Voters in a wealthy suburb show why it’s so hard to build housing in Maine

The cheapest home on the market in a wealthy Portland suburb is a 600-square-foot condo going for $400,000. A decisive vote this week means nothing more affordable will come online anytime soon.

A 107-unit development in Cumberland was rejected by a whopping 69 percent of voters on Tuesday. It was one of two housing projects that were shot down during the Maine presidential primaries alongside a 45-unit workforce development in the ski town of Kingfield.

Together, the votes show how difficult it will be to meet Maine’s ambitious goal of building at least 76,000 new homes to meet current and future demand and alleviate the state’s affordability crisis. As a result, advocates are plotting ideas aimed at circumventing local votes like this and fearing the effects of these sentiments on the future of the region.

“I think it’s going to be devastating to the vitality of Greater Portland,” Quincy Hentzel, the executive director of the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, said.

Cumberland is one of the richer towns in Maine. Zillow pegs the value of the typical home there at $664,000 , which is 75 percent higher than the state average. The apartments would have been located at the town’s ballfields on Drowne Road and offered to those making up to 60 percent of the area median income. For a two-person household, that’s about $57,000 a year .

A long list of residents spoke against the project at a local meeting in December that portended trouble for developers. Many of the opponents wrote online that they are not against affordable housing projects but quibbled with the location or said no large developments should be built until a new school is built in town or their property taxes are lowered.

“Schools in Cumberland are already overcrowded,” Nick Begin, an eight-year town resident who voted against the project, said in an interview. “I think it’s great to bring diversity into the community. I don’t believe we’re set up to do that right now.”

Begin had a unique view of the two housing projects on the ballot. He owns a vacation home and a rental property business in Carrabassett Valley, where the Sugarloaf ski resort is located. He was on the area workforce housing committee that proposed the project in nearby Kingfield, and he was disappointed to learn that 67 percent of voters shut it down.

“It is a need up there,” Begin said. “I have a small company up there. It’s hard to find employees. It’s hard for them to live up there because of the cost of vacation homes.”

His rationale for opposing the Cumberland project and backing the Kingfield one was that people commute too far to work in the latter area. In southern Maine, that should be less of a concern, he said, noting that he commutes to Portland and he thought others — including teachers and police who work in his town — could do so as well.

“I don’t think it’s uncommon for people not to live in the town they work in,” Begin said. “There’s opportunities on the outskirts that could suffice their needs.”

Residents would be open to senior housing projects or smaller developments that blend in with the town’s homes, Begin said. Mark Segrist, the Town Council chair who backed the project, countered that while smaller developments might be more “politically palatable,” it will take far more of them far longer to make a dent in the housing shortage.

The concerns of Begin and other residents who celebrated the affordable housing project in Cumberland coming to an end paint a picture of a community that is closing its doors to additional housing amid a statewide crisis.

“Our economy can only be as successful as the workforce that we’re able to attract and develop and grow, and we cannot develop a workforce without housing,” Hentzel said.

Spurred in part by the vote, the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition, a group that represents public and private developers, will be redoubling lobbying efforts for the Legislature to establish a statewide housing appeals board that would give projects like the ones shot down in Kingfield and Cumberland a chance to go forward despite local concerns.

That may be a longshot for passage. That appeals board was one of the more controversial elements of a housing reform measure championed by former House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford. The bill only passed after Fecteau removed it and other items that were seen by many as an affront to Maine’s tradition of local control.

“There’s a mismatch between statewide goals and needs and what’s happening at the local level, and we need to have housing policy that aligns those,” said Laura Mitchell, the executive director of the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition.

Towns that reject housing projects could simply push developers into more friendly areas in the short term. But many worry that would be unsustainable in the long run and could exacerbate inequality between neighboring towns.

After heavy publicity around the vote, Biddeford Mayor Marty Grohman reached out to the developers behind the project, Westbrook Development Corp., to see if they would consider doing something similar in his city. He thinks his voters would like it.

“We’d roll out the red carpet,” Grohman said.