SCARBOROUGH — A seven-lot residential subdivision has been proposed for the six-acre lot at 20 Elmwood Ave., near the Green Acres neighborhood.
The property, owned by the Maine Department of Transportation, drew attention from neighbors late last year when a commercial eye-care center was proposed. The Scarborough Town Council killed the plan, which would have required a zoning change, and the property remained on the market.
Now, developer Joseph Frustaci of Cape Elizabeth plans to build a residential conservation subdivision.
Frustaci made headlines in 2005 when the sued the city of South Portland for discontinuing two streets, Charlotte Street and Edgewood Road, that he wanted to use for access to a subdivision he built in Cape Elizabeth. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court eventually upheld a Superior Court ruling and awarded Frustaci $380,000 in damages from the city.
The new Green Acres subdivision in Scarborough would keep more than 50 percent of the property in open space and make available seven lots for new homes.
Planning Director Dan Bacon said Frustaci has not decided how the open space will be managed.
“There are three options,” Bacon said. “It could be conveyed to the town as town-owned conservation land, it could be owned in kind by the seven lot owners, or it could be conveyed to a land trust or conservation group.”
The proposed open space amounts to approximately four acres of the six-acre property. The homes would be built in a cluster of seven quarter-acre lots.
Council Chairwoman Judy Roy, who lives near the proposed subdivision, said she found the proposal satisfactory, but that she wasn’t exactly excited about it.
“If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t have anything there,” Roy said. “But I would rather have Maine Eye Center. That would have been an asset to the community and to the tax base.”
Frustaci will have to go before the Planning Board for preliminary subdivision approval and then return for final subdivision approval before construction can begin.
Unlike the Maine Eye Center project, Frustaci’s proposal does not require a zoning change.
Emily Parkhurst can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 125 or eparkhurst@theforecaster.net. Follow her on Twitter: @emilyparkhurst.
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