BANGOR – An effort to redevelop the historic Bangor Theological Seminary campus took an initial step forward Tuesday night, when the city’s planning board unanimously endorsed a rezoning request.

During a public hearing that preceded the vote, Richard Cattelle, who has been marketing the property for BTS, said the zone change was the first step in a redevelopment effort that is just beginning to get under way and that could lead to the sale of the entire campus later this year.

Following Tuesday’s vote, the seminary’s request to rezone six houses – including the former home of Hannibal Hamlin – from its current Governmental and Institutional Services designation to Urban Residential II will move on to the City Council with an “ought-to-pass” recommendation.

If the zoning change is approved, the buyer would continue to rent 24 existing apartments, Cattelle said earlier this month. About three-quarters of them are occupied by seminary students.

Plans for the Hamlin house and the rest of the campus aren’t firm yet, he said.

The property is under contract to a group of investors from Portland, he said earlier.

Cattelle declined to provide any new specifics after Tuesday night’s vote, though he and downtown businessman Paul Cook, who has been tapped to be a managing partner in the venture, said that the majority partner already had been involved in development in Bangor.

The public hearing drew no opponents, though some came to ask questions.

Diane and Michael DeVita, whose Source of Life Ministry program is a neighbor, wanted to know if the prospective redeveloper planned to create housing for low-income individuals.

“I’m not against low-income housing but I have 31 grandchildren,” not to mention the ministry, she said, adding, “We’ve had some strange things happen,” including people coming through the yard in search of returnable bottles and urinating in bushes.

Michael DeVita suggested that the rezoning request be set aside until the investors firm up their plan. He said he was concerned that allowing rezoning at such an early juncture in effect was giving the investors a “blank check” with regard to how the property can be used.

Pressed by board member Miles Theeman, Cook said low-income housing “is not our intended use,” though he said he was being cautious about the use of the term “low-income.”

City planner David Gould later said that the city’s planning staff preferred the urban residential designation to the existing government and institutional service designation, under which “the range of uses is extremely wide.”

Cattelle earlier said the buyer hopes to rent the buildings formerly used by the seminary as classrooms, offices, a library and chapel, he said.

Several nonprofit groups have expressed interest in possibly becoming tenants. The historic campus could be used by public agencies or many private nonprofit organizations without a zone change.

The seminary put the campus property on the market about 18 months ago after the school relocated to the Husson College campus on the other side of Bangor in 2005.