WISCASSET (AP) – Residents will vote Wednesday on whether to allow a zoning change that would make way for a proposed $75 million development with waterfront condominiums, retail shops, a hotel and conference center, offices and a marina.

Point East, a land trust development company, is seeking the zoning change on a 33-acre peninsula where it wants to build the development. Current zoning allows one home per acre.

Point East wants to build 179 residential units and restore the former Mason Station power plant for use as retail shops, offices and a hotel and conference center. Hinckley Yachts has agreed to operate a companion marina on the Sheepscot River that would accommodate up to 250 boats.

Supporters say the development will bring in new taxes, create jobs and clean up an idle industrial site. Opponents say the plan is too big for the town, which has a population of about 3,600. Residents will vote at a special town meeting at 7 p.m.

Point East, a subsidiary of Connecticut-based National RE/sources, purchased Mason Station from Florida Power & Light in December 2003 with the understanding that it would clean up the site. Since then, the company has conducted an ambitious campaign to convince the town that a maritime village would rejuvenate its waterfront and remove an eyesore.

The project will take five to seven years to complete and will generate an estimated $1 million in annual property taxes, said Scott Houldin, Point East’s project manager. The number of new jobs is less certain, but Hinckley Yachts estimates it will create about 25 positions.

“If we don’t get the zone change, it will remain an industrial site. We don’t have a Plan B,” Houldin said. “All we are asking for is a decisive vote of the town. What do you want the future of the Mason Station to be? We need the town to speak its mind.”

Town Manager Andrew Gilmore supports the plan, saying it will create jobs, stabilize taxes and improve the view. But he won’t venture a guess at how people will vote.

“There isn’t any organized opposition, but there are those who don’t like any major changes,” Gilmore said.

Selectman Ben Rines said he will vote against the zone change.

“Wiscasset, like the rest of southern Maine, is growing at an alarming rate,” he said. “Throwing 179 residential units into our town is way too much. It will become a town within a town, and we don’t need another village.”

The citizens’ group Stewards of the Sheepscot, which successfully opposed an earlier plan to convert Mason Station into a cement production and transfer facility, is not taking a position on the plan.

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