Whiting to vote on comprehensive plan

WHITING – Six years in the making, the town’s comprehensive plan is at last ready to go before the residents for a vote.

It already has been approved by the State Planning Office – that happened a year ago.

Voters will consider the plan in a special town meeting tonight. It’s their chance to have one final say on the 12-section document that details the town along U.S. Route 1 in eastern Washington County, with many of its 430 residents living along Holmes Bay.

“Does the town accept this or not?” said Mary-Alice Look, a selectman and a Comprehensive Plan Committee member from the start of the process. “The state accepted it last year. But people here weren’t familiar with it a year ago. They came to the special meeting looking for copies; they didn’t know what it was. It is a fair amount of reading.”

A year ago June, residents asked that any action on the plan be tabled until a letter of notification went to all taxpayers. They requested that the entire plan be available on the Internet and that copies be available on request by mail.

All that, plus another public hearing last month, has taken place. The document can be read on the Web site of the Puffin Pines, a gift shop in Whiting, www.puffinpines.com.

The plan presents an analysis of how residents live and how they see themselves several years from now.

“Whiting is and should remain a scenic, rural community,” the first page of the plan reads. “Our history is based substantially upon the natural resources that drove the local and regional economy, including forestry, shipbuilding, agriculture and the sea.

“Whiting still enjoys many of the benefits from our past, as a small town with a strong sense of community, where people look out for one another. As we move into the future, we want to maintain strong links to our heritage.”

The plan relied on a town survey that the committee circulated in March 2002. Of 400 surveys sent out, 55 were returned by full-time residents; 19 came back from seasonal residents; and 42 more came from non-resident taxpayers.

The town’s population of 430 per the 2000 census showed significant growth from its all-time low of 269 in 1970.

As many as 15 people from Whiting or next-door Trescott, part of the state’s unorganized territories, have served as committee members since the plan process started in 1999.

Trescott residents were able to be on the committee if they owned property in Whiting or had other interests or involvement with the town.

Some other points within the plan:

. “Our population is aging … there are fewer school-age children and our town has seen a decrease in the average household size.”

. “We have limited employment opportunities, which helps explain the decline in the numbers of young families residing here.”

. “The natural resources of our town contribute greatly to our quality of life. We want to maintain, and enhance if possible, the natural resources we have.”

. “Whiting is feeling the development pressure that some of our neighbors are experiencing. Residential development has occurred primarily in environmentally sensitive shore land areas, limiting the potential for future public access to our treasured natural resources.”

Look urges all residents to come out and vote this evening.

“This plan doesn’t put any ordinances in place, and it doesn’t do anything to taxes,” she said. “It’s just an analysis of what’s here, and what people see in our future.

“The plan is not written in stone; it is designed to be a vital, ongoing document.”

Changes to the plan can be made through a special or regular town meeting.

The special town meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. tonight at the community building.