LEWISTON — Councilors will decide later this month whether to rescind their decision to allow a downtown housing development or send the matter to voters in November.

Councilors on Tuesday agreed to schedule a July 29 hearing on Phyllis St. Laurent’s downtown housing project.

St. Laurent’s buildings, at 149 Bartlett St. and 110 and 114 Pierce St., were destroyed in a rash of fires May 2013. Councilors approved a plan to rebuild in April, but a group of local landlords collected enough signatures to put the matter on the November ballot. The petition needed 859 signatures to be successful. Backers collected 867 valid signatures.

“The second step for the council is to determine your course of action, and you have two options,” City Administrator Ed Barrett said. “First is to call a special election and have the item go to voters. The second choice would be to take action to repeal the order that authorized city assistance in the St. Laurent project.”

St. Laurent plans to replace the lost units with a single development of 29 single-bedroom units, two-bedroom units and larger apartments.

St. Laurent is working with the Developers Collaborative, a group that has built projects in Lewiston before. It would be a $5 million project with subsidized rents and federal Section 8 housing vouchers tied to the development.

The project would be aimed at families making 60 percent of the median income — about $33,700 for a family of four.

At least two residents, former City Councilor Craig Saddlemire and former Mayor Larry Gilbert, said many of the signatures were obtained from people who didn’t understand St. Laurent’s plans or by people who misrepresented them.

“People sign things all the time without looking,” Gilbert said. “But let me tell you something, there were some false representations done in gathering those signatures.”

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