A former Rockport dairy farm will be repurposed for farmland conservation and mid-market housing.
Erickson Fields Preserve, a still-working farm on Route 90, has been conserved by Maine Coast Heritage Trust since 2009. Last year, the trust acquired 6 acres across the road that was once the farm’s family homestead; on Friday, it donated an acre of that land along with an 1850s farmhouse and old dairy barns to the Midcoast Regional Housing Trust, which plans to renovate the existing building and build new units.
The proposal sits at the intersection of two major issues facing Maine: a steady decline in its working farms and farmland, and a shortage of affordable housing, especially for working people who can’t cover market prices but make too much for subsidized units. As these problems continue, state-funded initiatives and private nonprofits have done more in recent years to address them.
In Knox County specifically, the median home price is now around $450,000 and 1,280 new units of housing are needed to meet demand over the next five years, according to real estate listing data and a study by the region’s council of governments. In a 2022 study by the housing trust, an unidentified local employer said one quarter of job offers it made were turned down by candidates because of high housing prices and low availability.
At the same time, Maine lost 564 farms and more than 82,000 acres of farmland between 2017 and 2022, according to the most recent agricultural census. At least a third of its dairy farms went out of business between 2020 and 2024.
In Rockport, the remaining 5 acres of the homestead property not set aside for housing will be added to the Erickson preserve, allowing it to expand its agricultural programming and its collaboration with the local elementary school, according to the land trust.
The housing trust, meanwhile, focuses on creating housing for that “missing middle;” the Erickson Fields development will be its first, according to its president, Jonathan Goss. Another duplex site in Rockport that the housing trust announced earlier this year is on hold as the homestead work gets off the ground.
The new construction will be “designed to reflect the character of rural Maine communities by creating a cluster of related farm-like buildings in the architectural style of a traditional Maine farmstead,” the two trusts said in a press release.
The housing trust is now raising $250,000 to renovate the farmhouse, to be followed by a second capital campaign for building multi-family housing on the homestead site. It plans to tear down condemned barns on site and replace them with two four-unit buildings in a similar style, according to Goss.
“It’s a little unique, and that’s why we’re excited about it,” he said.
Goss sees new construction that is designed to blend in with existing landscapes as a way to get more community support for the additional housing the area needs. New housing proposals have met with pushback around the state as Maine tries to meet its ambitious production goals in an effort to combat historically low construction numbers.
The Rockport development is expected to create nine rental units overall in its first stages. New construction is on track to break ground by the end of next year, Goss said, and the single-family farmhouse could be occupied by the spring of 2026.
His group hopes it will “get the ball rolling” for its model that mixes commercial financing with fundraising to support more missing middle construction, which the trust views as critical for communities to survive — but which developers around Maine have said don’t provide enough return on their investment.
Rockport’s town manager, Jon Duke, said the midcoast’s housing crisis has prevented “thousands” of working families from moving to Rockport. The new effort will be a “critical step” in filling the gap of available housing, he said.
