Boothbay Leads the Way in Responding to the State's Take-over of Municipal Home Rule Authority
Remaining local voting power is a tool of resistance against advancing totalitarianism
The Boothbay Region of Maine has been chosen by forces of circumstance to lead the public response to a legislative enactment that takes away a significant portion of Maine municipal authority over matters local and municipal in character by deregulating housing density statewide, and prohibiting ordinances from saying anything about community character.
In May, there will be a vote on whether to extend the TIF zone for a 36-acre overcrowded affordable housing zone, HP 1489 suggests 2.5 density but removes all restrictions on density, allowing the recently formed Boothbay Regional Development Corporation to plan at 3.5 the density of the surrounding areas.
LD 2003, has opened up potential for changes in housing limits and metrics, Cooperrider said. “This plan shows 3.5% density bonus for affordable housing, so three and a half times what’s allowed currently. source (emphasis by author)
The population growth in Boothbay decreased from 2010 to 2021 source but in May Boothbay will be asked to approve an artificially driven escalated population increase without being given a reason why or allowing for consideration of other options for the development of a small community located on a peninsula.
The overcrowded housing zone is possible only because HP 1489 was passed as an emergency enactment of a statewide mandate that will alter the community characters across Maine forever, unless HP 1489 is undone.
Per US census data on average household size, the densely packed housing zone can potentially expand Boothbay’s population by 22%. Pursuant to the new law, we can’t stop that scale of development but we do not have to extend our TIF zone and TIF financing without considering if we need or should expand our population at that rate. HPP 1489 allows population overcrowding but municipalities have the option of satisfying the state-wide requirement for affordable housing zones at any density, if we can make it happen that way.
The Politics of Wealth
Boothbay’s average household size has been at around two persons, but when developer Paul Coulombe identified the purpose of the 100-million-dollar school proposal as “It will attract well-heeled families to the peninsula” that changes household size projections. Everyone agrees that the Boothbay Peninsula needs a younger population but not everyone agrees that it should be exclusive to a wealthier demographic.
A strategy for attracting a new generation ought to include cultural considerations and environmental impact but the political forces that brought HP 1489 upon us don’t think so. The status quo approach channels decades of centrally managed policies that have progressively expanded the wealth divide since the seventies into the ownership class-working class divide, and now the ownership class is in charge of planning workforce housing, that it will be owned by the ownership class.
The solution for affordable housing being foisted upon us in haste was rushed through the legislative process as if anticipating that the act will be repealed and now is the time to reap the “density bonus” of overcrowding before the window of opportunity closes again. The need to act before the window closes is the only emergency HP 1489 serves since HP 1489 does not address homelessness or low-income housing where Maine’s housing crisis is the direst.
In 2018 Erin Cooperrider, VP of the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation spoke of the intention to phase out “low-income” from the financial language and replace it with “workforce housing”:
In the last decade, affordable housing developers started using the term workforce housing during permitting to describe the financials with the low-income housing tax credit, Cooperrider said. The income bracket the projects target includes many service sector jobs. Workforce housing also avoid using the term low income or affordable to describe the projects, she added.
Portland is among communities that have started referring to workforce housing as a household earning between 100 percent AMI and 120 percent AMI, she said. Cooperider added, other communities have been targeting more specific industries or types of jobs, rather than income brackets.
…..“It's also important to understand that unlike traditional affordable housing, there are no specific programs targeted to workforce housing, which makes it hard to build." source (emphasis by author)
One could pass off this change as branding but the closing comment “there are no specific programs targeted to workforce housing, which makes it hard to build” is a reference to subsidy programs. Cooperrider is saying that housing for those making 100%-120% AMI should be subsidized and low-income and affordable housing should be phased out “of the language used to describe the financials with the low-income housing tax credit” The audience to whom Cooperrider is speaking are the equity investors. The language she is talking about is the language of the law.
Erin Cooperrider is one of the three commissioners who wrote the framework (Appendix Q of the study) for the bill LD 2003 that became the act HP 1489. She is also VP and primary spokesperson for the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation. The project, first out the gate after the emergency enactment, is projected to take ten years to construct. That does not justify an emergency enactment.
