WEST LEBANON — A Hanover developer’s plans to construct a small neighborhood of cottage-style homes near Route 10 will soon be scrutinized by the city’s land use boards.

The Lebanon Zoning Board on Tuesday will take up Jeff Shapiro’s proposal to build 21 units on a roughly five-acre site behind the Wheeler Professional Park.

The Planning Board is then scheduled to review the project next month during a preliminary review, which is required of all major subdivisions in Lebanon.

Both hearings have the potential to become contentious. Shapiro floated a similar proposal to city planners this summer and was met with resistance from neighbors, who worried the project would lead to increased traffic and noise.

Some also complained the homes could be marketed to Dartmouth College students, although Shapiro has said he hopes to rent to seniors and young families.

“I received a tremendous amount of positive feedback about this project from community members after the conceptual meeting in July,” Shapiro said in an email on Saturday. “Many people have thanked me for trying to create a new housing option in Lebanon and offered their encouragement. This feedback has made me even more enthusiastic about bringing this project to fruition and serving a need in our community.”

But neighbor Eleanor Coffey said in a Feb. 3 letter to the city that she intends to oppose the project, and expressed concern that the development would remove pine trees near her home.

“Although I understand the pressures for development and housing of our increasing population, I have expressed my belief that there is such a thing as over development,” neighbor Eleanor Coffey wrote in her letter. “Overcrowding and mill housing have unintended consequences.”

Plans for the development call for 17 small, 1 ½-story homes to be built around an access drive connected to Oak Ridge Road. Each house would have three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an attached one-car garage. Renters would be allowed two surface parking spaces as well, according to plans filed with the city.

Two duplexes at the end of the street would accommodate the remaining 4 units, which would be allocated two parking spaces each.

Renderings show the drive ending in a cul-de-sac around a “neighborhood green,” which would house four parking spaces for guests. The corner of the development would also include a community garden.

Overall, the design calls for about 53 percent of the lot to be left as open space, slightly exceeding the minimum 50 percent required for developments of this style.

Shapiro, who owns Great Eastern Radio, purchased the property in 2007 after acquiring several Lebanon-based radio stations from the former Clear Channel Communications. As of July, the land was being used as the site of a fully operational radio tower.

During a Planning Board meeting this summer, Shapiro said he hoped to use the parcel in other ways but turned to the idea of a residential development after a proposed mixed-use district along Route 10 was killed in 2016.

At the time, he told planners that the neighborhood rooftops could be mounted with solar panels, and there were talks to heat them using geothermal pumps.

Overall, the project is expected to generate 25 vehicle trips during an evening peak hour, according to estimates from Resource Systems Group, a consulting firm with offices in White River Junction. Traffic in the morning would top out at 20 trips during a peak hour, they found.

The new homes would also produce little noise, the firm said in a separate letter.

Shapiro first plans to seek a variance from the Zoning Board, so that he can renovate a home within a 50-foot setback. In city documents, he says the regulation would impede development of one of the duplexes.

If the variance is denied, then an existing house would need to be torn down and moved, according to city documents.

The Zoning Board will take up the project when it meets at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at Lebanon Middle School.

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