SCARBOROUGH -- The faltering national economy has scuttled plans for a retirement community in town.

Harvest Development, which had proposed a 118-suite project as a first phase, withdrew its application for contract zoning, said Dan Bacon, Scarborough's town planner. The Town Council had been expected to vote on the contract zoning later this month.

Bacon said the company told him it was canceling its plans for Scarborough along with several other communities in the works around the country.

Harvest Development was nearing the end of the approval process, which it began in February, Bacon said. It had already gone through most of the Planning Board's process and was scheduled for a vote by the Town Council on Dec. 17.

After that, it would have had to return to the Planning Board for site plan approval, which would have been decided early next year, Bacon said.

If Harvest Development decides to resuscitate the project, it will have to start at the beginning, Bacon said.

The company said a second phase of the project would have included a 90-suite assisted-living facility and 100 units of senior apartments and independent-living cottages.

The project had been opposed by residents of the Green Acres neighborhood. Access to the community would have been through that neighborhood, which is mostly single-family homes.

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