The community did not have a voice when soon after HR 1489 was enacted in April 2022, and the BRDC filed its papers in June, in September the selectmen granted the BRDC $50,000.00 of American Rescue plan funds.
Erin Cooperrider, presented the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation’s request for ARP funding. The selectmen used quite a different tone with Ms. Cooperrider than the selectmen use for small entrepreneurs whom they readily close down the first chance they get. They could not shower enough praise on the project.
But Erin Cooperrider’s smooth presentation is filled with vagaries and secrecy in statements like this:
BRDC is governed by a Board of Directors who are year-round residents actively involved in real estate development, supportive housing, community organizations, and local government. source
Do they have names? The only questions selectmen ask about this corporation about which so little is publicly disclosed is “What can we do to help?” and “How will you prevent short term rentals and vacation homes in the zone?”
Exhibit A is the presentation. It identifies the address of the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation as c/o The New Height Group in Portland where Ms. Cooperrider has been a principal since 2015. When Desiree Scorcia, a member of the audience, asked if there was a way to get a list of other projects to see how they have gone and how they stand now. Erin answered chomhousinq.org which is identified on its parent corporation, CEI’s 990 report as low-income housing. CEI’s 2021 audit, reports CHOM was transferred valued at $1,002,820.00, while Ms. Cooperrider’s bio for New Heights Group reports that she served 17 years as “Development Director for CHOM, a statewide affordable housing developer, helping to grow the organization’s asset base from $5 million to more than $100 million using low-income housing tax credits, state and federal historic tax credits, grants, loans, and private equity.”
Future phases may include multi-family apartment buildings, single-family homes, and condominiums. The goal is to create a range of housing choice, both for-sale and for-rent, and affordable to our workforce at a range of income levels. source
Erin Cooperrider, one of three commissioners who wrote the framework for HP 1489, spoke in 2018 of shifting the range of income levels for subsidized housing from low-income to workforce housing, representing a shift away from 60% of the median income to up to 120% of the median income. Reality is in the language of the law that Ms. Cooperrider helped to craft, what she is doing here is telling the selectmen what they want to hear.
To inform the concept plan, BRDC reached out to local employers to help determine both the magnitude of the housing need, and more specifically to identify the demographic that needs housing in order to determine which housing finance programs will be available to the effort. While the available data set is small, it is evenly divided across a broad range of household incomes, which informed the goal of providing a range of housing choice. source
Missing from their data set are the remote workers and the self-employed small entrepreneur. That is easily explained because the “workforce” is used to signify “instruments of the state or corporation”. Small entrepreneurs are self-directed.
Covid created the need for the American Rescue Plan. By that time the rise of the content provider had created a media through which the voices of the working classes had a platform. Covid hibernation gave the working class a chance to reconsider their life situations. Many did not want to return to the office ever again. Small living cells such as those planned by BRDC as “density bonuses” do not provide adequate space for remote work or a business in the home. The working class is calling for a different work-life balance but their voices are just another element occluded from the study for HP 1489, that occludes a whole lot, including short term rentals.
However, it is a different story when the subject is concentrated housing zones for affordable housing:
After the presentation there were a number of questions from the board such as: Are there ways to prevent seasonal housing and short-term rentals? Erin assures the board there are legal routes to eliminate these unwanted uses. Most of the units will be for sale with land leases which will allow for the control of the property uses. source (borrowing a concept from China)
The attitude is consistent with the decades of central management of the economy- opportunities for the top, living rations for the rest. The justification for the short-term rental industry is that it helps home owners to afford their homes but for those who own a home in a corporate owned affordable housing zone, the corporation will make sure you can’t use it as a means to increase your income as those who own houses outside the zones can. One set of rules for those above the median and another for those below the median. By asking the question the selectmen acknowledge that short term rentals are a cause of the housing shortage as does Erin Cooperrider, the author of a study on housing that determined not to include short term housing.
