The Saco Planning Board met on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, at 7:43 PM (adjournment) to review several development applications and discuss legislative updates. The agenda included a sketch plan for an elderly housing development at 1015 US One, a site plan for converting office space to residential at 100 Main Street, a preliminary subdivision for 986 Portland Road Phase 1, and a request to table the Phase 2 application. The board also discussed the implications of LD 1829, a state housing law. All votes were 7-0 unless otherwise noted.
Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us this evening. Anything to add on this before we begin? I'll pull up of the sketch plan. Um I know you guys had it in your packet, but I'm just gonna pull it up on the screen for you right now. Great. Honor we have the applicant with us this evening. Um good evening, Rob McSorley with Sebago TechNet. I'm representing the applicant 1015 US One Inc. or limited liability corporation uh coming before you to present a sketch plan to you as shown on uh I assume the monitors uh to the side here. Um the sketch plan that we have provided to you was a result of some preliminary meeting that or coordination that we had with the uh city uh back in late July of this year. We actually presented uh on an online meeting two uh layouts that uh had um some units that uh kind of backed up to the commercial area to the north, and also a layout that included a cottage type product. Um the uh one of the comments from staff recommended that we do not butt up against that north property line and that we position our residential buildings closer to the residential use to the south. So we kind of reconfigured our site. We limited the amount of units that we have on the portion to the north and located those more southerly. Uh the buildings that you see there are three-story buildings. We had a lot more uh lower uh two-story duplexes and uh of course the cottage units at one time. Um staff recommended that we look at going vertical versus uh more units to open up the site a little bit more, and so we we have done that. The prior configurations kind of had uh ended in an a dead-end T section uh rate where you see the two larger buildings that are labeled 24 uh unit buildings. Uh we did have a T section there, and then we had a uh parking lot to continue around one of the comments that staff had recommended is to make a connection to Dom Marie Drive, which is the uh road to the um east on the plans or to your right. Um we uh would love to make a connection to Domerie and connect to the utilities there. We had uh some extensive coordination with the developer of that property uh that did not prove fruitful, and um so we were unable to come to terms to make those connections. However, per staff request what we have done is provided for a future connection uh down at the property line there. That's what you see on the plans, both for pedestrian and for vehicles in the future. Um of the other things they had uh requested, though not shown on this plan, is to provide a pedestrian uh access through the site also for the uh adjacent uh Blue Haven uh motor court, which we would be more than happy to do. Uh one of the things that uh we would be looking at we would like to gravity feed down into Domarie, but it looks like we're going to have to pump up to uh Portland Road. We will provide a stub out to be able to pick up uh the Blue Heron Motor Court, their sanitary. Uh that system or that property currently has about five different septic systems on site, and uh we would hope to clean that up a bit. Um there was I know that when we talked to staff, they said that the project would require conditional use approval as it would be multifamily residential project, which we we don't have an issue with. We did have some comments from the city engineer uh that might be in your package. Uh there was nothing really substantial. Um we would address all of those, of course, when we go through the process for a full uh detailed plan set and whatnot. Site distance is not a problem on either road. Um they're flat and there's wide open in either direction. Um there is a concern relative to uh future paving that will happen this year on uh Portland Road, and what we would do is try to coordinate to make whatever work that we need to have done out there, probably would be just a water main connection and reconfiguration of the driveway. Everything else would be pulled off the power poles on our side of the street, or the connection to the sewer would be a manhole that is already stubbed out to the property. I touched on most of the highlights there, and um would be more than happy to get your input relative to the plan that we've laid out and how you see we could move forward. Great, thank you, sir. Board members, any questions for the applicant? Jeff? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um first question I had uh the dumpster that you have laid out. I know it was the uh to comment brought up by the Department of Public Works. Um is this a dumpster that the residents will be bringing their own trash to to be collected, or will you have like a maintenance team that will bring it from each building? The I was just wondering in the sense because it's it's a fairly large campus, if you will, and if elderly are planning to have to bring it from their building all the way to the dumpster, I didn't know if that was gonna be problematic, or if we should be looking at you know, two dumpster locations or something. We actually have thought about that, and as you come in right there, there's a good spot to have a another dumpster to the front that staff or uh residents could dump on their way out from the the their trunk of their car or whatnot and be easy to hit be had. But that's a great suggestion, and we've already uh looked at that to add that. Okay. Um my next one I had um just looking at the site.