HAMPDEN — Almost before the asphalt had set, housing construction started on Phase II of the Scotch Pines Subdivision off Route 202.

The subdivisional history

On June 28, 1979, the Hampden Planning Board approved a 16-lot subdivision to be developed about a quarter mile from the Coldbrook Road by Tom and Bonnie Sawyer. The access road would end in a temporary cul-de-sac; the development would be serviced by public utilities.

“Nothing really happened to it until the mid-1980s,” stated David Gould, Hampden town planner. A recession triggered by high oil prices and the Iranian hostage crisis had quelled housing starts in the early ’80s — and double-digit interest rates turned away potential builders.

The Sawyers sold their subdivision to 1912 Associates Development Corp. on Aug. 15, 1984. The development was later owned by the G.E. Perkins Construction Co., which deeded the remainder of the subdivision to Hughes Brothers Inc. on April 30, 1993. By then, most lots in the original development had been filled.

Hughes Brothers, an earth-moving contractor based in East Hampden, gained town approval to build Phase II of the renamed Scotch Pines Subdivision. When available, company personnel and equipment extended Main Trail to open another 22 lots for development.

They went fast. One house lot sold in late December 1994 with snow on the ground, Gould said. By late August 1995, several new houses in various stages of construction or occupancy occupied lots along the wooded perimeter of Phase II.

What had been fields and woods in summer 1993 had become a neighborhood by summer 1996 — and housing construction continues, Gould said.

A desirable location

Scotch Pines is not the only successful Hampden subdivision. “Subdivisions fill quickly in Hampden,” Gould said. “It’s a desirable location.”

Colonial Heights, Ellingwood Heights, and Greeley Farms exemplify Hampden subdivisions. The phenomenon is not recent: Westbrook Terrace off the Main Road North was developed in the late 1950s, when lots averaged 12,500 square feet in size. That development filled, and construction on Westbrook Terrace Extension began in the 1980s.

Builder interest in Hampden house sites has remained strong since Hughes Brothers acquired Scotch Pines. The development (including Phase I) encompasses 44.985 acres, of which 30.029 are available for building. Another 3.541 acres have been set aside in a park area (primarily green space along Stony Brook). Although the development sits in a Residential A zone, which requires a minimal 18,000 square feet per lot, the average lot size runs larger. Lot 37, in fact, occupies 114,797 square feet.

The larger lots actually attract buyers, as have the available wooded lots, Gould said. The intersection with high-speed Route 202 and an underground Mobil Oil Corp. pipeline, both potential drawbacks, have not deterred families from building in Phase II.

Nor elsewhere in Hampden. The town “is an extremely good market for single-family homes. The market for multifamily housing is zero,” Gould said.

He cited proximity to jobs, entertainment, and retail centers in Bangor as major reasons for families to build in Hampden. Interstate 95 and Route 202 are “straight shots into Bangor. You can get from Hampden to Brewer faster on 202 than you can taking the main road into town,” Gould said.

He sees more housing construction in Residential A zoning, which allows the higher density found in subdivisions; the minimum lot size in Residential A is 18,000 square feet. “Some people prefer to live in rural areas,” Gould said. “The smallest lot in you can have in our rural zoning is two acres.”