The Planning Board was set to hold a workshop Tuesday, Oct. 11 on a proposal to create 162 units of affordable, cooperative housing in Portland’s North Deering neighborhood.
Maine Cooperative Development Partners, the developers, are seeking a major site plan and inclusionary zoning conditional-use request from the Board for the development at 165 Lambert St. in the North Deering neighborhood.
The development, which is proposed for nearly 18 acres, is bisected by the Washington Avenue Extension. The north and south development would include a mix of residential housing types, with three-story row houses and three-story community flat buildings.
The City Council approved the sale of 165 Lambert St. to the developers in December 2020, and the applicants recently reduced the number of units from 165 to 162. They also reduced the amount of off-street parking stalls, removed townhouse buildings, rearranged buildings and made other design alterations since their last Planning Board workshop on Aug. 9.
The site, which is nearly 18 acres, is forested, with just over five acres of wetlands. An additional parcel of land, more than 13 acres across the town line into Falmouth, is owned by the applicant but is not part of this major site-plan review.
All told, the development would have 14 new buildings to create 162 units of affordable housing. 121 units would be income-restricted to 100 percent of the area median index, or AMI, of Greater Portland, with 41 fixed at 80 percent of the AMI.
The 2022 area median index for a two-bedroom unit in Portland is $89,400.
The facility’s proposal includes 65 off-street parking spaces, 13 electric vehicle charging stations, 65 bicycle racks and nearly 50,000 square feet of open space.
Cooperative housing, often called a co-op, is a building typically of apartment-style housing units that is owned by the inhabitants.