A room full of Biddeford residents gathered last week to air grievances to the City Council about the proposed University of New England pier project.

The rarely invoked General Meeting of the Citizens was called for in September, when a group of residents submitted a petition to Biddeford City Hall.

The meeting, which is allowed by the city charter if 100 or more signatures are gathered, required the City Council listen and not speak as citizens shared their opinions on the proposed project.

“Tonight’s meeting was called under that authority, providing an opportunity for citizens to address matters of public concern directly to the City Council,” Mayor Martin Grohman said last week.

The meeting was moderated by resident Craig Pendleton, who said that while UNE has followed the permitting process as required by law, public comment during the permitting process has been “limited to non-existent.”

“Local residents and city employees have repeatedly raised concerns over the proposed location,” Pendleton said.

The pier project has been controversial for the past year, with residents pushing for a different location than the one proposed, which is located on the Saco River adjacent to the Arthur P. Girard Marine Science Center on the UNE campus.

Recently, concerns have been raised that a previous permitting decision by Saco River Corridor Commission, which established a 250-foot buffer zone on the UNE property, was overlooked during a current permitting process.

Some residents are also upset with former City Manager James Bennett’s decision to bar Biddeford Harbormaster Paul Lariviere from commenting or voting on the proposal, citing bias.

“Biased for doing his job the city hired him to do?” resident Carole Alexander asked last week. “Biased because he wouldn’t be intimidated and back down to an institution with deep pockets?”

Alexander, who is the wife of the late Marshall Alexander, who served as Harbormaster for 37 years, said her husband proposed an alternative location for the pier over 10 years ago.

“He was familiar with the river, he knew that there’s an eddy up there, he knew how the current ran, he knew the depths of the harbor, he knew everything about that river,” Alexander said. “So many of us are very frustrated and rather infuriated by this whole bungled process.”

Wade Goldthwaite, a lifelong Biddeford resident and former lobsterman, said it “breaks his heart” that the city did not take the advice of Alexander on where to place the pier.

“They had the benefit of the former harbormaster, one of the most incredible men, telling them where to put that pier, and they didn’t take his advice,” Goldthwaite said. “I’m very sad.”

For many residents, the issue is not whether UNE gets a pier in general, but where they locate it.

“I would love to see UNE get their dock, but put it where it belongs,” resident Steve Martin said.

Shawn Tibbetts, a commercial fisherman in Biddeford, said his mooring would be directly affected by the UNE pier.

“There’s no way they can use these docks,” Tibbetts said. “The tides change, and there are times I can’t get my boat on my mooring. That tide turns sometimes every 15 minutes in that eddy.”

The university would also have to move at least seven moorings in order to use the proposed pier and only proposed moving two moorings, Tibbetts said.

“We left out the local knowledge in these decisions,” Tibbetts said. “No one reached out to anyone who knew anything about the river.”

While no decisions regarding the pier were made at last week’s meeting, the Biddeford Zoning Board of Appeals will review the project at a Nov. 13 hearing.