NORTH WINDHAM – Part of what drew Reid Scher to move to Collins Pond in North Windham was its seemingly backwoods, isolated location mere minutes from the commercial hub of the Lakes Region.

Scher wanted to live the rest of his life in that area of Windham, but recent plans by the town to incorporate the Collins Pond neighborhood into a grid of streets connected to the shopping district have left him frustrated and second-guessing his future.

“We’re on the verge of doing an improvement on our house, and quite honestly, we’re not doing it,” Scher said. “We’re going to wait because I’m not spending what could be $25,000-$30,000 to live in a neighborhood that I don’t want to live in. So that is basically on hold depending on how this comes out.”

Scher is among a group of residents worried the proposed 21st Century Downtown Plan, aimed at integrating residential and commercial components of North Windham, will end up making life miserable for people who live in the area, since it also allows for connections between neighborhoods, via new streets and bicycle paths, that are now nearly shut off from the North Windham strip.

About 50 North Windham residents attended the first of three public hearings on the downtown plan last Thursday at Manchester Elementary School.

The plan, which would need to be approved by the Town Council since it affects zoning regulations, is an attempt to replicate old-fashioned American downtowns prior to the mall boom of the 1980s and big-box boom of the 1990s, when businesses fled classic downtown areas. For the last two years, a committee of residents, business people and town staff has met regularly to develop ways to deal with North Windham’s haphazardly developed commercial zone and resulting transportation and aesthetic challenges.

One of the plan’s goals is to make North Windham more approachable for bicyclists and pedestrians, as well as traffic. For more than a decade, North Windham, especially in the summer, has been clogged with traffic delays along the main arteries – routes 302, 115 and 35 – with visitors using the roads to get to points north and locals trying to navigate to stores, work and home. The plan, as proposed, attempts to improve roads by offering other ways to navigate through town and, more importantly, re-imagine how zoning changes could determine the layout and look of the North Windham commercial center.

As opposed to use-based zoning, which allows developers to only create certain businesses in specified areas of town, the plan would incorporate form-based code. Form-based code, which was adopted in Standish last year and is gaining popularity around the country, allows offices, residential housing, industry and service-sector businesses to cohabitate in a single area. That melding of uses allows people to live where they work, play and dine, a concept known as “complete streets.”

The most worrisome part of the plan, according to the residents at the initial public hearing, is its call for creating grids of interconnected streets in about a dozen areas of North Windham. The interconnectivity would allow for alternate travel routes around the busy commercial center as well as more routes into the commercial center for cars, bikes and pedestrians. Having more roads would free up Route 302 for through-traffic and create more of a village feel.

Confronted with a sketch that showed grids of streets laid out on top of where they live, residents at last Thursday’s meeting feared for their way of life and safety on roads that they say are already used by bicyclists, walkers and children. Scher, president of the Collins Pond Improvement Association, was dead-set against the proposal.

“What I see are a network of roads that are going to feed traffic into Collins Pond,” Scher said. “What I hear is the neighborhoods are secondary to the traffic and [interconnecting roads] sacrifice our neighborhood.”

Ralph Small, a resident of Northwood Drive off Route 35, similarly decried the proposal.

“If Northwood Drive were connected to Route 302, that would destroy the neighborhood,” he said. “I can see people using that as a racetrack getting over to Route 35 and Manchester Drive. And there are people on that street who love to walk … It would ruin that neighborhood.”

Many other residents gave similar feedback lamenting the plan’s call for urbanizing the region. Residents feared higher taxes, speeding drivers, and lack of buffers between commercial enterprises and their homes.

But planners say interconnectivity is a plus. Kevin Call, a Windham town councilor and member of the downtown plan committee, defended the plan’s intent to meld neighborhoods into the town center. He acknowledged the neighborhoods would lose their quiet character but argued that the region would benefit.

“What is not good for Northwood Drive may be good for the rest of this town,” Call said.

Another town councilor, David Nadeau, said the plan aims to direct inevitable growth in a way that will benefit existing neighborhoods. Right now, he said, a developer can buy up several lots and introduce a warehouse or similar imposing structure and there are no zoning laws to restrict it. Getting a plan in place to direct development in North Windham would benefit businesses and existing residents alike, Nadeau said.

Interconnectivity, planners say, is just one facet of the plan. Speaking generally about the plan prior to public comment Thursday night, the town’s planning consultant, Mitchell Rasor of MRLD Landscape Architecture & Urbanism based in Yarmouth, said form-based code aims to improve the aesthetics and community feel of a downtown area.

“If this whole area becomes more economically and visually vibrant and houses are developed there, people can actually live there and work there,” Rasor said. “Right now, and it’s not unusual, a lot of people have to move out from where they [work]. But if we can begin to change that tide, and work more where you live so you can walk to where you work, it will add to the sense of community because people will have a great sense of ownership of where they are.”

Windham Economic Development Director Tom Bartell said the residents’ concerns will be taken into consideration when the time comes for a final plan.

Residents, Bartell said, were concerned about “unfettered connectivity between neighborhoods and the commercial district. So the planning needs to think about that and take that into consideration. But the connectivity issue is just one piece of a much bigger plan.”

Like Nadeau, Bartell said new development will inevitably occur over time and that Windham needs to direct it better than it has in the past.

“Having a walkable place where people want to be, where they want to stay, perhaps going from store to store, go to the movies, go to a restaurant, all in an area that’s pleasant to be in and that’s walkable, that’s the goal,” Bartell said. “The downtown effect is what the 21st Century Downtown vision is all about.”

Reid Scher, president of the Collins Pond Improvement Association, is strongly opposed to the town of Windham’s plan to create a grid of interconnecting streets that feed into the commercial center of North Windham. Scher and dozens of other North Windham residents spoke against the 21st Century Downtown Plan last week saying it would create traffic hazards and destroy the peace and quiet of their neighborhoods.   
Reid Scher of Windham said he was about to do some home improvements, but because of the implications of the 21st Century Downtown Plan, which he opposes, he will wait.