FREEPORT

Freeport councilors on Tuesday night rejected a zoning change that would have moved forward plans for the construction of soccer arena off Hunter Road.

By a 5-2 margin, the council voted against zoning changes that would have allowed the Topsham- based Seacoast United Soccer club to build a 60,000- square- foot soccer arena on land between Pownal and Hunter Road.

Judy Hawley, assistant to the town manager, confirmed this morning that councilors Charlotte Bishop and Richard DeGrandpre voted against the zoning denial.

At a Feb. 7 meeting, Seacoast representative Mike Healy said that rejection of the proposal for a “recreation zone” to accommodate the arena would likely drive the project to another town.

“If this doesn’t proceed, I doubt that the project would be built in Freeport,” Healy said following that meeting.

In recent months, the plan generated strong opposition from neighbors, who first presented a petition against the zoning change to the board in December.

Lucy Lloyd, a spokeswoman for the neighborhood group, told The Times Record on Monday that the group’s goal for the Tuesday meeting was “to come together to say, ‘No, that we don’t want it where it is (planned).’”

In November, the Freeport Planning Board — by a 4- 3 vote — also rejected zoning changes that would have accommodated the project.

Harry Virtue, vice chairman of the town’s Planning Board, said Monday that the November decision was made “purely from an ordinance viewpoint.”

Hawley said that a motion by Town Councilor Sara Gideon to create a town committee to work with Seacoast on the project also was voted down before the council voted on the proposed zoning changes.