Tag Archives: Commercial Street
On the waterfront: Portland zoning fight takes shape
Is it a restoration of guidelines to preserve the city’s marine traditions and industry? Or is it a Commercial Street catastrophe waiting to be unleashed? That’s how opposing sides are painting a proposed referendum question that would essentially restore the original language and restrictions of waterfront zoning passed by voters in May 1987. If approved, the amendments would be retroactive to Oct. 30, 2018. “They have been chipping away protections, it is a loose, fluid, insecure situation,” fisherman Keith Lane said Nov. 30 about the need to stop waterfront development. >clip to read<13:36
Save the Working Waterfront: Fishermen resist as proposals for Portland waterfront projects mount
A spurt of hotel, office and shopping developments planned for Portland’s waterfront is rekindling concerns that space for fishermen and other traditional marine businesses is disappearing as Commercial Street becomes a shopping and dining mecca. Commercial fishermen who have unloaded lobster and groundfish on Portland’s wharves for decades see the changes as the next step in a long process to change the face of the waterfront, to their disadvantage. “They just don’t get it,” said Willis Spear, who has berthed his lobster boat on Custom House Wharf for 40 years. “We said in the beginning that this would happen, we’d just get squeezed out. It is going way faster than anyone knows.” click here to read the story 10:56
