WESTBROOK – Westbrook city councilors postponed a vote Monday to sell the former Prides Corner Elementary School to a developer after hearing concerns from neighbors last week. Instead, the council asked the developer to re-examine the proposal.

At a neighborhood meeting Oct. 30, Mayor Colleen Hilton and Bill Baker, assistant city administrator for business and community relations, presented the proposal to a full house at Prides Corner Congregational Church.

Originally intended for a City Council vote Monday, the plan to turn the school into a 98-unit apartment complex was countered with debate from residents of the immediate area, who are concerned that it is not the right fit for the neighborhood.

After the meeting yielded concerns about the size, scope and lack of design for the project, South Portland developer Vincent Maietta, of V&E Enterprises Inc., was asked to resubmit an updated plan to the city with the public concerns addressed.

“They’re going to think about their options and modify their initial proposal and come back to us at some point in the not-too-distant future,” Baker said Tuesday.

Baker added that he would expect modifications to be made to the proposed height of the buildings, building density, buffers and green space, all of which were brought up by residents during the meeting. A major change in the proposal may also come from the offering price, which Maietta said would change if the number of units had to be lowered.

The initial proposal was to sell the former school to V&E Enterprises for $650,000, which is less than the property’s assessed value of $851,200. If acquired, the developer would convert the former school into one-, two- and three-bedroom, market-rate apartments. Depending on the cost of the project, the school building could make up the base of the complex, with additional floors added, or the building could be razed and replaced with four or five smaller buildings scattered throughout the lot.

Wednesday’s meeting was held exactly one year after the first Prides Corner neighborhood meeting that looked to gauge public opinion on what they would prefer to see on the former school’s property.

“There were a lot of things discussed at that meeting, but we came away with the impression that you were clearly in favor of market-rate housing at that site,” Baker said during last week’s meeting.

However, the clear culprit and most ringing opposition to the current proposal is the density of the project. To be able to fit 98 units on the parcel, the developer would either have to build three-story buildings in a small, clustered area, or one- or two-story buildings that will require more land.

Residents were concerned with both options, some citing that the three-story plan would create visibility issues, with others citing the environmental impact of a plan that would spread the development further onto the property.

Baker said that similar public opposition was seen during the last development project in the neighborhood, when the Brydon Farm condominiums, a development now seen as a success, was first proposed.

Kathy Bither, whose property abuts the Brydon Farm condos and the Prides School parcel, expressed disapproval of a 10-foot buffer zone between residential and commercial properties.

“What is 10 feet as a setback?” she said. “That’s just not enough.”

Bither asked the city and developers to cluster the buildings to try to keep as much open space as possible.

“I would hate to see all the trees cleared to our property boundary. It would have a dramatic effect on our property value,” she said.

Mark Malone, the commercial broker selected to represent the city in the sale of the property, said that a “contract zone” project such as this gives Westbrook a “great deal of control over the process,” opposed to any development that would create separate house lots.

“This proposal would be clustered in no more than five buildings, leaving more open space for walking trails, etc.,” he said.

Shirley Lawrence, whose property abuts the Prides Corner school land and Pride Street, raised the question of traffic flow in the neighborhood and whether all the traffic from the 98-unit complex would flow from one entrance.

Other concerns were for how a potential population increase would impact Westbrook’s schools, which are seen as already overcrowded, as well as questions over why the city is looking to sell the property for less than its assessed value.

Westbrook School Superintendent Marc Gousse said that the school system is at capacity, but not over capacity.

“Before we invite more people in, we need to take care of our kids that are presently in our schools,” said Krista Martin, who lives on Brook Street.

Baker said the city had received multiple proposals during the last year from developers or businesses that looked to establish projects at the site. But the other proposals were either deemed unsuitable for the property or did not come to fruition for various reasons.

According to Baker, a recent report on the growth of mold in the building, estimated to cost $100,000 to remediate, was disclosed to V&E Enterprises, which took the report into account while making the offer to the city. Baker gave examples of neighboring school departments that have recently sold former school buildings for well under their assessed value. Portland’s former Nathan Clifford Elementary School, with an assessed value of $2.7 million, was sold to a developer for $1.

Malone said that initially, the vast majority of development interest in the property was for affordable housing or subsidized units, something that Prides Corner residents are wary of.

Maietta fielded the majority of questions Wednesday night, ranging from what rent prices would look like ($700-$1,500), to why the development isn’t for higher-value homes.

“We’re not here to do anything that the city doesn’t want,” he said Wednesday. “We came here to learn what you want and try to see if we can do something that’s economically feasible within the range of what the public wants.”