WESTBROOK – More single-family subdivisions north of the Presumpscot River, new commercial opportunities along a portion of Main Street, and high-tech commercial industrial development are all likely components of what the next decade could hold for the city of Westbrook, according to City Planner Molly Just.

Just is heading up the city’s Comprehensive Plan Update Task Force. The group is taking charge of a task performed approximately once every 10 years. The state requires a municipality to update its plan in order to remain eligible for state grants and loan programs such as Community Development Block Grants. The city has its current plan, last updated in 2000, available on its website.

State regulation is not the only reason to update the plan, however. The plan also serves as a blueprint for future city land use ordinances and zoning laws. In effect, the plan, Just said, helps the city manage growth and development for the next decade.

The task force recently released its vision statement, which gave an overview of what the rest of the plan would contain. Now, members are getting into writing the chapters that will serve as the meat of the new plan, which looks ahead to what the city might be like – and what its citizens want it to be like – in 2020.

The plan, Just said, should take about two years to complete. She said she hopes to see it finished by the end of this year or in the spring of 2012. Even at this early stage, however, a picture is beginning to emerge of where the city is headed.

Just said residential development will likely continue, based on recent growth figures. Since 2000, Just said, the city’s population has grown by 8 percent to 17,494.

“That’s pretty good,” she said, noting that Portland grew by 3 percent in that same time period, and South Portland grew by 7 percent. At this rate, Just said, she believes that in 2020 the city’s population will hit the 20,000 mark.

Current trends also call for single-family homes, she said, despite the troubled housing market. When the market recovers, she said, it’s unlikely there will be new development in the city center along the river.

Instead, developers will head north of the river to build. Right now, Just said, there is already evidence of new subdivisions going in there.

As to what that will mean as far as city services, Just said, there are the obvious new burdens on police and fire protection, not to mention future demands a growing population may have on the school district, but sewer service also could be an issue. The city offers no service beyond Brook and Pride streets, which may have to change to accommodate the future development, she said.

Growth in population might call for a greater commercial concentration too, Just said. It is likely that new neighborhoods in he northern sections of the city would attract business.

Regardless of population, the city will continue to be an attractive commercial prospect, Just said, considering the city hosts two major exits off Interstate 95.

“There’s a lot of capacity for commercial development,” she said.