The purposes of the land use districts are as follows:
RP
Resource Protection District
SP
Shoreland and Slope District
FEMA
One-Hundred-Year Floodplain Zone
LRS
Limited Residential Shoreland District
MFW
Minor Freshwater Wetland District
A. 
Resource Protection District: to control the use of shoreland and other areas to provide maximum protection to the land and water resources. Such areas include but are not limited to wetlands, swamps, marshes, bogs, poorly drained soils, one-hundred-year floodplains and significant wildlife habitats.
B. 
Shoreland and Slope District, and one-hundred-year Floodplain Zone.
(1) 
To protect from activities or alterations that would unreasonably cause or increase flooding of areas or adjacent properties.
(2) 
To provide maximum protection to the land and water resources with controls of use and development of undeveloped shoreland areas.
(3) 
To minimize expenditures of public monies for flood control projects.
(4) 
To minimize rescue and relief efforts undertaken at the expense of the general public.
(5) 
To minimize flood damage to public facilities, such as water mains, sewer lines, streets, roads and bridges.
(6) 
To protect the storage capacity of floodplains and ensure retention of sufficient floodway area to convey flood flow which reasonably can be expected to occur.
(7) 
To encourage open space uses, such as agriculture and recreation.
C. 
Limited Residential Shoreland District: to allow within Inland Wading Waterfowl Habitat (IWWH) resource protection areas suitable for residential and recreational development which are used less intensively than those in the Business Districts and currently developed. This district shall include areas as shown on the South Berwick Official Shoreland Zoning Map and Table C, footnote (4).[1]
D. 
Minor Freshwater Wetland District: to further the maintenance of safe and healthful conditions; to prevent and control water pollution; to protect fish spawning grounds, aquatic life, bird and other wildlife habitat; to protect buildings and lands from flooding and accelerated erosion; to control building sites, placement of structures and land uses and visual as well as actual points of access to inland and coastal waters; to conserve natural beauty and open space; and to anticipate and respond to the impacts of development in shoreland and adjacent areas.
A. 
Resource Protection District RP.
(1) 
All land within 250 feet from the normal high-water line (as measured from the edge of the associated wetland) of the following water bodies:
(a) 
Round Pond.
(b) 
Warren Pond.
(c) 
Knights Pond and its outlet.
(d) 
Ogunquit Brook.
(e) 
Chicks Brook, upstream of Emery's Bridge Road.
(f) 
White Marsh Brook.
(g) 
Cox Pond and its outlet to White Marsh Brook.
(h) 
Hooper's Swamp and Hooper's Brook upstream of Belle Marsh Road.
(i) 
Leigh's Mill Pond.
(j) 
Salmon Falls River/Piscataqua River to its tidal limits.
(2) 
The Great Works River in the R3 and R4 Districts (as measured from the edge of the river channel).
(3) 
The following resources to their boundary limits:
(a) 
Coastal wetlands.
(b) 
All one hundred year floodplains.
(c) 
Major freshwater wetlands.
(d) 
Minor freshwater wetlands.
(e) 
Areas of two or more contiguous acres with sustained slopes of 20% or greater when located within a Shoreland and Slope District (§ 110-18B).
(f) 
Land areas along rivers subject to severe erosion, undercutting, or riverbed movement and lands adjacent to tidal waters, which are subject to severe erosion or mass movement, such as a coastal bluff.
(g) 
For the purpose of this section, the Resource Protection District shall be a three-hundred-foot radius from the wellhead. However, the Protection District from the Junction Road wellhead shall be an area as described in the Caswell, Eichler, and Hill study "Hydro Geological Evaluation of Bedrock Well at Junction Road Site, South Berwick, Maine, September 1994." These zones will be established only after public notice and a public hearing in accordance with § 140-6 of the Zoning Ordinance. For all new wellhead protection areas, Resource Protection Zones will be based on hydro geological studies/recommendations and will be established according to Ch. 140, Zoning, § 140-6. Wells representing the location of a public water supply in South Berwick, and portion of Berwick, Maine, servicing the South Berwick Water District as recorded by the Maine Drinking Water Program, June 2003.
