SCARBOROUGH — The owner of a property on Science Lot Road in Scarborough expressed interest in building a MaineCare assisted living facility on Jan. 6 at a Town Council workshop.

Robert Gaudreau of Contour Properties, owner of the property, is looking into the possibility of building and then selling an approximately 72-unit assisted living facility on a 3.4 acre lot adjacent to the I-295 Scarborough Connector and CMP power lines in Nonesuch River, he said.

A MaineCare provider has approached the land owners with interest in purchasing the facility, Gaudreau said. The property owners would “play developer and builder,” then sell the completed facility.

The state has seen a “dire need” for assisted living, he said.

“We have a letter of intent from a MaineCare provider that owns five other sites in the state, and the state of Maine is actually promoting expansion into Southern Maine because there’s not enough viable assisted living for moderate-income or low-income people,” he said.

Contour Properties has been marketing the land for about four years, Gaudreau said.

“We’ve had more interest in community living organizations than anything, and we’ve yet to had anybody entice us,” he said.

Although the property does not have any immediate neighbors, other businesses on Science Park Road are in the medical industry.

But an impediment to his plan, Gaudreau said, is that the zone encompassing the property does not allow residential use, he said. He asked the Town Council how he should approach this, through a contract zone or through a zoning amendment.

The process of a contract zone involves “a lot of legal work,” said Councilor John Cloutier. He believed that there could essentially be a “two word amendment” rather than entering a contract zone process.

Councilors discussed the pros and cons of both options, bringing up the concern about having many zoning changes in Scarborough.

Gaudreau told councilors that the facility would not apply to enter a CEA agreement and would be a full taxpayer.

An additional piece of the project includes donating land to the Scarborough Land Trust, he said.

“The middle of that property is actually wetlands that we have been in discussion with Scarborough Land Trust for the last three years, and we intend to donate that forward as soon as we get through planning and some of that stuff,” Gaudreau said. “That is adjacent to some of the existing land trust land that I’ve given them in the past, and we own additional acreage that’s not shown on plan that would go with it.”

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