SCARBOROUGH — The developers of The Downs say they need an exemption from the town’s recently tightened housing growth cap to realize their plan to build a downtown in the heart of former harness racing property.

Enacted last summer, the town’s updated Growth Management Ordinance limits housing permits issued to The Downs to 43 units per calendar year. The developers say their vision for a town center requires about 1,000 dwellings within a five-minute walk to support the restaurants, shops and other businesses they hope to bring to the area.

They say housing is a crucial element of creating the downtown that many Scarborough residents have always wanted but never had, and they need to build a lot more than 43 apartments or condominiums in the town center each year.

“Housing is a fundamental part of that vision, so there are people living upstairs and across the street,” said Dan Bacon, development director for The Downs. “With the rise of e-commerce, the town center can’t be retail alone.”

The developers say the new cap, a stricter version of a 2001 ordinance, has hobbled them in designing a town center that reflects recent recommendations from the Downtown Development Committee. They’re also attempting to answer a critical need for affordable and workforce housing in the region, while trying to make sure the town center is attractive and meets broader needs of all Scarborough residents.

“We want to be really confident that this town center plan is gonna work,” said Roccy Risbara, a lead developer of The Downs.

The developers presented their town center proposal to the Town Council last week, including architect’s renderings by Cube 3 of Massachusetts and Florida. They are seeking a blanket exemption that would allow construction of an undetermined number of mixed-use and multifamily buildings in a 90-acre area near the defunct racetrack and former Grand Stand building, which would be torn down.

According to the proposal, the town center also would include large public lawn areas, flexible public program space, a community center, a recreation center, continuous street-level retail and a grocery store at the edge of the town center area.

Since the Risbara and Michaud brothers bought the 524-acre property in 2018, they have developed The Downs as the town-approved Crossroads Planned Development District. So far, 478 housing units have been built or are in development in the area off Route 1, including single-family homes, duplexes, condominiums, apartments, affordable senior apartments and a memory care facility.

In the Innovation District off Payne Road, eight businesses have set up shop, including Zoom Drain and Ducas Construction; eight are under construction or permitted, including Mainely Tubs and Shucks Lobster; and a Costco store is going through the permitting process.

Appointed by the council, the Downtown Development Committee said in its report last fall that “the council could provide a carefully designed exemption to (The Downs) that would allow for accelerated construction of housing within the downtown within roughly a quarter-mile radius of the center of the Village Green.”

Town Council Chairman John Cloutier said he’s not sure what kind of exemption The Downs will get, but he and the rest of the council are open to making allowances.

“They came in asking for infinity last year,” Cloutier said. “They would have gotten a hard ‘no’ in December, but I really liked what we saw on Wednesday, and I think it was well received by the council as a whole.”

The council will hold a follow-up workshop March 2 with a consultant for the town who is expected to outline the impact that the town center proposal would have on town services, including schools, taxes, roads and other infrastructure, Cloutier said. Town officials would begin negotiating terms of an exemption with the developers soon after, he said, with an agreement likely by late spring or early summer.

“We want The Downs to be successful,” Cloutier said. “We want more affordable housing. We want a community center.”

At the same time, he said, town officials want to make sure development doesn’t overwhelm town resources.

As state legislators consider recommendations to do away with zoning that constricts housing development, including growth caps, Cloutier said the town’s Growth Management Ordinance is one of few ways Scarborough has to control development.

“We need some control mechanism,” he said. “We’re a highly desirable place to live.”