• Planner's presentation on agricultural zoning amendments
• Approved amendments and related documents
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The Town Council on May 10 approved a set of zoning ordinance amendments designed to support agriculture in Cape Elizabeth.

"Essentially the goal here is to make Cape Elizabeth a more viable community for farming operations to succeed and thrive in," said Councilor David Sherman, chairman of the council's ordinance subcommittee.

The changes are the culmination of what Sherman said is many years worth of hard work by town staff and the comprehensive planning committee, as well as the Cape Farm Alliance, a group whose mission is to seek ways to ensure the viability and sustainability of Cape Elizabeth's agricultural assets.

The amendments were recommended by the 2007 comprehensive plan and are one of five zoning amendment packages given highest priority for implementation. Amendments to the shoreland zone and neighborhood business A districts were adopted earlier this year.

Town Planner Maureen O'Meara presented a summary of the amendments, which include:

• A new, broader definition of agriculture that includes riding stables
  
• New "agriculture related use" that allows farmers more flexibility in types of activities that can generate farm related income
  
• Farm market definition revised to increase the amount of non-farm products allowed from 25 to 50 percent; allow products from any farm in Cape Elizabeth; average the 50 percent annually to account for seasonal fluctuation and include outdoor display area in the calculation
  
• Agriculture-related use permitted in the RA, RB, RC, TC, BA districts
  
• Standard setbacks for farm markets
  
• Agriculture permitted use with permit in the Resource Protection District
  
• Site-plan review of agricultural buildings clarified; temporary buildings do not require site-plan review by the Planning Board

The council voted unanimously to adopt the amendments after a public hearing where two residents also spoke in favor.

Carol Anne Jordan, representing a subcommittee of the Cape Farm Alliance that contributed to drafting the amendments, said, "I feel that all of this effort has put forward some really good changes for the town and for the farming community."

Shore Road resident Frank Strout, also a member of the farm alliance who also served on the comprehensive planning committee, said the amendments set an example for how a community can make itself "farm friendly" as agriculture changes over the years. At one meeting of the Cape Farm Alliance, Strout said, farmers from other communities "were excited to see how many different ways citizens like myself, who's not a farmer, participated with the Town Council, the planner, the code-enforcement officer, and all these people came together to create a document that I think really works well for the town now."

"These are businesses in our town and we really need to support them," Strout said of Cape's local farms.