Bangor council mulls New York Street development

BANGOR – Neighbors of a planned housing development off New York Street listened closely Wednesday to two competing proposals for the area.

The City Council, meeting as the strategic issues committee, heard proposals from two area developers, both of whom said their respective plans would fit nicely into the surrounding Fairmount Park neighborhood.

The committee, comprising all nine councilors, will consider entering into an agreement with one of the developers at its meeting at 7 p.m., May 29, at City Hall.

The proposals would add between nine and 17 homes on the 5.7-acre, city-owned parcel on the northeastern edge of the Bangor Municipal Golf Course.

Talk of building new homes on the wooded parcel prompted concerns from some neighbors worried that the development would increase traffic in the area and possibly harm the 1-acre wetland on the site.

For those reasons, some at Wednesday’s meeting thought smaller was better.

“I would think eight would be better than 17 if you’re looking to keep some of the animals out there,” New York Street resident Charles Eames told the committee.

The first plan, submitted by Fairway Circle Realty Trust of Hampden, would divide the parcel into nine half-acre lots. On each of those lots would be a single-family home of between 2,200 and 2,700 square feet.

Under the plan, the developer would pay the city $77,200 for the land and incur $209,000 in development costs.

The city paid about $186,000 for the property last year.

A second plan, submitted by real estate developer Jon Dawson, included three alternatives.

In the first design, the parcel would be divided into 13 lots of between 10,000 and 32,780 square feet, each lot with a single-family home.

In the second design, the 13 lots would be smaller and located in the southwestern half of the parcel, leaving the rest of the site – much of which is wetlands – undeveloped.

In both the first and second alternatives, the developer would pay the city $68,000 for the land and incur $270,000 in development expenses.

A third design would place 17 small lots, each with a single-family home, on the New York Street end of the parcel. Under that plan, the developer would pay the city $172,000 for the land.

The second and third designs – despite the large buffers they would create with the existing neighborhood – concerned some in the area, who worried that the council, in considering those options, was relaxing its own zoning requirements by allowing the smaller lots in the neighborhood.

“We now are hearing that may well be changed,” Norway Road resident Paul Chaiken said of the council’s earlier decision to allow only traditional single-family homes in the area.

City Councilor John Rohman, who led the drive to limit development in the area, said he was impressed with both presentations.

He, too, however, was concerned that the small lot sizes in the second and third Dawson plans could result in “cookie cutter” homes that would be incompatible with the nearby turn-of-the-century neighborhood.

Rohman said he was less concerned with the environmental impact on the parcel, considering its proximity to the golf course, which itself serves as a wildlife habitat.