tourism planning this webcast is

Available for one and a half CM and we are also recording today’s session so you will be able to find a recording of this webcast along with the PDF at wwu ta PA org slash webcast archive and this does conclude today’s session and I want to thank everyone again for attending you

Are we off yeah I’m you’re free to go thank you all right all right thank you

ID: E3V6AyA-qUY
Time: 1343165137
Date: 2012-07-25 01:55:37
Duration: 01:29:52

منبع