Central Maine Power Co. withdrew its proposal for a new facility on Old Winthrop Road from the Augusta Planning Board’s agenda next month while it completes a review of the plans.

The 38,000-square-foot facility would house CMP’s transmission team next to an existing CMP building on land acquired nearly 70 years ago by the utility.

The plans faced strong resident criticism at an October meeting of the Augusta Planning Board and at a neighborhood meeting earlier this month over lighting, traffic, road deterioration, truck noise and the fit of the industrial building in the low-density residential neighborhood.

In an email Monday afternoon, CMP told those residents the plans were under further review.

“We are also continuing to review the plan for the proposed transmission building including its location on the existing property and the size of the building,” the email, from CMP’s Community Relations team, said. “Due to this review, we have removed ourselves from the February agenda of the Planning Board meeting.”

CMP requires approval for conditional use from the Planning Board to build the new facility, which sits in the middle of a low-density residential-zoned neighborhood.

The new facility, some nearby residents have argued, would be a poor fit for the neighborhood. Low-density residential zoning, Augusta’s ordinances say, is intended to “encourage the development of attractive neighborhood living,” and the city’s comprehensive plan says protecting neighborhoods on Augusta’s western side from “further encroachment of businesses is critical to maintaining livability, long term security for residential investment, and historic character.”

In a statement earlier this month, CMP spokesperson Cristina Wittman said the modernized facility was essential to the company’s “top priority” of “delivering safe and reliable power to more than 660,000 customers across our 11,000‑square‑mile service territory.”

CMP spokesperson Dustin Wlodkowski said Tuesday the utility would conduct engineering and site analyses over the next several months to determine the best location for the building.

Those studies will take some time, he said. It is “too soon to say” when CMP would return to the Planning Board, he said.

“We want to take what we have at this site, combine it with what we’ve heard so far, continue our listening and come up with some comprehensive analyses of our site plan,” Wlodkowski said. “That is the step that we are at right now — taking in and processing all the information that we have in front of us after having these meetings, and then we would look at what types of options would exist in the future.”

In the meantime, CMP told abutters in its Monday email that several requested improvements would be implemented this spring: Cut-off lights will be installed in the back of the existing building on the site to decrease light pollution, and a chain link fence on the west side of the site “will also be addressed to match the aesthetics of the surrounding neighborhood.”

Wlodkowski said the withdrawal of the plan from the agenda reflects a “thoughtful step” in CMP’s relationship with neighbors in Augusta.

Augusta Planning Director Matt Nazar said CMP did not note a specific reason for withdrawal from the February meeting and has not yet requested to be on a future agenda.