Controversial UNE pier one step closer to being realized

In a 3-2 vote, the Biddeford Planning Board approved on Wednesday the preliminary site plan shoreline zoning for a permanent marine science center research pier that the University of New England is proposing to build on the Saco River adjacent to the Arthur P. Girard Marine Science Center on its Biddeford campus. The board also approved four waivers the university sought. Board members voted 2-2 for the site plan and waivers, with board Chair Alexa Plotkin casting tie-breaker votes in favor of each.

If final approval is received, a university representative said UNE could start construction on the project later this year.

The proposed facility would be a pile supported pier extending from shore into the Saco River. It would include: an approximately 130-foot-long walkway extending from shore and an 80-foot by 23-foot pier head section; a floating dock system; an 80-foot by 5-foot gangway; and an upland access road connecting the existing road at the marine science research center to the proposed pier, including associated site grading, drainage, and stormwater management features.

The pier issue has been a controversial one. While in favor of replacing the current temporary, seasonal pier with a permanent pier, many are at odds with the location UNE has chosen. Numerous people have stated that the proposed location would displace moorings, disrupt navigation and have other negative effects.

UNE Vice President of Operations Alan Thibeault said in an email, “if we receive (final) approval from the Planning Board, the city will then need to work with mooring owners to relocate the two impacted moorings. UNE has committed to covering the cost for this so that there is no cost to the mooring owners.”

The discussion regarding the pier opened with City Planner David Galbraith stating that there was a lot of misinformation being spouted and that he has been verbally attacked by residents who are against the proposed pier location.

“I’ve gone out of my way to be open,” he said. “I have no skin in the game.” He said he’s been accused of favoring UNE in their plans which he finds “offensive personally and just plain wrong.” Galbraith added, “my integrity is worth a whole hell of a lot more than a bribe from a developer.”

Planning Board members expressed dismay with the tenor of the discussion surrounding the pier. The issue has been a contentious one for about a year, even before the university submitted its application to the city.

Board member Susan Deschambault said “it’s sad in a way, we’re all volunteers and we have to defend what we have to do.” Because of the controversy, she hasn’t talked to others about the subject. “I have not discussed this (even) with my best friend,” she said.

“I’m saddened it has gotten to this point,” associate board member Kayla Lewis said. “There is something at the root of this that is causing tension.”

“I have a lot of mixed feelings,” board member Roch Angers said. “Was the public involved?” (in making a decision of where the pier should go), he asked. If they weren’t, he said, “we got a problem. … They should have been involved.”

Because of the heated emotions on the subject that have blown into verbal attacks on some staff and board members, Plotkin said at the beginning of the discussion, “(I) hope to discourage that kind of discourse. … We’re all neighbors and we’re all in community together.”

Despite this, during the public remark session, resident John Shafer began to verbally attack city attorney Harry Center. Plotkin then told Shafer, the former chair of the Harbor Commission who resigned over the pier issue, this will not become a case of “he said/she said” and requested that he sit down before he could finish what he planned to say.

Along with Galbraith, city attorney Center has been the subject of the public’s ire for some of his findings on the matter.

Despite the public’s dismay over where UNE wants to build its pier there isn’t much to be done, Center said. As long as the university receives the necessary approvals from agencies like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Saco River Corridor Commission, and follows the city’s applicable land use ordinances, which Center said UNE has done, the Planning Board must approve the site plan or it will face an appeal of its decision which it will surely lose.

Whether it was correct that the city’s harbormaster and deputy harbormaster should have been taken out of the decision making by former City Manager James Bennett was not under the Planning Boards purvey, Center said. Bennett said in a July 10, 2024, press release that the two men were removed as administrative hearing officers on the matter “to ensure that the application was reviewed in an unbiased process so as not to violate the University’s due process rights.”

What will happen to the affected moorings is also not the concern of the Planning Board, Center said. “There’s nothing in the ordinance that says mooring. … It’s a standard we don’t have a criteria to approve.”

Center said he discussed with Galbraith whether there was anything in the ordinances that provided a way for the Planning Board to deny the site plan and could not find a defensible way to do so.

The items that residents are concerned about aren’t in the ordinance, he said, and the board can’t support things that aren’t in the ordinance.

A June 6 memo to the Planning Board from Galbraith states “staff finds that the application satisfies the City’s Shoreland Zoning Ordinance and Site Plan criteria.”

About a half dozen residents spoke against the project. Kyle Noble called it a “travesty” and said the board didn’t have the “proper analysis.”

Chris Stone talked about UNE, stating “they’re like a bulldozer down there” and do whatever they want. “They need to just start going by all the rules we go by.”

On Wednesday board members Deschambault and Larry Patoine voted in favor of the preliminary site plan and shoreline zoning and Angers and Matthew Dubois voted against. The Planning Board must hold another meeting to vote on final site plan and shoreline zoning, which will likely take place in the next month.

If the project receives final approval by the board as well as all other regulatory approvals, UNE Vice President of Operations Alan Thibeault said that the university would then apply for a building permit from the city. Then, he said, “we hope to start construction this fall/winter pending contractor availability.”

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Dina Mendros is a freelance writer who lives in Saco.