PORTLAND (AP) – A legislative panel is recommending an 18-month moratorium on development in Saco Bay.

The vote Monday by the State and Local Government Committee is an outgrowth of a controversy rooted in the Saco City Council’s approval last September of a 100-year lease for a developer seeking to build a large marina in waters off Old Orchard Beach.

William Danton applied to Saco because the city had a claim to the waters dating back to when Old Orchard Beach split from Saco more than a century ago. Scarborough and Biddeford also border the bay.

The moratorium would give the four communities a chance to come up with a proposal to manage the waters. The committee embraced the delay as an alternative to a bill that would have given Old Orchard Beach control of coastal waters within three miles of its shore.