BANGOR – The need for affordable housing was a recurring theme Monday night for city councilors.

During a meeting at City Hall, councilors authorized a 20-year lease with a local developer working to turn the city’s historic waterworks building into 35 efficiency units for low-income adults.

The move enabled Shaw House Development Inc. to hold onto a federal grant while the waterworks project remains hung up in the courts.

Councilors also heard from volunteers with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Bangor, who’ve been waiting months for a decision on their request for a city-owned parcel they hope to obtain as the site for their next two homes.

“We have built 10 homes in the Bangor-Brewer area in the last 13 years,” said Monique Gautreau, a spokesman for the local Habitat chapter. Gautreau noted that the group has the volunteers, funds and a list of families in need of homes. All that’s missing is the land.

“What I’m asking for here tonight is your help,” she said.

Shaw House Development Inc. is a for-profit subsidiary of Shaw House Inc., the nonprofit group that runs a shelter for homeless teens on Union Street.

The waterworks property on State Street, vacant since the 1970s, is the focus of Shaw House’s $6 million redevelopment plan. The developer aims to convert the complex, a collection of century-old brick buildings, into efficiency units for low-income adults.

Among Shaw House’s several partners in the venture is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Though Shaw House has a development agreement with the city, the agreement does not give Shaw House sufficient control of the city-owned property under HUD’s grant guidelines.

To that end, Shaw House needed the lease in order to retain a grant.

City councilors earlier this month authorized a three-year lease. City Manager Edward Barrett said that the city has since learned that HUD was requiring a 20-year lease, which councilors authorized Monday.

During deliberations, Councilor Dan Tremble noted that control of the waterworks will revert to the city should Shaw House find itself unable to complete the project.

Shaw House initially planned to start work in the spring of 2003. Instead, the project became mired in a legal morass.

As it stands, a dispute with Maine Central Railroad over a railroad crossing key to the project is before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Oral arguments took place in October. A decision is expected shortly.

In addition, the railroad filed a civil lawsuit in Penobscot County Superior Court opposing the city’s August decision to take the land needed for the crossing by eminent domain.

In response to Habitat’s request for land, last discussed in May, councilors and staff agreed to try to issue a decision next month.

The group is eyeing a 2.11-acre city-owned parcel bordered by Third, Fifth, Carroll and Vine streets.

Though the parcel is large enough to accommodate as many as five single-family homes, Habitat in May scaled its proposal back to two homes, partly in response to neighbors’ concerns and because thousands of dollars in infrastructure would have been needed to support the five homes.

Before the city decides how to proceed with the request, it must determine how to divvy up the land not being used by Habitat, City Engineer Jim Ring said during Monday’s meeting.

“We can’t convey two lots to Habitat and create a landlocked parcel,” he said.