The creation of a statewide housing appeals board in Maine is among the recommendations in a state-sponsored report issued Tuesday.
The 83-page report authored by consultancy HR&A Advisors analyzed how Maine can double its current rate of housing production and make headway towards lofty goals it set in a landmark report published in late 2023. That first report found that Maine needed to build at least 76,000 homes by 2030 in order to accommodate its existing and future residents.
Regional planners say we are already lagging behind on those goals despite the more than $310 million Maine Gov. Janet Mills and the Legislature have invested in recent years to alleviate that shortage.
READ THE FULL REPORT
“These historic investments, along with key zoning and land use reforms, have supported vulnerable residents and our workforce while creating the largest pipeline of affordable housing development in MaineHousing’s history,” Greg Payne, the governor’s housing policy advisor, said. “But as reports like this show, there’s more Maine could do to address this critical need.”
Most recommendations are straightforward reforms likely to be embraced during the upcoming legislative session. They include expediting the housing development reviews and approvals process, championing modular construction, streamlining licensing for tradespeople and identifying state-owned vacant properties that could be redeveloped into housing.
But the report also included some recommendations that will rub up against Maine’s tradition of home rule and reopen divides with cities and towns, like requiring municipalities to regularly submit building permit data to the state, and for the state to prioritize funding for cities and towns that “contribute to housing goals.”
One recommendation that has been controversial in the past is a call for Maine to create a statewide housing appeals board like those already at work in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Such a board would allow developers to appeal in court or to a commission should a municipality deny approval for their housing project.
That step — which the Legislature took up but ultimately scrapped when passing the landmark housing bill L.D. 2003 in 2022 — would “hold municipalities accountable for adhering to state law and local land use and approval procedures,” and create an “incentive for municipalities to make measurable progress on housing production,” the report reads.
Rep. Traci Gere, D-Kennebunkport, the house chair of the state’s housing and economic development committee, said Monday she’s submitted a bill to create such a board.
Gere has modeled her bill off of New Hampshire’s appeals board, a three-person commission with expertise in land use and housing development that hears appeals and quickly renders decisions, she said. The hope is that the board will help streamline the development process and ensure all housing proposals in line with a community’s stated goal are approved in order to maximize production.
“An appeals board for Maine will encourage communities to be clear about their housing needs and intentions, and will help developers build what communities need,” she said.
But it’s likely to be opposed by municipal officials, and could further burden Maine’s already backlogged legal system, the report’s authors warn. Maine’s Municipal Association, which testified against an appeals board the last time it was proposed, is open to the idea and eager to work with legislators on this, organization spokesperson Kate Dufour said.
“However, historically the association has defended home rule authority and more importantly the rights of residents of each of Maine’s towns, cities and plantations to build communities that meet their needs and goals,” Dufour wrote in an email.
