02-18-2025 Planning Commission Packet (2)

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Pass Property Development Phil and Mandy Little 4620 North Arm Lane Orono Planning Commission Meeting – Nov. 18, 2024 Background on this property over the years is that Carol Armstrong Pass’ family has a long history in the area, and was approached by a couple of neighbors around her property over the years to purchase some of the property to protect them from development. When asked, Carol said no as she didn’t want to sell as she wanted to preserve her land to prevent the possibility of development in the future. She also attempted to gift the land to Orono to be used as a park or protected natural habitat and Orono refused as they did not have the funds to maintain it. Carol also joined along with neighbors to fight against the Bayside Trail Cul de Sac development as she was concerned about what it would do to the wetlands and surrounding area of her property. We are certainly perplexed knowing her wishes for the property that she verbalized to people over the years, and now that after she is gone this land is going to be developed which is what she fought against over the years. The only Armstrong family member that resided in the house on the property that we know of is Carol’s brother until his passing. Because the Pass family has never lived out here to my knowledge, other than Carol as a child, we are assuming other members would have little or no attachment to this property. We certainly understand the family’s desire to receive compensation for this property since there is no attachment to it since her death. Maybe no one other than Carol knew about any of the surrounding neighbors desire to purchase additional property which is why no one was approached. We only found out about the development this summer when a hunter came on to our property and our neighbor’s asking permission to bow hunt on it because he had lost the ability to hunt on the 20 acres behind us due to a development coming in. In contacting the City of Orono they confirmed that it was in the planning stage. I contacted the 10 property owners that share boundaries with the Pass Property. None of them had knowledge of the project. The 11 property owners are; Little Froemming Thull Neilson Sipprell Holloway Nord Paldrmic & Potvin Haus Jabbour White It seems that this development is to be “shoehorned” into a wetland area with no regards to the properties surrounding the development. The area of impervious surface is breathtaking. The fact that it runs 24 ft wide along the entire boundary of our property is unacceptable – the planned buffer is inadequate, there is no protection from 2 inch trees being planted that will provide any protection in our lifetime. 12 inch trees would be a minimum. 176