Nearly two years in the making, the revised Cape Elizabeth Comprehensive Plan – which focuses on land-use policy – is inching closer toward implementation.

Monday, the Comprehensive Plan Committee and the Cape Elizabeth Town Council met to review the first half the plan and address the council’s questions for the committee before the public hearing. The committee reviewed its recommendations for critical natural resources, marine resources and water resources.

Committee Chairwoman Barbara Schenkel and Town Planner Maureen O’Meara started Monday’s workshop by giving an overview of the process of developing, adopting and certifying the comprehensive plan.

Schenkel said the committee worked on the plan for 20 months, meeting twice a month for three-hour sessions.

“We tried to involve the public as much as possible,” Schenkel said, citing a phone survey, three public forums and requests for e-mails with residents’ recommendations.

Schenkel and O’Meara also presented the land-use buildout analysis and land-use recommendations.

“All other chapters build up to the land-use policy,” O’Meara said.

O’Meara, in her overview, called Cape Elizabeth a “much more mature town” than other suburbs of Portland. She said the town is growing slowly, at 2.4 percent, more like a city than a suburb. She also said Cape Elizabeth is older, more affluent and better educated than most communities.

O’Meara compared development recommendations in the last comprehensive plan, implemented in 1993, to what actually occurred. She said 92 percent of the growth in town happened where the plan directed it, which she said was a success.

She projected that 330 homes will be built by 2020, when the next comprehensive plan is scheduled to be implemented.

The committee entertained questions from councilors, who were concerned about increasing density in town. Schenkel explained that while the plan called for increasing density in open space zoning areas, it also requires developers to preserve 45 percent of open space, as opposed to the 40 percent that is now required.

“Everything is a give and a take, and we’ve had long discussions about all of this,” Schenkel said.

O’Meara said the ideal situation for the town is to develop some pieces of land and save open space at the same time.

“We’re not expecting any kind of growth spurt,” O’Meara said. “In fact, we’re expecting the opposite.

Councilor Mary Ann Lynch, who is also a member of the Comprehensive Plan Committee, said the plan to cluster development will benefit the town in two ways – developers will want to build more houses in tighter spaces and more open space will be preserved as a result.

Anne Swift-Kayatta, also a councilor and Comprehensive Plan Committee member, said another citizen concern, the need for senior housing, can be addressed by clustering development.

“There are people who want to downsize and move to a smaller place, but don’t want to leave Cape Elizabeth,” Swift-Kayatta said. She said condominium projects would meet that housing need in a cluster development.

Before moving on to other recommendations of the plan, the committee opened up the floor to more questions from the council, but none arose.

“You made your explanations very clear,” said Council Chairman Paul McKenney. “

Next Tuesday, at a meeting at 7:30 p.m. in the council chambers, recommendations for economy, housing, transportation, public facilities, fiscal capacity, recreation and open space, agriculture and forestry, history and archaeology and regional coordination will be addressed. The council and the committee also will be establishing a time frame for plan implementation.