More than a year ago, Craig Johnson and his wife, Denise, decided they were ready to downsize.

A Westbrook native, Johnson, who lives in North Yarmouth, bought land on Falmouth Street with the intention of returning to his roots for retirement. Between building costs and city processes, his plans have been delayed and, now, the city is considering an ordinance change that could prevent him from building at all.

When Johnson purchased the property – two, 6,500 square-foot lots – he was told he’d be able to build a house on each, and he wasn’t being misled. Though the city’s minimum lot size requirement is 7,500 square feet, Johnson’s lots are so-called substandard lots of record, meaning they were subdivided before the current standards were put in place and can be built on.

In February, the city’s Committee of the Whole asked the Planning Board to consider removing the provision that would allow homes to be built on substandard lots of record. In the committee’s recommendation, councilors asked for the change to be retroactive to the February meeting, which puts Johnson in a sticky situation.

Before the change is passed, Johnson can move forward with his plans to obtain a build permit and put up the two modular homes, one for him and his wife and the other for his pregnant daughter and her husband. However, if he builds now, and the ordinance change is eventually passed, because of the retroactive clause, Johnson would have to take the homes down.

On Tuesday, the Planning Board will hold a public hearing on the ordinance change at 7 p.m., in Room 114 at Westbrook High School.

The Committee of the Whole began the discussion of changing the ordinance per request of Council President Brendan Rielly, who had heard complaints about how homes built on substandard lots had changed the character of the neighborhoods where they were built.

One of those neighborhoods is on Anderson Avenue, where, in the past five years, 10, 5,000 square-foot lots have been developed, and longtime neighbors aren’t pleased.

“It changed the whole street,” said Lorraine Lyden, who’s lived on Anderson Avenue for 40 years.

Though Lyden said she wasn’t opposed to allowing houses to be built on substandard lots, she said, the style of the houses should fit with others in the existing neighborhood. Her neighbors for 27 years, Jeff and Denise Watts, agreed that those built on Anderson Avenue don’t.

“You’ve got these cookie-cutter houses in, and it doesn’t fit with the houses that have their own character,” Denise Watts said about the difference between the row of similar, two-story, vinyl-sided homes and the older, more cape-style homes across the street.

Watts said that before the new homes were “shoehorned in” to the 5,000 square-foot lots, Anderson Avenue was a tree-lined street with open lots that the children who lived there would play in.

“We live in a great neighborhood, but the character is forever changed,” she said.

According to City Administrator Jerre Bryant, the idea behind allowing homes to be built on lots of substandard size was to create more affordable housing. The homes are less expensive to build than a new subdivision would be because the lots are already being serviced by the city’s sewers and roads.

Rielly said, with the houses that have been built so far, that goal has not been accomplished.

“There’s already been a lot of development,” he said. “It hasn’t resulted in what any of us would call affordable housing.”

There are 96 substandard lots of record in Westbrook that have already been developed and about 50 more that could be.

Considering the number of substandard lots that have already been developed, Watts said changing the ordinance would be a moot point for the city.

“It’s like shutting the barn door after the horses have gotten out,” she said.

But there are still smaller lots to be developed, and Mayor Bruce Chuluda believes the owners of those lots, like the people before them, should be allowed to build.

Chuluda said he doesn’t think the best solution is to remove the provision altogether, but to put restrictions on what type of homes can be built on smaller lots, in order to make sure the existing neighborhoods don’t suffer.

For Johnson, who said his homes will not only fit, but improve the Falmouth Street neighborhood, that compromise is ideal.

“There’s a lot of issues that are beyond my control,” Johnson said about the future of what will be allowed on his property. Regardless, he will move forward with his plans as if there weren’t.

“Today, I’m legal,” he said.