(h) 
Vaughan Woods.
(i) 
All areas mapped as very poorly drained soils on the medium intensity soil survey of York County, Maine. In the event that a soil classification boundary designating the limits of the Resource Protection District is challenged by a landowner or abutters, the landowner or abutters shall present evidence that the land in question does not contain soils which are classified as being very poorly drained by the United States Soil Conservation Service. A high-intensity soil survey performed by a registered soil scientist, licensed in the state of Maine, may constitute such evidence.
(4) 
The following resources as identified in the Town's Comprehensive Plan and land within 250 feet of those resources as shown on the official Shoreland Zoning Map of South Berwick.
(a) 
The Balancing Rock.
(b) 
The Spring Hill Overlook.
(c) 
The Gorge.
(5) 
Areas within 250 feet, horizontal distance, of the upland edge of freshwater wetlands, salt marshes and salt meadows, and wetlands associated with great ponds and rivers, which are rated "moderate" or "high" value as most recently mapped, or waterfowl and wading bird habitat, including nesting and feeding areas, by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIF&W) that are depicted on a Geographic Information System (GIS) data layer maintained by either MDIF&W or the Department as of December 31, 2008. For the purposes of this subsection, "wetlands associated with great ponds and rivers" shall mean areas characterized by non-forested wetland vegetation and hydric soils that are contiguous with a great pond or river, and have a surface elevation at or below the water level of the great pond or river during the period of normal high water. Wetlands associated with great ponds or rivers are considered to be part of that great pond or river.
(6) 
Limited Residential Shoreland District — LRS. All land within 250 feet from the normal high-water line (as measured from the edge of the associated wetland) of the following IWWH water bodies as mapped within the areas of:
(a) 
Fife's Lane and Old South Road.
(b) 
York Woods Road.
B. 
Shoreland and Slope District - SP.
(1) 
Unless previously classified as Resource Protection, all land within 250 feet horizontally of the normal high water line, as measured from the edge of the stream channel, of the following water bodies:
(a) 
Dennett Brook.
(b) 
Boyd Brook.
(c) 
Great Works River in the R1 and R2 Districts. (The high-water line shall be measured from the edge of any associated wetland.)
(d) 
Chicks Brook, downstream of Emery's Bridge Road.
(e) 
Lover's Brook.
(f) 
Shorey's Brook.
(g) 
Quamphegan Brook.
(h) 
Lord Brook.
(i) 
Hooper's Brook.
(j) 
Knights Brook.
(k) 
Warren Brook, south of Bickel Mountain.
(l) 
Hussey Brook, north of Great Hill.
(m) 
Bennett Brook.
(n) 
Hamilton Brook.
(o) 
Driscoll Brook.
(p) 
Salmon Falls River above Route 4. (The high-water line shall be measured from the edge of any associated wetland.)
(q) 
Unnamed Stream 1 as shown on Shoreland Map.
(r) 
Unnamed Stream 2 as shown on Shoreland Map.
(s) 
Hilton Brook.
(2) 
Land within 250 feet of a major freshwater wetland boundary.
(3) 
Land within 250 feet of a coastal wetland boundary.
(4) 
Any other free flowing body of water, not listed above, which flows from the outlet of a great pond or the confluence of two perennial streams as depicted on the most recent edition of a United States Geological Survey 7.5 minutes series topographic map, to the point where the body of water becomes a river.
C. 
One-hundred-year Floodplain Zone FEMA. Floodplains along rivers and floodplains along artificially formed great ponds along rivers, defined by the one-hundred-year floodplain as designated on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) Flood Insurance Rate Maps or Flood Hazard Boundary Maps, or the flood of record, or in the absence of these, by soil types identified as recent floodplain soils. This district shall also include one-hundred-year floodplains adjacent to tidal waters as shown on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps or Flood Hazard Boundary Maps.
D. 
Minor Freshwater Wetland MFW. A wetland of two or more contiguous acres, excluding major freshwater wetlands, or forested wetlands as identified on the Federal National Wetlands Inventory.