West Lebanon — A Hanover developer said his proposal to build a small neighborhood of cottage-style homes along the Route 10 corridor will move forward, regardless of neighborhood objections that the development could harm the community’s residential character.

During a Planning Board meeting on Monday, several neighbors complained that Jeff Shapiro’s plans to construct 21 units on a roughly 5-acre lot behind the Wheeler Professional Park could lead to increased noise and traffic.

“It just seems to me that it’s a little Levittown with icing,” said Richardson Place resident Eleanor Coffey, referring to the popular post-World War II suburban developments.

“But essentially it is overdevelopment,” she added. “We may not like that word but it is overdevelopment in my opinion.”

Others worried that students from Dartmouth College would occupy the homes, which Shapiro hopes to rent to young families and seniors. If built, the development would be situated a quarter-mile south of the Lebanon-Hanover town line.

“This is going to become students. That’s what it’s going to become,” Oak Ridge Road resident Elizabeth Bengtson said in a CATV recording of the meeting. “And students are going to bring a lot of cars (and) a lot of traffic.”

Shapiro brushed off the criticism on Thursday, saying he will take neighbor concerns into account when planning the proposal’s next steps. Both residents and Planning Board members asked pointed questions about the early plans, he said.

 “I appreciate their concerns and I’m going to continue to look at the project and continue to move forward, taking some of this information into account,” Shapiro said in a phone interview. “I continue to be very excited about developing this property.”

Preliminary plans for the development show 17 new 1½-story cottages lining a private drive connected to Oak Ridge Road. Each home would have three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an attached garage.

Shapiro also would build two duplexes, each with two units, on lots closest to Oak Ridge Road. Neighborhood features would include a community garden and cul-de-sac green space.

Shapiro said there also are plans to introduce solar on the new neighborhood’s rooftops, and talks are underway to heat the properties with geothermal heat pumps.

“I want to build something that I can really be proud of and that will be a true village in terms of different demographics living in this,” he said. “I envision this cottage community with many different age groups there.”

The neighborhood is being proposed as a “planned unit residential development,” which allows construction of homes within a greater density, so long as a certain proportion of land is left as open space. Under the proposal, about 53 percent of Shapiro’s property would be left undeveloped.

Shapiro, who owns Great Eastern Radio, said he acquired the property in 2007 after purchasing several Lebanon-based radio stations from the former Clear Channel Communications. It currently is used as the site of a fully operational radio tower.

However, Shapiro hoped to make use of the parcel in other ways. And when plans to create a mixed-use zoning district along Route 10 failed in 2016, he turned his attention to residential development.

“I thought it was a good time to move ahead with a better use for the property. And as we all know, there’s a hue and cry about housing in the greater Upper Valley,” he said in the recording of Monday’s meeting.

Shapiro told the Planning Board that the rentals would be priced at a “market rate,” although he declined to clarify a specific price range on Thursday.

Rent for a three-bedroom unit within 10 minutes driving distance of Lebanon ranges between $1,200 and $3,750, according to a May presentation given by realtors Buf McLaughry and Lynne LaBombard at the Vital Communities’ Spring 2018 Business Leaders Breakfast on Housing.

And the median rent for a three-bedroom unit within Hanover, Hartford, Norwich and Lebanon stands at $2,110, according to the presentation.

Planning Board members on Monday had a few questions for Shapiro and engineers working on the project, asking whether he intends to also install street lighting and how trash will be collected.

The conceptual meeting was held to discuss preliminary questions about the proposal, which has not been formally submitted to the city. When that happens, the board plans to hold a full-site plan hearing.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.