The city’s former homeless shelter at 197 Oxford St. in the Bayside neighborhood could become the largest housing-first affordable housing in Maine and part of a larger, 123-unit housing complex with both affordable and market-rate apartments. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

Members of the Portland Planning Board appeared divided Tuesday night at a workshop on a proposed mixed-income housing development in Bayside, some saying they are concerned about the project’s location and others countering that the housing is desperately needed.

The project, a collaboration between Avesta Housing and Reveler Development, would create specialized housing for chronically homeless people and include affordable and market-rate apartments for a total of 96 units. The development would consist of three buildings on Cedar, Lancaster and Oxford streets at the site of the former Oxford Street Shelter.

Six people had submitted written comments expressing concerns about the project, including City Councilor-elect Sarah Michniewicz, who will represent the neighborhood. She said the site plan doesn’t include enough green space in a neighborhood already lacking greenery, and also took issue with the location.

“(The location) remains counterproductive to the goal of providing stability for tenants exiting homelessness” because the neighborhood already struggles with drug use and violence, she said.

Planning board members Sean Murphy and Justin Baker echoed Michniewicz’s concerns about the location.

“I remain unconvinced that this is the right location for a housing first project,” said Murphy during the meeting. “Anybody who’s spent any time in there knows that it’s a neighborhood with a lot of activity going on. It just feels like a risky place to put people who are trying to put their lives together. I can’t imagine a worse location.”

But Marpheen Chan, who also serves on the board, said he felt there was a push to move homeless people out of the Bayside neighborhood and that a housing first project is important for the city to pursue.

“If the focus is really on equitable sharing of the pressures and burdens of the homeless issue,” we shouldn’t be trying to push people out of west Bayside, said Chan. “The trend that I’m seeing currently is just an all out, let’s push them out of this particular neighborhood.”

Avery Yale Kamila wrote that she was worried the project would create “poor houses” and “rich houses” by putting housing first and affordable units in one building and market rate units in others.

Jim Hall, who lives in West Bayside, also raised concerns about the project.

“I don’t want to block progress here, we need housing,” he said. “But I have seen no attempt really to even offer any mitigation plans for effects on the neighborhood that we know happen.”

No decisions were made about the project’s future Tuesday night, but after brief discussion, the board indicated they would likely hold another workshop before voting.

The project would offer housing with on-site services provided by Preble Street, a nonprofit social service organization, including substance use counseling and other support services. Because it would be permanent housing, residents wouldn’t have to deal with restrictions that come with staying in a homeless shelter overnight, such as curfews and rules that bar couples from sleeping together.

The project was proposed in April as a collaboration between Reveler, a local developer that builds and manages mixed-use developments, and Avesta, an affordable housing developer. The two organizations would split management of the development.

Avesta would be in charge of the housing-first building, which would have 28 units reserved for the chronically homeless, and an additional 20 affordable units in the same building. Reveler would be in charge of developing 50 Cedar St. and 158 Lancaster St., where there would be a total of 48 market-rate units split evenly between the two sites.

The proposal has been unpopular in the neighborhood since it was proposed. At a public hearing about the project over the summer, Bayside residents said they were concerned about how the new development could impact safety in the neighborhood, the design’s lack of green space and the idea of chronically homeless people living near children who live at the city’s family shelter across the street.

This story was updated on Nov. 14 to correct the number of market-rate units.