The Portland Planning Board voted to oppose a proposed zoning change that could open the door to building several warehouses on 52 acres in one of Portland’s oldest and most historic neighborhoods.

Following an hour-long public hearing Tuesday night, where every resident who spoke criticized the proposal, the Planning Board voted 3-1 not to recommend the change sought by Touchstone Enterprises of Scarborough, which asked the city to rezone a 52-acre property at 1172 Westbrook St. from a low-impact industrial to a moderate-impact industrial zone so it can build the warehouses.

“It’s a hard sell for me to see Westbrook Street accommodating trucks and industrial traffic,” said board member Marpheen Chann, adding that the intersection of Westbrook Street and Johnson Road is already dangerous.

The Planning Board recommendation now goes to the City Council, which has final say over the zoning change.

Low-impact zoning is intended to provide a buffer between residential areas and higher-impact industrial zones. Moderate impact zones must provide direct access to arterials, protecting neighborhoods from thru-traffic, but they allow larger industrial buildings.

Chris Paszyc, president of Touchstone, a development company, said plans for the site call for creating five subdivided lots that would accommodate industrial buildings of 30,000 to 50,000 square feet.

“The buildings will be a mix of single-tenant and multi-tenant buildings,” Paszyc said in an email to the Press Herald. “Ultimately, there will be a variety of business classifications in the park. To say now who the users will be is premature.”

Westbrook Street cuts through the heart of Portland’s Stroudwater neighborhood, one of the city’s oldest. Once the street crosses the nearby town line with Westbrook it becomes Stroudwater Street.

The Tate House Museum at 1270 Westbrook St., built in 1755, is a National Historic Landmark and one of the city’s oldest homes. The Stroudwater Burying Ground dates from 1727 and is registered with the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register recognized Stroudwater Village as a National Historic District in 1973. It includes several homes that date from that period.

Opposition to the zone change has been building for weeks, and the city Planning Department received 43 written comments, most opposing the rezoning, prior to Tuesday’s hearing.

At the hearing, 17 people criticized the zoning change. Some said that allowing large warehouses as well as storage and distribution facilities on the property would increase truck traffic on Westbrook Street, harming residents’ quality of life as well as wildlife and resource protection areas.

David Roberts, who lives on Trailhead Way in the neighborhood, said the zone change would be a bad fit for the historic neighborhood because it would increase heavy truck traffic and noise, and harm property values.

“This neighborhood is old with homes dating back to the 1750s,” Roberts said.

Eugenia O’Brien, who has lived in Stroudwater for more than three decades, asked the board to reject the zone change request. She worried about the impact large buildings could have on residents and wildlife.

“These buildings will be so high. The light pollution will be devastating to the neighborhood,” O’Brien said.

“It’s an inappropriate fit for this location in a historic neighborhood,” said Deborah Napier. “And it runs counter to the city’s Comprehensive Plan.”

Frederick Faller, who lives near the site, was concerned about overnight and early morning truck traffic coming to and from the warehouses.

“A zone change that doesn’t take into consideration traffic increases throughout the night is not acceptable,” Faller said.

But according to Darren Stairs, an associate principal with Woodard and Curran, which represents Touchstone Enterprises, complete traffic and environmental studies would only be conducted at the Planning Board’s site plan review of the project.

The prospect of adding more truck traffic to Westbrook Street left three Planning Board members struggling to come to terms with a zone change.

“I’m really struggling with this,” board member Austin Smith said. “I can see the underlying reasons for why this has been a low-impact zone. It was purposeful and served as a buffer to the surrounding residential neighborhood. It seems unfair to the neighborhood to change it to a moderate impact zone now.”

Also voting against the zone change was Justin Barker. Chairperson Maggie Stanley was the only board member to vote in the affirmative. Planning Board members Brandon Mazer and Sean Murphy did not attend the virtual meeting while David Silk recused himself from voting.

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