Skowhegan, ME Building Setbacks & Zoning: Lot Coverage Limits (2026)

The limit sits in Section 15(B)(4) of the Town of Skowhegan Shoreland Zoning Ordinance, amended through June 5, 2021. It is a shoreland rule, not a townwide lot coverage cap. Section 3 says the ordinance applies to all land areas within two hundred and fifty feet, horizontal distance, of the normal high water line of any great pond or river, within two hundred and fifty feet of the upland edge of a freshwater wetland, and within seventy-five feet of the normal high water line of a stream. A lot entirely outside those distances is not measured under this section. A lot that straddles the line is measured on the part of it located within the shoreland zone.

What counts is broad. The ordinance totals the footprint area of all structures, parking lots and other non-vegetated surfaces, and it includes land area previously developed, so existing buildings and pavement use up the allowance before any new work starts. The standard figure is twenty percent. The one exception is the General Development District adjacent to rivers that do not flow to great ponds classified GPA, where lot coverage is capped at seventy percent. Section 9 divides the shoreland into six districts: Resource Protection, Limited Residential, Limited Commercial, General Development, Wetlands Protection and Stream Protection, and the 70 percent figure belongs to General Development alone.

Do not confuse this cap with the cleared-opening rule in Section 15(O)(3). That separate rule limits cleared openings for principal and accessory structures, driveways, lawns and sewage disposal areas to twenty-five percent of the lot area within the shoreland zone or ten thousand square feet, whichever is greater, and it does not apply in the General Development District.

Lot coverage also acts as a gate elsewhere. Under Section 15(B)(1)(b), the Code Enforcement Officer can permit one storage accessory structure on a non-conforming lot of record, capped at eighty square feet in area and eight feet in height, but it must meet all other applicable standards, including lot coverage and vegetation clearing limitations. Section 17 defines an increase in nonconformity of a structure to include an increase in lot coverage.

Relief comes by variance. Section 16(H)(2)(a) lets the Board of Appeals vary dimensional requirements including percent of lot coverage, but only on a finding of undue hardship, which the ordinance defines in four parts, including that the land cannot yield a reasonable return and that the hardship is not the result of action taken by the applicant or a prior owner.