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.
Halting property taxes, deterring migrants and dedicating $100 million to fund construction are among the ideas Maine’s gubernatorial candidates have to improve the state’s housing market.
Most of the 16 people vying to be Maine’s next governor agree the state’s housing market is suffering due to high prices, limited availability and slow construction. But their plans for how they’d immediately improve that if elected vary drastically.
Many candidates’ ideas centered around the same general themes: build more units and hasten construction. Doing this, they believe, will lower prices and make it easier for Mainers to buy a home.
The state’s tight housing market has been a burden on many Mainers — and a focal point for voters — since the pandemic, during which home prices skyrocketed due to a rush of demand while inventory plummeted. Since then, more homes have become available but prices remain high, which keeps homeownership out of reach for many, especially first-time buyers.
Roughly a dozen candidates agreed local and state permitting processes and regulations should be reformed to speed up the building process and allow more projects to be approved. A statewide study completed in 2023 found the state has a dramatic housing shortage due to years of underproduction, which will take at least 76,400 new units by 2030 to solve.
Three Republican candidates — Ben Midgley, Owen McCarthy and Bobby Charles — proposed addressing “red tape” that’s holding back development as part of their plan. Two others, Republican Jonathan Bush and independent Richard Bennett, want to perform statewide audits to identify where and why housing development projects are stalling.
Democrat Hannah Pingree proposed directing $100 million in state funding annually to fuel construction and preserve existing affordable units.
Both Angus King III, a Democrat, and John Glowa, an independent, outlined plans to build 10,000 new units, which King wants to complete by the end of his first term. However, King believes the 10,000 new units should span income levels while Glowa wants all the units to be low income rental housing.
Two other candidates, democrat Troy Jackon and republican Robert Wessels, described groups they plan to form with the explicit goal of improving housing in Maine. Jackson’s Department of Housing Affordability would be tasked with “tackling the housing crisis with the speed, scale, and focus working families deserve.”
Wessels’ team, meanwhile, would “dig into our housing regulations and figure out what ones we need to keep.” Regulations the group deems unnecessary would be repealed or altered to “allow our homebuilders to do their job.”
A few candidates offered entirely unique ideas, such as Democrat Shenna Bellows, who proposed freezing property taxes for Mainers while doubling those for out-of-state owners.
Republican David Jones, meanwhile, said he wants to make housing and other welfare programs accessible to U.S. citizens only, thus deterring “migration from foreign nations to Maine.”
Find the answer each gubernatorial candidate provided below when asked the first thing they would do to improve the state’s housing market if sworn in. Candidates are listed in alphabetical order.
