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MINUTES OF THE <br />ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION <br />February 21, 2023 <br />6:00 o'clock p.m. <br />Mr. Valdes said he wouldn't want to say 100% but is 90% sure the project will hold the bank. <br />Mr. Prust added one of the requested items that came from the last meeting they were at was that they <br />have their engineer do an analysis of the neighboring properties as much as possible and get a survey with <br />topographical to satisfy that those banks are stable, and they're not going to go anywhere. He said the <br />neighboring walls in addition still have vegetation on them. So they still have their trees and all their <br />plants and stuff that didn't get burned up. All that root structure is still helping to hold their slopes up. <br />Libby asked if the engineering plans articulated that they needed to remove portions of the bluff to <br />remedy the erosion. <br />Mr. Valdes said the reason they had to remove soil was to backfill it with drain rock behind the timbers. <br />The engineering plan called for 18 inches of drain rock behind the timber walls. <br />Libby said he has worked in a couple of projects like this. So I'm just trying to get a scope of <br />understanding how you approach this from an engineering and then a positive outcome. If you're <br />removing portions of the bluff, wouldn't that naturally then increase the pitch of the bluff so that there's <br />less soil to work with and then you have more of a grade down towards the lake shore? <br />Mr. Valdes said they were not taking away from the height of the bluff but creating space to backfill with <br />drain rock. <br />Chair McCutcheon opened the public hearing at 6:20 p.m. <br />Patty Yorks, 2825 Casco Point Road, said she had hoped to show photos of what was there previously, <br />what is there now and what other neighbors have done to mitigate the bluff. I'm also on a bluff, and <br />everybody else here, another 10 people, are also on this bluff. We all are expressing major, major <br />concern. It wasn't necessary to do this digging. Everybody along the bluff has done work within your City <br />ordinances and complied. They've done things by hand. They've been very careful and mindful of all the <br />vegetation on the on the bluff. And these people just came in and bulldozed everything and removed the <br />dirt. There was a big road down to the bottom of the bank. It was just an absolute travesty of how they <br />approached this and little or no regard for the lake or the environment. And we have two engineers that <br />live right in that notification area that you sent out. They're just amazed at what the City is allowing them <br />to do, because they do not believe it's built structurally appropriately and engineered appropriately. And, <br />to my knowledge, the engineer that they have has not signed off on this and standing behind the <br />engineering. I just am concerned that this is not going to hold and the City is going to have some liability <br />on this because they're approving something that is not accurate. <br />McCutcheon said he doesn't pretend to know the history of this project, but obviously you do as a <br />neighbor. But normally when these things are in construction it has to get ugly before it gets better. In <br />hearing the applicant explain the process, it sounds like when they were removing the old wall with the <br />rotted timber that the only solution was to dig it out and fix it. <br />Page 3of19 <br />