The selectmen overflowing with praise and admiration readily agree to give the BRDC $50,000 of American Rescue Plan Funding without further inquiry.
There is wiggle room in the spoken innuendos and secretive planning for massively transforming the peninsula through a $100 million-dollar school and a concentrated housing zone that do not preclude undisclosed and entwined negotiations between the two projects. Will terms be negotiated to reserve some of the housing for employees of corporate donors? The full context of plans underway hints at the peninsula being reinvented as a subsidiary corporation of the corporate state and the 100-million-dollar school as its corporate headquarters. There is so much that is unknown behind the narrative designed for public consumption that putting the brakes on the rush toward implementation of HP 1489 is the most sensible thing to do.
The wealth divide, not underproduction, is the root source of the housing problem. When 100%-120% of the AMI is the new “low-income” it is an indicator of the extent to which the wealth divide has grown.
With the enactment of HP 1489 Cooperider is moving toward her stated goal of increasing the income level that qualifies for housing subsidies. This means that in practice the low-income spectrum will be dropped for the higher-income spectrum as we see in HP 1489 which treats low-income housing. homelessness, and the short-term rental boom as non-existent.
A commonly expressed public perception is that the affordable housing concentration zone is subsidizing the poor when in fact the system is set up to subsidize the equity investors who own the assets while excluding the lowest levels of the economy from even having a place to rent.
Still, the perception persists that the affordable rental units are for the poor and its perspective inhabitants are looked down upon as undesirable. Even before the concentrated housing zone is built, those who would occupy it are disparaged giving a forecast of the future cultural attitudes that emerge when one economic sector is squeezed into an overcrowded living environment surrounded by wealthy vacation homes. Now that the State has put itself in charge of community character across the entirety of Maine, the cultural attitudes being expressed in Boothbay reflect the community character that the State is permitting and encouraging in every Maine municipality.
Should the people of Maine just accept overcrowded housing zones because developers have been deregulated by an arguably unconstitutional law written by developers? This process needs to slow down. Slowing it down is voting NO to the TIF district for the BRDC. Ms. Cooperider said that BRDC will continue as landowner beyond the buildout and current leadership because of investment in land and infrastructure. source Following that logic the BRDC should pay for its own infrastructure costs.
I sent an FOAA request to the Office of Policy and Legal Analysis concerning the second study on the housing crisis that came after the enactment of LD 2003, titled Commission to Increase Housing Opportunities in Maine by Studying Land Use Regulations and Short-term Rentals. Resolve 2021 widens the study to include short-term rentals. It does not have the Governor’s signature and was not enacted as an emergency. It is funded by the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition.
In a response to my inquiry from Suzanne M. Gresser Executive Director of the Maine Legislative Council, It appears that the recommendations in the second study may be integrated into multiple existing statutes.
The resolve for the first study has the Governor’s approval and also requires outside funding. It was enacted as an emergency to move forward with the utmost speed.
This document tells how legislative studies are selected and financed.
The testimonials for LD 2003 are hard to find and once you find them, they are hard to find again. Yesterday I thought I had figured it out. The testimonies are not in the side menu, they are listed under the title of the Bill and Act between Bill & Fiscal Information and Amendments
However today when I accessed the page for the 130th Legislative Session LD 2003, I could not spot the testimonials so I searched my past browsing history and found the testimonials on a page I did not remember accessing that is found in a listing of all bills for each session. It is so difficult to find the testimonials that I took a screenshot so my readers can find them more easily: Notice that the testimonials are the only link that is not included in the boxes that display when one accesses the page through a direct route.
This is the direct page link to testimonials,
The following testimonial expresses the outrage I share over central management’s power grab over constitutional home rule authority.
