Opinion ID: 1904856
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Language of the Comprehensive Plan

Text: [¶ 25] From its first page, the Fryeburg comprehensive plan emphasizes its role as a visionary, goal-oriented document. The cover states that the plan is a guide for the future of our town. The introduction stresses that purpose (emphasis in original): The Comprehensive Plan should be thought of as a blue print or a road map. It is a guide that, if used properly, will help us to achieve our community goals. The Comprehensive Plan does not attempt to understand and plan for the ultimate development or build out of the town, rather it recognizes the planning process as a continuing process and that various parts of the plan are subject to refinement, periodic review, and updating so as to be of constant value. .... The Comprehensive Plan is a statement of the community's vision of the future. [¶ 26] In a section entitled Implementation Strategies, the comprehensive plan recognizes and anticipates that further regulatory action will be needed to realize its goals (all emphasis in original): This chapter of our Comprehensive Plan provides strategies that the appropriate staff, board or committee should follow to achieve our community's goals and policies. The chapter will explain what should be done, when, by whom, and why. In each section of this chapter there are actions that should be taken if the Plan is to be implemented. All of the implementation actions which involve the adoption of new ordinances, the amendment of existing ordinances, or the raising of money will require Town Meeting approval. .... The Land Use Plan is NOT a zoning ordinance or zoning map. The land use plan is a mapped representation of the community's goals as they relate to the use of land. It is our community's policy statement of where various land uses should be located in the future. .... Again, this Future Land Use Map is not a zoning map! The areas shown are only generalized locations of appropriate future land uses. The following descriptions summarize the preferred land use and development pattern for each of the land use areas. It also gives the reasons why this land use pattern is being recommended. [¶ 27] Words such as should, generalized, preferred, and recommended are words of suggestion, not commands of regulation. Cf. Fryeburg Land Use Ordinance § 5(D) ([An omitted use] shall only be granted upon showing by the applicant that....) (emphasis added). The comprehensive plan does not hold itself out as regulatory, to the contrary it emphasizes that it is a planning document. [8]