Housing
This section of the BDN aims to help readers understand Maine’s housing crisis, the volatile real estate market and the public policy behind them. Read more Housing coverage here.
There are few apartments and no senior housing in Cape Elizabeth, where 1 in 4 residents are ages 65 or older and the median home value is $823,000.
This effectively closed housing market has come by design. Apartment complexes have been proposed in the wealthy Portland suburb in recent years, but local opposition has often shut them down. One developer notably pulled the plug on a 46-unit complex in 2021.
Bob Gaudreau learned from that. He spent months building support for a project that the community could swallow. The result was a 33-unit senior housing complex on land near the town hall that required a zoning change. He won unanimous approval from the town council and planning board. Residents who vocally opposed previous projects are on board.
But now the project is hung up due to a familiar type of proxy war. Last month, Cape Elizabeth’s planning board approved the development but tacked on additional zoning proposals that would halve density limits and increase allowed heights of buildings in the town center. The ensuing battle could delay or add costs to Gaudreau’s project. The tension has him at a loss.
“A way to move the needle and open up some existing housing is to allow these seniors to move out of their homes and into an apartment they don’t have to commit to forever,” Gaudreau, a Harpswell-based developer who owns Hardypond Construction, said.
The town council voted to approve the package with the planning board amendments in a 4-3 vote last week. Residents are now preparing to mount a challenge at a special meeting later this month to the package that mirrors what the town voted down in 2021, showing a stark divide between people who say they support Gaudreau’s proposal.
“The planning board decided on its own to stick in a lot of the things that the town had just had this bitter fight over,” Cynthia Dill, a former Democratic state legislator who opposes the proposal, said. “There’s a lot of people who just don’t believe that big, tall apartment buildings should line the streets of Cape Elizabeth, and they have the right to believe that.”
Gaudreau is planning 2,000-square-foot apartments, which are lower than the minimum of 3,000 in the town center. He also needed other changes, including raising the allowable height of a building from 35 to 50 feet and allowing residential space on the first floor.
The planning board cut the minimum square footage to 1,500, and it also decreased the needed setback of the buildings. Some residents, including Dill, fear that will usher in a slate of apartment buildings facilitated by the zoning changes they have already voted down.
That debate is one that has wracked many Maine coastal towns for decades. Traditionalist residents, who moved to their homes decades ago for tranquility, are set on keeping current zoning laws. Newer residents and many municipal leaders see adding housing as a necessity to keep the town and community institutions thriving.
“The way to bring vibrancy to an area is to really have people who are there and can walk to stores, restaurants, whatever it might be,” Penny Jordan, the town council chair, said. “That’s why I support it.”
The planning board’s requested amendments are in line with the town’s 2019 comprehensive plan and a 2014 plan for the town center, Jeff Levine, a former planning director for the city of Portland, said. A 1,500-square-foot home, which is generally considered midsize, remains a large per-unit requirement, he said.
“These changes seem more incremental than extreme,” Levine said.
That is not how opponents see them. If the town doesn’t reverse its prior decision and approve Gaudreau’s original project, Dill said that she and like-minded residents will most likely fight the project’s overall approval.
“It feels like Bob Gaudreau is being used as a political tool,” she said. “No one’s against doing the housing. We just want to do it in the right way.”
If the sides cannot reach a deal, Gaudreau might walk. If he isn’t able to begin construction this year, he said it will tack on an additional $420,000. To him, even that would be an absurd outcome with residents and councilors alike telling him he has a sorely needed project.
“It just shows complexity for developers to bring a product through and know that you could basically lose after you get through the approval process,” Gaudreau said. “I’m 70 years old. I don’t need to do this anymore.”
