For nearly half a century, growth in Windham has been non-stop, changing the face of this once rural farming community.

Business is booming in North Windham along the Route 302 corridor with shops, supermarkets, office buildings and retail supercenters.

Throughout Windham, expansive neighborhoods are conquering large tracts of land as Windham transforms into a bedroom community of nearby Portland.

As Windham continues to change into a bustling suburbia and commercial center for the Lakes Region, the burden of new neighbors is putting pressure on the town’s ability to maintain services for its growing population, manage development and preserve the rural character of the town.

This suburban push is now slowing with the real estate market as thrifty homebuyers pop the bubble on inflated housing prices.

Still, Windham remains one of the fastest growing communities in southern Maine, second only to Scarborough.

Growth in Windham has been steady since the 1960s, averaging 300 new residents a year.

During the 1950s and 1960s, a decline in the farming industry left wide acres of land open for development.

At the same time, there was a budding trend among summer residents to turn their cottages into year-round homes.

From 1960 to 1970, the population in Windham jumped from 4,498 to 6,593 people, according to town records.

From 1970 to 1980, the population nearly doubled to 11,282.

Since then, the population has increased by roughly 2,000 residents every decade.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population of Windham is now at approximately 16,000.

New neighbors means new challenges

Town Manager Anthony Plante says an average of 100 new homes are built in Windham each year.

“It’s easy to miss a lot of the growth that’s taking place because Windham is large geographically,” Plante said.

While large residential developments have become more popular in recent years, much of this residential growth happens gradually, house by house, through landowners selling off portions of their property to family or real estate brokers.

The more people that move in, the more the demand for services rises, however this is sometimes hard to gauge, Plante said.

More houses means expansion of fire protection, police services, road maintenance and local education as new residents enroll their children in the Windham school system.

While most residential development comes with some cost to the town, the town realizes some tax benefit from expensive homes. However, all in all, it is commercial business moving to town that serves to lessen the tax burden for residents.

With new residents comes new expectations, Plante said, especially from those who have moved inland from Portland and surrounding communities, and demand for town services like street sweeping and weekly trash pick-up.

“As Windham has become an increasingly suburban community, the level that people expect is a little different,” Plante said.

Farmland becomes new neighborhoods

The largest residential subdivision in the town’s history, Sebago Heights, was approved last December. The streets to this 91-house neighborhood off Pipeline Road, near the Windham/Raymond line, are almost complete and the developers Amy Mulkerin and Greg McCormack aim to build twenty houses in the first phase of the project by the end of the year.

Mulkerin, who runs a successful real estate business in Portland, said her company has paid close attention to Windham’s growth as a service center for the region.

“We wanted a community that was self-sufficient and within commuting distance from Portland,” Mulkerin said of reason why she decided to build the ambitious Sebago Heights project in Windham. “North Windham is just dynamite. You’ve got the Lakes Region at your fingertips.”

Presently, there are a litany of other subdivisions in different phases of completion and on the Windham Planning Board’s agenda for review.

Patriot’s Way subdivision will create 18 new homes off Albion Road. Developers of Shoreland subdivision on Chute Road look to put in 14 houses and, down the street, Hancock Land Development hopes to build 26 more houses.

Most of these subdivisions are built over a period of years and many are the result of long-time farmers or their heirs giving up the trade to cash in on real estate demand in Windham like Burrill Farm subdivision on Route 302 and Meyer’s Farm on Windham Center Road.

Susan Hawkes is longtime family farmer who grows produce on a farm off Windham Center Road and runs a farm stand on Route 302.

Before changes in the child labor laws and decline in the farming industry, local youth worked summers harvesting the crops each year.

Now she runs the farm on her own with help from her family and, though it doesn’t produce much profit, farming remains a labor of love for Hawkes.

“It’s really difficult for a small farmer,” Hawkes said. “You’re trying to hang on to what you’ve got and somebody’s dangling this money in front of you.”

Having witnessed Windham change through the years, Hawkes’ son David has become a leader in trying to preserve acres of land in Windham for posterity.

In 2000, he and group of residents known as “Citizens for Sensible Development” formed the Windham Land Trust to buy acres of woodland and farmland to preserve the rural character of town.

They raised money to purchase a large acreage of woodland now known as the Black Brook Preserve, land that was slated to become a 48-house development.

“You can’t keep things the way they are forever, but it would be nice to keep part of it,” David Hawkes said.

The group continues to advocate for more town governance over the growth in Windham through better future planning.

This strong notion of Windham’s rural heritage has led to ideological clashes in local politics and disagreements on how to manage residential and commercial growth, seen clearly in the current battle to restrict a proposed 75-acre quarry on the corner of Nash Road and Route 302.

The real estate shuffle

While increased development does put more burden on town services, the town’s ability to oversee that growth has been undermined in the past by a loophole in the state’s real estate subdivision law.

In subdivision law, a real estate developer must have a residential project approved by the Windham Planning Board if it includes three house lots or more.

But under an old version of this law, a homeowner could buy a large piece of land and then immediately sell or gift two house lots to other owners.

Real estate developers took advantage of this, selling property at a cheaper rate if the buyer agreed to gift house lots immediately to the developers.

This led to many sprawling neighborhoods with poor roads, poor storm-water drainage and lack of fire hydrants.

In 1999, Roger Timmons approached the state legislature with town manager Plante to ask to lawmakers to change the subdivision law.

The legislature agreed and now the property owners must own the land for five years before gifting or selling house lots away.

The push slows down

The history of growth in Windham is clear, but its future remains uncertain in the light of a recent “slow down” in the real estate market.

A drive down Route 202 from Gray to the Route 302 rotary shows how the tide is turning in the real estate market. “For Sale” signs dot the road along with real estate agents advertising land from sale.

Jeff Rice of Y2K Homes is getting his own home on Route 202 ready for sale.

“The housing market is really slow right now,” Rice said. “I’m selling this one for cheap.”

Not long ago, a developer could build a house in Windham and sell it within the month, he said.

But no more. Just as the market has swung toward a “buyer’s market,” less and less developers are building houses and then trying to sell them.

Instead, they are selling lots and negotiating the cost of construction with the buyer.

Tom Noonan, owner of Allied Real Estate in North Windham, says that Windham is far less affected by the “slow down” than other towns.

He witnessed the real estate recession of the 1980s and believes the market is seeing a correction in house prices, not a stagnation in the market.

“We’ve gone through an impressive growth spurt,” Noonan said of the Windham market. “But for those of us who have gone through may recessions, this is not that bad. It’s just that we’ve been spoiled by houses flying off the shelf.”

Time will tell how this suburban push will transform Windham in the future, but, if history serves as a lesson, it appears the town is in for many more challenges in the years to come as more and more resident move inland to the lake country of Windham.