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Economic Development
Key to Brewer Plan
Using economic
development as a tool to allow the existing community to blossom is the desire
of residents who met to discuss the city's comprehensive plan update on Tuesday.
Residents also said waterfront development, as the "centerpiece of
revitalization," needs to be part of the city's updated plan.
"It's not just enough to get jobs," David Versel of Community Current
said after Tuesday's public forum. "They have to be good, higher-paying jobs."
Community Current of Biddeford and MRLD LLC of Yarmouth were hired as
consultants to help develop the comprehensive plan update.
The approximately 25 residents
in attendance were divided into two groups for the majority of the meeting. They
discussed the city's strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities for and
threats to development.
Residents found several
strengths within the city, including its school system, government, rich
history, public services and easy access to the highway; however, they also
voiced concerns as to where the city is headed in the next 10 years.
Residential, commercial and industrial development and where it should occur
were at the top of the list, followed by worries about the appearance and growth
of the downtown area, as well as the condition of aging school facilities.
"They're all connected," City
Councilor Manley DeBeck of South Brewer said. "Economic development drives
everything else." DeBeck was a member of the 1995 comprehensive planning
committee and also of the waterfront development committee.
"It sort of brings to the
surface what issues are more critical, the hot spots," MRLD Consultant Mitchell
Rasor said of Tuesday's forum.
The consultants plan to add
residents' responses to data they have gathered concerning the town's
demographics and create a draft of the updated comprehensive plan to present to
the City Council and planning board at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 15, at City Hall.
Once approved by the public and the City Council, the plan will go to the state
for accreditation.
A copyright story from
the Bangor Daily News by
AIMEE DOLLOFF: Wednesday, July 2, 2003.
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