PORTSMOUTH — The Town Council added as much as six months last night to a stop-gap moratorium on large-scale retail development that otherwise would have expired within several days.

During the hiatus, the town will review the comprehensive community plan as well as the zoning ordinance, and land development, subdivision and design review regulations.

The process will begin Aug. 23 at the Portsmouth Senior Center with a charrette, or brainstorming session, to which the public is invited.

State Sen. Charles Levesque urged the Town Council to “move ahead with rapidity” to alleviate the “pressure” that will build up in those affected by the moratorium.

He suggested the council set a mid-December deadline for hearing the results of the regulatory review.

“The people who get shut out will get upset,” he said.

“Unless they can see the process develop very quickly, and see what’s going to happen,” Levesque said, “the pressure builds up in those people if they think you are going to change the rules.”

Although the council voted unanimously, Councilmen William E. West and Peter J. McIntyre expressed reservations, echoing remarks made during a two-hour public hearing by those who said they believed that the current zoning ordinance is adequate to protect the interests of citizens.

West said he was sorry to see Target withdraw its application to build a 146,500-square-foot retail store at West Main Road and Union Street because he would have liked to have seen the workings of the existing regulatory process spelled out in the zoning ordinance.

As a former Zoning Board member, West said, “I know the process does work.”

But Councilman Leonard B. Katzman, who sponsored the moratorium, said, that absent a moratorium, “there is no other way we can walk through the process and spend the intellect and resources necessary while an application is pending.”

“We need the freedom of a little bit of breathing space,” he said.

“Property owners have rights,” Katzman said, acknowledging concerns of the expressed by landowners and development officials.

“But the rights of some interests must be balanced against others,” he said.

“There are a lot of interests at play. We need to convince ourselves that the system works or tweak it,” he said, “so the next time a large-scale development is proposed we don’t need Preserve Portsmouth because the regulatory process is in place.”

Katzman referred to Preserve Portsmouth, the grass-roots antisprawl group that galvanized around opposition to the Target proposal.

A lawyer for the owner of the 16-acre commercial lot where Target wanted to build was among those who opposed a moratorium.

Charles B. Allott, who represents EFP Associates, said that the Zoning Board has all the necessary authority to ensure that a development has no adverse impact on the surrounding area, even by ordering applicants to reduce the square footage of a building.

The more detail in the zoning ordinance, the less flexibility the Zoning Board will have, he said.

He said EFP Associates will want a “seat at the table” during any review of the ordinance and regulations affecting commercial development.

Meanwhile, another lawyer, Vernon Gorton, who represents the owner of the Carnegie Abbey sporting resort, said he does not oppose the moratorium outright, although the hiatus will affect the company’s short-range plans.

Gorton, who has represented both developers and objectors before the Zoning Board for the last 25 years, said Portsmouth is known for its tight zoning ordinance and the competency of its zoning and planning officials.

“If there is any value to the moratorium,” he said, “I think it will allow that anxiety level to drop” that developed in response to the Target proposal — the first application for a big-box retail store in the town’s history.

Mark Liberati, a lawyer for Preserve Portsmouth, disputed the notion that the moratorium is unnecessary.

As the zoning ordinance now stands, a developer such as Target, which planned to build on a properly zoned commercial lot and asked for no variances, would prevail in the courts in the event it wanted to litigate a dispute with the Zoning Board, Liberati said.

“It’s very simple,” he said. Through a moratorium, “you’re simply precluding the vesting of rights in an applicant the town clearly doesn’t want.”

gmacris@projo.com