Village vision: Zoning change near Scarborough Downs hopes to encourage mixed-used

SCARBOROUGH — A set of zoning changes put on the table by Scarborough’s long-range planning committee could result in residential development as soon as next year on the 480-acre Scarborough Downs lot while also making way for the creation of a village center.

If approved as envisioned, rules for the new “Crossroads District” would allow as many as 40 housing units per acre in buildings up to six stories high, making them the tallest structures in Scarborough.

In addition to allowing residential development on the Downs property and a wider array of commercial uses, such as assisted living centers and “small-scale energy facilities,” changes also are being considered for two adjoining areas, along Payne Road and next to the Warren Woods.

The new Crossroads zone would continue to allow harness racing and associated betting, though not other forms of gambling. Still, it seems the proposed change may be less about saving Scarborough Downs than preparing for what happens if and when it goes away.

The new development rules are based on a ideas first built into the town’s 2006 comprehensive plan. That document saw in the Down’s property something Scarborough sorely misses. Despite being cut in three parts on parallel paths by Route 1 and Interstate 95, the town has no genuine Main Street, at least not in the New England sense of a village center.

The Crossroads plan hopes to remedy that.

“Redevelopment of the Scarborough Downs property along with development of adjacent land results in a vibrant, mixed-use center for the community,” reads the plan, envisioning a “concentrated and dense neighborhood” surrounded by a mix of small businesses and neighborhoods “in a loose grid pattern” extending to Sawyer Street.

According to Rick Shinay, a member of the planning committee, the new proposals are an attempt to bridge the gap between what exists at the racetrack site today and what the comprehensive plan expects.

“We thought if we don’t try to implement some zoning to react to how development might go there, we’d lose control,” he said.

However, Ed MacColl, attorney and spokesman for Scarborough Down’s owner Sharon Terry, said following a presentation on the concept Monday that it’s unlikely his boss will try and plant private homes around the harness racing site.

“I haven’t heard Sharon say she wants to be a real estate developer,” said MacColl.

Much of the property surrounding Scarborough Downs has been up for sale since November 2011, when the track lost a third attempt to secure voter approval for expanded gambling at the site. MacColl says even though the zoning changes might make the land more attractive to potential buys, it may not be enough to stem the slow, decades-long decline of harness racing, reported by some sources to be off more than 45 percent since 2003, when voters first acquiesced to allowing slot machines at tracks as a way to help save the industry.

Scarborough Downs only uses about 100 acres of its lot, but could make do with as little as 35, said MacColl.

“Even so, selling some land will cover your loses for a while, but eventually the business needs to make sense,” he said.

Shinay said the topic has come back up after his group switched its attention to other matters, such as Haigis Parkway and the Pine Point area, around 2008, when the racetrack was embroiled in one of its attempts to expand gambling operations.

The Haigis and Pine Point efforts have led in the last year to relaxed zoning rules and a near-immediate impact on development, quickly drawing projects to both areas. However, town officials say they did not create the “Crossroads” zoning district for the sole benefit of the sole property owner within its borders.

“This plan doesn’t make any assumptions about the future of the Downs,” said Town Planner Dan Bacon. “It is not predicated on the track staying or leaving or whether casino gambling happens or not.”

“There’s no reason why this is coming up now other than that it’s next on the list,” said Shinay.

Of the 15 residents who attended Monday’s presentation by Bacon, Shinay and Mark Eyerman, a consultant from Portland-based Planning Decisions, changes affecting Sawyer Street seemed to matter more than the future of Scarborough Downs.

The plan calls for carving four landlocked lots totaling some 40 acres out of the “Business-2” zone they now share with Scarborough Downs and putting them in a new “Village Residential” zone. Although Shinay stressed “there is no development plan on those properties that we are aware of,” he noted that traffic from anything that does go up will empty onto Sawyer Street.

“Please think about that,” said Larry Finkleman. “It’s not a wide road. We lose a mailbox now every five or six years.”

Less controversial was a plan to move about a dozen lots located between Payne Road and Interstate 95, from Ginn Road to the Nonesuch River, into a new “Business-3” zone. Rules there would open up possible commercial uses while still banning gas stations and so-called “big-box” stores, said Bacon.

Some residents questioned why a portion of the Warren Woods abutting Payne Road was included in the B-3 zone when the rest of the property, soon to be owned by the Scarborough Land Trust and placed in a conservation easement, is zoned “rural farming.”

Town Manager Tom Hall said no development is planned. The inclusion simply allows the town to build recreational fields there in the future, if it should ever want to, he said.

The long-range planning committee is due to debate issues raised by affected property owners at its next meeting, scheduled for 8 a.m. Friday in the town manager’s conference room at town hall. According to Bacon, any final proposal hammered out by the group could go before the Town Council as soon as “late winter.”

However, that does not mean homes will be going up right away. Development of more than five acres in the Crossroads zone will require what Bacon calls a “broad-brush master planning process” for the entire site, accounting for things like roads, water and sewer.

“Planning is great, but the first bit of brick and mortar requires somebody’s money,” said MacColl, noting the capital needed just to draw up plans for what might one day be the town center.

“Frankly, those ‘soft costs’ are ridiculously expensive,” he said. “Once you start talking lawyers and engineers, you start to spend money faster than you can imagine. It’s just scary.”

Those costs, said MacColl, is why Scarborough Downs is still married to the idea of casino gambling as its means of survival, despite repeated beatings on the subject in the ballot booth.

“In terms of harness racing’s survival, whether it's here or at a relocated track, in the long run there will need to be gaming,” he said. “Selling some land will cover your loses for a while, but eventually the business needs to make sense.

“None of this [residential development] would happen fast and in terms of it helping the harness racing industry,” said MacColl. "I think we’ve got to do something within the next year, or few years, or they’ll be just crushed."