The small Down East town that had been eyed as the potential site of the world's tallest flagpole will extend a large-scale development moratorium by another six months.
Columbia Falls residents initially approved a six-month pause on major commercial or high-density development back in March.
Aga Dixon, the town's attorney, said that the work of drafting new ordinances and regulations to better react to big developments is about halfway complete. Town and planning board officials have been meeting almost weekly, and Dixon said she expects they will present a draft code of ordinances to voters for their consideration sometime this fall or winter.
"Columbia Falls is in a position that a lot of rural communities are in," she said. "Land use planning has not been top of the mind. Resources have not been there to do this work. And sometimes it takes a little bit of development pressure or concern to rattle voters, rattle residents and get to doing this hard work."
The town has said that it's experienced a variety of development pressures over the years, and not just from the Worcester family, the Wreaths Across America founders that had pitched the construction of a multi-billion-dollar flagpole and veterans memorial park near Columbia Falls.
A spokesperson for the Worcesters didn't immediate return a request for comment on Tuesday about the extended moratorium or the status of the flagpole project. As of Tuesday afternoon, a website for the proposed "Flagpole of Freedom" park appeared to be offline.
Dixon said the town hasn't asked for or received any updates about the status of the flagpole project.
