Laserfiche WebLink
MINUTES OF THE <br /> ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION <br /> February 21,2023 <br /> 6:00 o'clock p.m. <br /> commission as well as the City Council to have a review process of how this looks. We maybe can't go <br /> back based on the amount of dirt that was removed. I'm fairly certain that what we're looking at there <br /> from the original walls to what's new are not in-kind. They're a different footprint.They're different <br /> angles and different places on the hillside. So my initial thought is also the precedents that we set to then <br /> go back and approve and after-the-fact variance,because I worry does that say 'go ahead and do what you <br /> want?' And then we're going to have to say, 'Oh,well,we're stuck with it now'. I worry about the <br /> precedents and what that sets for our City.We've got a lot of bluff and hillside to protect around the lake <br /> and that might be a slippery slope,pardon the pun. <br /> Bollis said he definitely has the same concerns as Commissioner Kirschner. Typically,when you're doing <br /> a project like this, if you can't build in-kind for whatever reason, it's great to come back here.But looking <br /> at it as a situation where it's imminent that there's going to be a problem,I question whether it could have <br /> even been built in-kind.We don't know what those existing walls were. We don't know if they even met <br /> code as far as what the new walls have to meet and are engineered by. So all the information I have,I feel <br /> like the new system is definitely engineered, signed off on. We don't even know what the old system was. <br /> I feel like the contractor did a good job dealing with the problem that they had there. It's just unfortunate <br /> it didn't come up here. Or it wasn't able to come here because I wouldn't have wanted to stop and then get <br /> halfway through the winter and not be able to do anything.And then we'd have a huge problem this <br /> spring, if that were the case. So I think it's probably fortunate that it got built to the extent that that it did.I <br /> think either way, if the engineer says it works, if there's a seventh wall or just raising that sixth wall,I'm <br /> fine with the proposed raising the sixth wall and doing the appropriate grading. I guess the question for <br /> staff would be I don't know if that would require a railing. <br /> Curtis said the City's building official could be asked to comment on that and clarify with the applicant if <br /> a railing is required by state code before it goes to the City Council. <br /> Libby said he tends to favor several remarks that Commissioner Kirschner mentioned. One is that I think <br /> it was a poorly-conceived plan to start with; it did not get enough review. And I think that once you get a <br /> stop order, it's a flag. Not to defend the City Council,but when you have an approval, and then <br /> something different than what was approved is built or constructed with very little interaction with the <br /> City engineering, it's a formula for failure. Because for one thing,you created a slope that didn't exist <br /> before.And in the spirit of conservation and preservation,not only within the scope of our empirical <br /> bluffs ordinance,you have the protection of the lake itself.And I think that those were not centrally <br /> focused on how the engineer designed this with very little consulting or approval in that plan and design <br /> and engineering with the City. So trying to remove a little fault from the City, I defer to Mrs. Price's very <br /> sage wisdom as a credentialed individual looking at this kind of from the outside,that there was too little <br /> analysis to really look to not have the disaster that I think this really is. I think that what they really need <br /> to do is recreate the bluff wall at the top that they previously had. First of all,you could have a straight <br /> fence. It would be helpful,but no one knows that,not even the contractors,who know how to operate the <br /> machines and move the dirt in the soil and bring the portions of the wall out that needed to be removed. <br /> There really are not enough statistical solid metrics to really determine how this really should have been <br /> done and how to fix it. I'm not really in favor of approving any of this.Even with the staff suggestion,the <br /> two suggestions that I made,I think really should go back to a planning stage with the original engineer <br /> who should have done more due diligence with the City engineer, so they know that as they move <br /> Page 8 of 19 <br />