CAMDEN — The zoning proposal to enable an alcohol and drug treatment center at Fox Hill moves from the town’s planning board to the podium of Camden leaders, who will now consider placing it before voters. Tuesday evening, Jan. 21, the Camden Select Board will talk about that process as the first order of business at its regularly scheduled meeting.

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Washington Street Conference Room, is broadcast live on Time Warner Channel 22, and is streamed live over the Internet and includes an agenda that also includes the possible move of the town’s emergency operations center to a First Congregational Church classroom.

The Select Board discussed the Fox Hill public process at a workshop held last week and agreed to set a public hearing on the matter Feb. 4, 6:30 p.m., at the Camden Opera House.

Watch the Oct. 17 informational meeting.

Watch the Nov. 20 public hearing

Watch the Dec. 12 public hearing

Jan. 2 Planning Board meeting

This begins what Town Attorney Bill Kelley characterized as the bare knuckles political forum in what has been a careful and methodical municipal process. While the planning board examined specifically the language of the amendment, its appropriateness to ordinance and compatibility with the town’s comprehensive plan, the select board review is wider in scop. The proposed amendment — and by default, the Fox Hill project — will now get scrutinized politically, economically and sociologically.

The Camden Planning Board voted 4 to 1 Jan 2 to send the proposed zoning amendment on to the Select Board, recommending that the zoning amendments be considered by the Select Board for inclusion on the next town ballot.

The vote came after four months of multiple meetings and public hearings, at which the public was vocal in support and opposition to the amendments.

In his closing remarks Jan 2., after a few hours of discussion, Camden Planning Board Acting Chairman Lowrie Sargent said: “The town has a history of approving condition uses, like the Tannery property, and has lived through out. That is one of the reasons a town vote that would show wide-spread support for the proposal is so important. People are clearly passionate about this proposal and it is not in the planning board’s purview to deal with political issues like this one,” according to draft meeting minutes.

Planning Board member John Scholz agreed, also saying in the minutes the town should vote and “weigh in at large.”

It is now up the five-person Select Board to decide whether the zoning amendment should go before voters.

The Planning Board considered the amendment that would, if approved by Camden voters, expand the town’s Coastal Residential zone parameters to allow special exceptions for “residential treatment facilities for comprehensive alcohol and related substance abuse disorders providing concurrent treatment for addiction and/or other associated psychiatric disorders.”

It is an amendment proposed by Fox Hill Real Estate LLC, working in conjunction with McLean Hospital, of Massachusetts, to establish a high-end alcohol and drug rehabilitation center that would serve eight to 12 clients over a given period at the Fox Hill estate on outer Bay View Street.

Fox Hill project

Project proponents want to turn the 13.8-acre Fox Hill estate at 235 Bay View Street into a high-end residential alcohol and substance abuse treatment facility for up to 12 clients at a time, each paying approximately $60,000 for four to five weeks of treatment.

Owners of the estate, Fox Hill Real Estate LLC (24 investors, including Lincolnville summer resident Tom Rodman and Rockport summer resident Merril Halpern), hope to team up with the Massachusetts-based McLean Hospital to establish the facility in the former Borden Cottage that sits on a hill overlooking Penobscot Bay.

Rodman has said the other 22 investors are family and friends; “no Wall Street sharks,” he said.

Other investors who have been named include Bob Campbell, of Rockport; Betty and Scott Harris, of N.H.; and George Rodman, of Maryland.

Philip Levendusky, associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and senior vice president for business development and marketing, as well as director of the psychology department at McLean Hospital, is representing the nonprofit that would operate the facility.

The business deal between the for-profit Fox Hill Real Estate LLC and the nonprofit McLean Hospital, which would lease the property, is contingent on local zoning and site plan approval, as well as state regulatory approval.

The first step is for the planning board to vote to send the proposed amendment on to the Camden Select Board for its consideration. The Select Board is the body that ultimately decides whether to put the amendment on the ballot.

The amendment would adjust the town’s coastal residential parameters to allow special exceptions for “residential treatment facilities for comprehensive alcohol and related substance abuse disorders providing concurrent treatment for addiction and/or other associated psychiatric disorders.”

If approved by voters, the project proponents would then need to submit an application for a site plan review by the planning board. It is only the result of that second process that determines whether Fox Hill is allowed to become a treatment center.

And then there is an appeals process, as well, which could send any application approval to the town’s zoning board of appeals.

The Planning Board’s task was to evaluate the language of the proposed ordinance amendment, determining if it is in conflict with the town’s comprehensive plan, and deciding whether to move it forward to the Select Board.

Town Planner and Code Enforcement Officer Steve Wilson has set up a public dropbox where all the letters, memos, legal documents and opinions are collected and available for review.

• Read the proposed amendment here with its most recent language changes, Oct. 30.

Related stories:
• Two Fox Hill neighbors say Camden's Bay View Street not appropriate for alcohol treatment center

• Renewed effort to make Camden’s Fox Hill estate an alcohol and substance abuse rehab center begins

• Camden’s Fox Hill changes hands, its future under consideration

• McLean Hospital looks to Camden's Fox Hill for alcohol, drug rehab center

•  Camden's Fox Hill rehab deal nixed by landowner, buyer mystified

• No more phone polling of Camden residents about Fox Hill

• Camden Planning Board walks Fox Hill estate; citizens, lawyers tag along

• Fox Hill rehab center and the Camden Comprehensive Plan: In compliance or not?

• Camden wraps up Fox Hill public hearings tonight

• Camden Planning Board listens to more Fox Hill testimony; tables deliberations until Jan. 2

• Camden Planning Board agrees town citizenry should vote on Fox Hill amendment language

Emergency Operations Center to the Pilgrim Room

The Select Board will consider approving a move of the town’s Municipal Emergency Operations Center from the Public Safety Building to the First Congregational Church on Elm Street.

The OEC is coordinated by Camden Fire Chief Chris Farley. He wants to move its office from the Public Safety Building, which sits in a vulnerable location within the flood plain and below Megunticook River dams.

Camden’s OEC is the backup facility for Knox County emergency operations, should anything happen in Rockland.

Farley asked the church’s trustee committee, which agreed to the space rental, although there will be no exchange of money. Instead, the church is asking Camden to help the church acquire an automated external defibrillator, or AED.

The OEC will occupy the small classroom at the bottom of the stairs below the Pilgrim Room, if the Select Board agrees to the move.

Camden Opera House

The Camden Opera House Committee will review goals and progress to date with the Select Board. A written report issued to the Select Board is included in the pre-meeting packet (See attached PDF).

Opera House goals included establishing a nonprofit to help the town, and establishing a Friends of the Opera House group to assist with raising money to support the entertainment facility.

According to the Opera House report, the first-ever annual appeal has raised $5,400 to date. Additionally, the town raised $40,000 in grant money for restoring its 1927 Steinway, and revamping its website.

To keep the fundraising momentum going, and to help make improvements to the building, including the third floor of the Opera House, the committee is recommending the town advance seed dollars to hire a professional fundraiser to lay groundwork for the campaign.

Town Manager evaluation

Annually, the Select Board conducts an evaluation of the town manager. That will take place at the end of the Jan. 21 meeting, in executive session.

Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 706-6657.