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A Newsletter by the City of Saco, Maine	November, 2010	Return to newsletter index

Planning: Update to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan

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One of the most important of the city's strategic plans is the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Saco has adopted four comprehensive plans since 1965. The current planning effort updates the most recent comprehensive plan, done in 1999.

The effort is being undertaken by a committee made up of the Planning Board and representatives of the Historic Preservation Commission, Economic Development Commission, City Council, and Conservation Commission. The firm Planning Decisions of South Portland is assisting the committee and the planning staff. The committee hopes to forward the plan to the City Council in early 2011.

One of the first tasks in the effort was to see how the city did in comparison with what it said it wanted to do in the 1999 plan. This evaluation is called the "Development Profile." Excepts describing residential development follow;

Saco's development profile identifies the patterns of residential and nonresidential development between 1999 and April 2009. The goal of this analysis is to identify where development has occurred in the decade since the 1999 Comprehensive Plan was adopted and to evaluate whether or not the recent pattern of development is in line with the goals of the Plan.

For the purpose of this analysis, Saco is divided into two areas: Growth and Limited Growth (Rural area) based on the City's 1999 Future Land Use Plan designations. The Growth Area includes about 200 acres in the rear of the Cascade Road-Route 1 quadrant which was classified as limited growth in the 1999 Plan, largely because of the lack of sewer service, but was effectively re-designated by the City Council as a Growth Area when it approved a sewer extension and contract zone in 2006.

Over the past decade, the majority of development in Saco took place within the designated growth areas including nearly 78% of all new residential units and almost 100% of the floor area of non-residential development. There are a number of large approved but as yet unbuilt projects in the City, including a 290 unit mixed-use condominium subdivision as well as over 200,000 square feet of commercial space in the Cascades-Route 1 area.


New Housing Units

• An estimated 1,277 new housing units were built between 1999 and April of 2009. In addition to residential development, a group quarters project, the Thornton Academy 38-bed dormitory, opened in the 2009-2010 school year.
• 77.9% of the new units are in the Growth Area and 22.1% in the Limited Growth Area
• Of the 995 new units within the Growth Area, 54% were single-family homes and 28% were in duplex or townhouse-style units. Assisted living units made up another 13% of the new housing stock within the Growth Area.
• Of the 282 new housing units in the Limited Growth Area, approximately 94% were single-family homes (264) while the remaining 6% of the units were in duplexes.

Residential Subdivision and Multi-family

• Between 1999 and 2009, 52 new developments were approved in Saco. Of these, 23 were single-family subdivisions; 26 were duplex, townhouse, or multi-family projects; and three were assisted living/senior housing projects.
• The majority of the single and multi-family development has taken place in the Growth Area. This includes 16 approved single-family and 26 approved multi-family projects.
• Over 71% of the single-family subdivisions in the Growth Area have been built. There are currently 107 approved but unbuilt lots in single-family subdivisions within the Growth Area.
• There are 654 approved units in multi-family projects within Saco's Growth Area. Currently, only 40% have been built. Of the remaining 397 approved but unbuilt units, 290 are part of the proposed Park North condo project in the Cascades-Route One area.
• In the Limited Growth Area, 52 lots were approved in seven single-family subdivisions. Only two developments, Hidden Fields and Mellina Meadows, have not been fully built-out, leaving a total of seven approved but unbuilt lots.
• All but two of the multi-family subdivisions developed in the last decade were condominium projects. The two apartment complexes built are the five-unit Autumnwood Apartments on Vivian Street and a four-unit complex on Mabel Avenue.
• Major completed condominium projects in the Growth Area include the Park Street Lofts (34 units developed in the Park Street Mill), the Shannon Woods Estates (43 townhouse units), and Stonegate (36 townhouse units).
• Nearly 68% percent of the Assisted Living units approved in the last decade have been built. The largest, Atlantic Heights/Village at Seal Rock, includes a 105 bed assisted living complex as well as a proposal for 46 cottage units. To date the 105 bed complex and 25 of the cottages have been built.
• Of the 62 unbuilt assisted living units in Saco, 21 are cottage units in the Atlantic Heights project, 11 are units in the approved VOA nursing home complex on Lincoln Road, and 30 are approved apartment units in the Cascade Brook project located in the Cascades-Route One area.