Planning Board schedules March workshop to review comprehensive plan draft

Planning staff told the Skowhegan Planning Board the town’s comprehensive-plan draft is roughly 70% compiled and is on track to be delivered to board members by the end of the month. The board agreed to hold a workshop at the second meeting in March to review the full draft.

The staff update said the current draft runs about 70 pages and staff expects a finished document of roughly 250 pages. "We have 69 responses to our public participation survey," the staff member said, and asked board members to help boost participation toward a goal of 100 responses.

Board members discussed scheduling for review and the need to allow time for members to read the full draft before the workshop. The board set the second meeting in March as a workshop and agreed to a 5:30 p.m. start time to accommodate working members. A board member also noted a personal scheduling conflict related to a family medical matter and asked the board to be flexible when setting the workshop date.

Planning staff also said they would seek clearer maps and illustrations from the Select Board’s transportation plan (the VPI draft discussed by the Select Board) for inclusion in the comprehensive-plan appendices. The staff member said they would attempt to obtain the Select Board’s final transportation document for clearer maps and to incorporate suggested transportation recommendations such as safety measures and a proposed Madison Avenue road diet.

No formal vote was recorded to adopt the comprehensive plan at this meeting; the board’s action was to schedule a focused workshop and to request the final transportation materials from the Select Board.