TOPSHAM

The Topsham Planning Board will get its first look tonight at the latest sketch plan for a proposed 47-home subdivision between Mallett and Park drives.

Developer Dan Catlin of Mallett Woods LLC submitted the plan. The Planning Board has seen other plans for the property but they didn’t progress to final review.

The Planning Board won’t vote tonight, but the plan review will allow members to talk about whether the proposal can work in this location, Town Planner Rich Roedner said.

The Planning Board would vote on a preliminary plan before any vote on a final plan.

Catlin’s development falls under the town’s new subdivision rules as an open-space development.

Under those rules, a developer must set aside 30 percent of the property to be developed as open space and has a range of criteria to meet when laying out lots, including different lot size allowances and dimensions.

The open-space option would allow Catlin to get 47 lots using smaller lots of around 10,000 square feet instead of the minimum 20,000-square-foot lots required in a standard subdivision layout in an urban residential zone.

Roedner said the long, narrow lot currently is wooded with two streams that run through the property and a stream on each end.

The existing lot is 26.2 acres, according to a site analysis submitted by Belanger Engineering. A right of way to Park Drive would be created for access to the property and for utilities. Eventually, the project would connect to existing roads in four locations, phased in over time. A proposed road is located down the center of the parcel to provide access.

Catlin “has indicated that there is more interest in creating single-family lots where the road and infrastructure will be built and offered to the town for acceptance. The lots would be created and sold. Future lot owners would construct the home,” according to the proposal.

If the town is on board with the project, Catlin said it would be a phased project with 11 or 12 lots in the first phase and several years to build out all five planned phases. “I realize it’s not going to happen overnight,” he said.

Catlin said the homes would range from 1,450 square feet to 1,850 square feet, on 12,000- to 14,000-square-foot lots; with a few that could exceed this size. He hopes the homes, which would have full basements, could be single or two-story and range from $250,000 to $275,000.

Approximately 8.5 acres of open space is to be preserved, which exceeds the 30 percent requirement.

John Shattuck, Topsham’s economic and community development director, characterized the project as “a small, dense neighborhood” and “a perfect space to do infill.”

The neighborhood could be connected by sidewalks directly to the mall, and smaller home sizes proposed in the project offer options to retirees, people of modest means and young working families who want to become homeowners.

“The big thing for me,” he said, “this development is going to help businesses at the Topsham Fair Mall.” Its future occupants will eat in the restaurants and shop in the stores, he said.

Depending on planning and approvals, Catlin said he hopes the first phase of the Mallett Woods project will begin in the coming year and to offer some lots by next summer if possible.

After the regular meeting, the Planning Board is to hold a workshop on the Topsham Fair Mall Watershed.

The town is working with the state Department of Environmental Protection and has hired a consultant to better address water quality issues at the mall, Roedner said.

The meeting will start at 7 p.m. at the municipal building, 100 Main St.

dmoore@timesrecord.com