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.
What was once a senior housing building will soon become 30 new apartments in Bangor.
The Bangor Planning Board voted on Tuesday to allow Executive Properties LLC to turn a shuttered senior living facility at 509 Kenduskeage Ave. into efficiency units. The renovation, slated to begin in the next month, will add kitchenettes to each unit and seven parking spaces but not change the footprint of the existing building, according to the application.
The building was once the Country Villa retirement home, which offered 28 units for seniors, according to the project application.
It will hold mostly studio apartments, likely rented for $1,000, with three or four one-bedroom units, which could be priced at $1,400, according to Chris Kilgour of Executive Properties.
Turning the building into housing for people of all ages will make the project more “economically viable” than the senior living facility while also addressing the need for more housing in the region, Kilgour said.
“The opportunity came up and I felt the property could provide housing that’s needed in the area,” Kilgour said. “We know the demand and we think this should be pretty popular.”
Once complete, the new apartments will help chip away at the statewide goal of adding at least 76,400 homes by 2030 to meet future need and make up for years of underproduction, as determined by the Maine Housing Production Needs Study. Bangor alone needs another 700 units for low-income residents, especially those making $35,000 or less annually, the 2025 Bangor Housing Study found.
The project intends to use the city’s affordable housing density bonus, which puts a cap on how much the apartments can be rented for and allows more units to be built in a location.
At least 51% of the units must be affordable to households making at or below 80% of the local area median income, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development sets annually. For Bangor, one person making 80% of the area median income earns $57,900 annually, or $66,200 for a two-person household, according to the Maine State Housing Authority.
Louie Morrison, a Bangor landlord responsible for hundreds of units in the area, encouraged the Planning Board to approve the application because the building “is screaming ‘Affordable housing.’”
“It’s a shame to see a building like that sit empty for the last year or so when we have so many people who need homes,” Morrison said.
One resident submitted a public comment on the proposal via email, but Planning Board members decided not to read it aloud in the meeting because it contained “harsh wording.”
Planning Board Chair Reese Perkins did respond to the email by noting the need for housing in the city and explained low income housing “doesn’t mean people who are homeless will live there.”
With the Planning Board’s approval in hand, construction will likely start in the next month, and the building should be ready for residents sometime next spring, Kilgour said. Prospective tenants can apply on Executive Properties’ website in the coming months.
