Waterford — A proposed zoning change to the area around the former Cohanzie School building will not face a vote at least until mid-November.

Members of the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission decided at a meeting Wednesday to postpone their vote on a new zoning district that would expand the possible uses for the property to include multifamily housing, professional offices and assisted-living facilities.

It’s the town’s latest effort to make the property more attractive to developers after it closed the school in 2008, demolished additions built onto the original 1923 structure and used grant funding to complete extensive site remediation and remove contamination on the property.

A Middletown firm’s offer to buy the property and develop 154-unit housing complex there fell through over the summer.

The firm’s plan had faced pushback from nearby residents who said apartments would detract from their homes’ property values and would not fit in with the character of the neighborhood.

A group of neighborhood families and former students at the school also objected to the possibility that the development would mean the destruction of the school building, which is on the State Register of Historic Places.

Now a second firm has made an offer on the property with a plan to build a significantly smaller apartment complex and keep the school building standing, and town officials are working to get the zoning change passed to allow for the developer — or any developer — to have more options for building on the land.

Town planning officials already have edited the proposed new zoning district to reduce the maximum number of housing units allowed from 80 to 65, eliminate the possibility of a developer using a parking lot at a nearby baseball field and regulate the appearance of any new buildings on the property.

No developers have approached the town with offers to build single-family residences on the property, probably because such a development would be financially risky and because of the push to keep the original 1923 building on the property, a costly prospect, Planning Director Abby Piersall said.

The school was left vacant in 2008 when the town consolidated its five elementary schools into three because of declining enrollment and increased operational costs.

The Atlanta-based developer Harold Foley has made an offer on the property and has said he plans to keep the original school building standing, possiby as a common area for residents of the housing units that would be built around it.

Foley said while he has not yet bought the property or submitted plans for developing it to the town, he plans to apply for federal aid for developers building affordable housing through the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority.

m.shanahan@theday.com