By Nate Jones
Staff Writer
A nine member committee consisting of representatives from the Scarborough Pine Point Association, the Beach Walk subdivision, the Sand Dollar and Lighthouse motels and town officials could begin discussing the future of Pine Point Road between Grand Avenue and King Street by Labor Day.
On June 25, the Scarborough Town Council decided to give the committee more time to determine what type of sidewalks the area should have, the width of the road, how to improve beach access and how to address the directional island at the end of the road – expanding on tasks town officials had intended on completing earlier this month.
“The only thing we were planning to do was to repave a section of the road. It was going to take two to three days,” Town Manager Ron Owens said. “We shot ourselves in the foot when we started talking about possibly adding sidewalks and narrowing the street. Once we started asking questions, we found it was not possible to come to a quick resolution. It just didn’t happen, so a nine-member committee should take a look at it.”
This is not the first time a committee has been formed to consider the development of Pine Point Road, an issue Owens said has been “longstanding” due to increasing tension between residents and the owners of the Lighthouse Motel.
“If it was any other neighborhood in town, it wouldn’t be an issue,” he said.
According to a June 2 letter from the Pine Point Residents Group to Town Council Chairman Jeff Messer, a similar committee was formed in 2005 when the Lighthouse Motel owners proposed building five new condominium buildings on their property.
“The committee met under the leadership of the town manager for eight months and did some excellent work. The town traffic engineer created several plans for our review, and we deliberated many features of a plan which, Mr. Owens coined as the ‘Ocean Gateway,’” the letter read.
In 2006, the motel owners scrapped their plans for the five condominiums, and the committee was disbanded. Owens said the owners of the property recently converted ownership so the parcel could be split between 22 condominium owners, although he was unaware of any plans to do so.
Although the committee was disbanded two years ago, the Pine Point Residents Group has remained vocal during the development of a town-installed directional island at the end of Pine Point Road. What started out as seasonal orange barrels became a paved berm the residents group referred to as “not only permanent, but longer and, we believed, more restrictive than the seasonal one.”
Pine Point Residents Group members are concerned the new committee, as originally proposed by the council –  with a one month time limit and goals related only to certain sections of Pine Point Road – may not have enough time or authority to determine the future of the area.
“We’re happy the town has decided to establish another committee, but it doesn’t adequately address the issues,” group member Harold Hutchinson said.
Resident group member Sue Perrino said the committee should take Depot and Holly streets into consideration for redevelopment to improve beach access, which would take time.
“A Sept. 2 to Sept. 30 study is unrealistic,” she said.
Resident Group member Julie Shank said she prefer committee meetings take place in council chambers and minutes be available on the town Web site.
Resident group member John Thurlow said he would like to see more people on the committee.
The council unanimously approved broadening the scope of the committee’s study to include the directional island on Depot Road, although Councilor Sylvia Most said her main concern was delaying any development on a 3,200 square foot parcel of town-owned land that could be affected by any change to the area. Owens said there are currently no concrete plans to develop the land, although Most compared the parcel to town-owned property on Black Point Road where the town had meant to build a park, but decided against it after residents opposed the idea.
“People got accustomed to the fact that it was unused land,” she said. “The most critical item facing us is the use of that parcel.”
The council also unanimously approved extending the time period for the study form one to three months, and allowing the committee to meet in council chambers and have their minutes posted on the town Web site, but did not add any positions to the committee roster.
Councilor Michael Wood said he was not in favor of increasing the size of the committee based on his past experiences.
“You end up with a lot of people with the same goal and a lot of different ways to get there,” he said. “The common denominator is people want to see results; I’m all for starting small.”