The Orono Town Council approved a comprehensive plan on Monday that calls for more housing, a larger workforce, improved transportation infrastructure and greater recreation options.
Much of the plan focuses on opportunities for families with school-aged children to become homeowners and affordable housing for senior citizens. It includes considering incentives, new state laws and zoning changes as ways to build more housing.
The plan, which has been in the works since 2024, shows the direction Orono residents and officials have said the town should go for the next decade.
The plans and ideas in the comprehensive plan are an accurate reflection of the community feedback given during the two year process, Council Chair Dan Demeritt said, and show what Orono is now and how residents want the town to develop.
“I think Orono could be one of the greatest small college towns in America. And with what we have here, we’re well on our way,” Demeritt said.
About 40% of single people in Orono are living in houses with more than one bedroom, the plan found. This is because roughly 1,100 households are one-person households, but only 682 one-bedroom or studio housing units exist in the community, creating a discrepancy between what’s available for residents and what they actually need, the study said.
If these residents were able to move into one-bedroom homes or apartments, Orono would be better suited to provide housing for all ages, which the plan said is important, especially if the community continues to lose family households at the same rate it has for the last 20 years, the study said.
The number of families with children under the age of 18 in Orono has seen a drop of approximately 40% in the last 20 years, the plan said.
The Town Council is working toward actionable steps and goals that will create these changes, Demeritt said during the approval on Monday.
The planning board and council will work on finding areas for development, reviewing the town’s land use ordinances and selling town-owned land to encourage development in the first year after it is adopted, the study said.
New housing developments to lessen the discrepancy in residents’ needs compared with what’s available could come where the plan has designated as “growth areas.”
The plan points out areas for growth that include downtown, the Park Street corridor and existing neighborhoods.
Mixed used space downtown could bring more single-unit housing and economic growth through foot traffic, while the Park Street corridor could bring medium- to high-density housing developments, the plan said.
The Webster Neighborhood and other existing neighborhoods were marked as limited-growth areas because the areas would stay mostly the same but may foster development in vacant lots or other available spaces, the plan said.
During workshops on housing, residents called for more affordable housing in town, saying that seniors are more adversely affected. Senior citizens make up about a quarter of the Orono residents who spend more than 30% of their income on housing, the study found, with 18% of all homeowners in town spending that much.
Creating more housing is also part of the plan’s goal for increased economic growth.
Housing availability and affordability could foster a larger year-round population that would create a larger workforce for local businesses and more foot traffic for those businesses, the plan said.
Actions laid out in the plan to bring in economic growth include the town council offering incentives for targeted business investments, the planning board reviewing use ordinances for downtown businesses to offer more community needs and the board to look to Mill Street, Pine Street and neighborhood north of downtown as places for residential and economic growth, the plan said.
If developed, these areas would be within walking distance of downtown, which is inline with the community desire for decreased vehicular traffic and more options for walking and biking around town, the plan said.
The plan still requires approval from the state and could be revised during the process if needed, Town Manager Clint Deschene said during Monday’s Council meeting.
The town won’t be sharing the plan with stakeholders until it is returned by the state, in case any changes are made, he said.
“It is compliant with state guidelines, but they do have a review,” Deschene said.
