Opinion ID: 1904856
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Requirements of the District Involved

Text: [¶ 42] As discussed above, we construe the requirements of the district involved clause of section 5(D) to mean the requirements of section 14 of the ordinance, a conclusion assumed by the Planning Board. [¶ 43] The Board found that the project met the dimensional standards of section 14, a finding that no party has challenged. After some debate, the Board decided that it needed to consider the purpose clause of section 14 as well. It found that Poland Spring's proposal was consistent with the stated purpose of the rural residential district in four ways: (1) The project was a natural resource based business. The Board found that the project was centered around water as a commodity, like timber harvesting or mineral extraction, which are specifically allowed uses in the district; (2) The project furthered land in the Tree Growth tax classification and other forest land by maintaining fifty-six of the fifty-nine acres in the parcel as forested; (3) The project maintain[ed][a] rural land use pattern by limiting its geographical and visual impact in a way similar to other currently-existing uses; and (4) The project was a non-intensive ... business[] interspersed among large open spaces. The Board based this finding on the permit restrictions limiting truck loading events to two per hour during peak school bus and commuting times, and four per hour otherwise, with a maximum of fifty per day. The Board noted that for eight months out of the year, the expected number of loads would average twenty-two per day. [¶ 44] Of these four findings, the Superior Court addressed only the first and last, ruling that the proposed facility was not a natural resource-based business before concluding that substantial evidence supported the Planning Board's non-intensive finding. The purpose statement of section 14 is a list of broadly-described goals; it does not assign particular weight to any single consideration. Given the Board's factual findings made when analyzing the impact of the project on adjacent landowners, which are supported by substantial evidence, its conclusion that the project was consistent with the purpose of the rural residential district was not erroneous.