Issue date: 12/7/06 Section: News

Media Credit: rose collins SMALL TOWN BLUES - Mark Haggerty discusses how Orono compares to other college towns in the country.

Members of the Orono Town Council's Community Development Committee met Monday to follow up on a Nov. 9 informational meeting where Orono citizens discussed a proposal to tighten Orono's occupancy limit for unrelated individuals.

There was no consensus at the meeting over the main issue being addressed by the proposed changes, but loud student behavior, appearance of properties and proliferation of renters into traditionally single-family neighborhoods were all cited.

Committee member Lianne Harris questioned whether the number of people living in an apartment would necessarily affect those behaviors.

"The appearance of the outside of a house is the issue," answered committee member Terri Hutchinson, who cited "out of control parking," where excess cars crowd narrow streets and some cars are parked on front lawns.

To Mark Haggerty, council member and UMaine professor, the goal was to first figure out whether Orono was average for a town of its size hosting a large university.

"We're asking 'what should we look like as a town,'" Haggerty said, "not 'how loud should our town be.'"

The committee, which is not completely attached to the idea of tightening the occupancy limit from five to three unrelated people, looked over materials provided by Town Planner Evan Richert. Richert compared the percentage of owner-occupied residences in Orono to that of nine similar college towns across the country. The cities and towns on the list were rated by an online list as "Great College Towns."

Compared to those nine towns and cities, Richert characterized Orono as "right around the middle" in terms of its percentage of owner-occupied homes out of all homes in the town. The figure doesn't count dormitories, fraternities or sororities.

The committee discussed alternate ideas from the informational meeting such as licensing landlords or establishing landscaping standards to prevent landlords from building large parking lots around residences in single-family neighborhoods.

The committee asked Richert to explore the possibility of a landlord-licensing program and requested a draft of such a program.

They considered grandfathering residences already set up for more than three unrelated people, giving landlords a time frame in which to upgrade those apartments to comply with Maine's Life Safety Code. The Life Safety Code states that residences with more than three "outsiders," which is understood as referring to unrelated people, are considered "rooming houses" and must be fitted with sprinklers and other special fire safety precautions.

There was some support for a landlord committee, as suggested earlier by one landlord, although members of the development committee were reluctant to let landlord self-regulation be the sole means of control.

Hutchinson said a Landlord Committee must be "properly organized and operated" and expressed conditional support for establishing one, "as long as that's a component to an overall system."

Town Manager Catherine Conlow announced tentative plans for a Jan. 29 Town Council meeting to be held on campus, making the council more accessible to students and other members of the UMaine community.

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