Deborah Brusini, Bridgton LD 2003
As a member of the Town of Bridgton, Maine, Planning Board, while I recognize we have a housing crisis, I am appalled at the disregard for home rule and the many years of effort that Bridgton and other rural Towns have put into developing and implementing their Comprehensive plans and Zoning ordinances. Bridgton spent 5 years translating the vision and goals of our Comprehensive Plan into a zoning ordinance that struck the right balance between commercial development, protecting private property rights, and preserving the character of our rural New England Town and its natural resources. These are critical to a healthy, vibrant rural Maine Town. The provisions of the Affordable Housing Commission Bill erodes the local decision-making authority with a one-size-fits-all approach, and the speed with which these recommendations would be implemented, without study of the impacts on municipal infrastructure, resident relations, or natural resources may be destructive to the wellbeing of small Towns like Bridgton and others in the Lakes Region. For example, allowing a density 2.5 times the most restrictive density in Bridgton could result in 4-story apartment buildings on a 2000 square foot lot! This represents the density requirement of a city such as Portland but not a rural Town such as Bridgton.
No two municipalities are alike. Absent in this version of the bill is support for the local ingenuity necessary to ensure that plans can be implemented in each community. Local control can be respected while simultaneously honoring the commitment to increasing levels of affordable housing in all communities.
Far more study is needed to understand the many impacts of such legislation and to yield a more equitable bill with flexibility for proper implementation in our various communities
The membership requirements for the two studies are almost identical but differ in that the second study adds two more members: Below is the description of the study membership with the additional member requirements that are only in the second study in bold:
The second study (same as the first study except for what is in bold)
5. Five public members, one representing a statewide municipal association, one representing a statewide organization that advocates for affordable housing, one representing statewide agricultural interests, one with expertise in transportation matters and one who is in the building trades, appointed by the President of the Senate; and
6. Six public members, one representing a regional planning association or a statewide organization that advocates for smart growth policies and projecs, one representing the real estate industry, one who is a residential developer, one representing an organization that advocates for low-income or middle-income renters or homeowners, one representing a local or statewide organization promoting civil rights that has racial justice or racial equity as its primary mission and one representing a nonprofit organization with expertise in strategies for building affordable homes for ownership, appointed by the Speaker of the House.
The first study decided not to include short-term rentals but the framework states that the commissioner “should” recommend a study that includes short-term rentals. Why did the commissioners bother to say that they should make the recommendation that they had no intention of making? Perhaps there was a political compromise resolved with carefully crafted language to get a dissenting commissioner to sign off on the framework.
The distinction in the membership of the two studies boils down to the inclusion or not of transportation issues and ownership opportunities for the working classes. Since 1976 when the State began centrally managing the economy, it has redistributed wealth as capital to the top and living rations for the rest, in other words, opportunities mostly go only to the top and so it is no surprise that the wealth divide has become an ownership class-working class divide, and that is the bridge too far, the point at which the social structure that held the system together crumbles. Some identify the ownership divide as a problem and others ignore it. The first study accepts the ownership class-working class divide as the status quo and invites corporate-owned housing developments to expand across Maine, as is being planned in Boothbay.
The short-term rental industry is mainly a recreational industry that financially benefits the ownership class through rental income. The state makes a 9% sales tax on the short-term rental industry. If the matter was in the judiciary rather than the Legislature, the interested party would be expected to recuse itself from ruling on a case in which it has an interest in the outcome, but this is the corporate state, that writes the laws that govern the field in which it also has a pecuniary interest.
By treating the short-term industry as non-causal and inconsequential the state protects the industry.
Considering that the state has a pecuniary interest in the outcome of the study, the state’s role is comparable to a private corporation. The state is not acting in the interest of the public, it is protecting its own self-interests. That is why the first study occludes so much that is relevant. The end result of the study as a foregone conclusion is the apparent purpose of the first study. Acting in its role as a for-profit corporation, the State’s interest is to procure the territory needed to keep on expanding its profit-making activities. To that end anyone or thing that does not serve its interests needs to be moved out of the way.
Or so proponents of the first study think, the first study is based on not seeing or hearing what the commissioners don’t want to see or hear. The commissioners, high on their perches solving the world’s problems, have no idea what is going on among the people whose lives they arrange.
Lately I have noticed a strange thing, that laws are codified with dates previous to their enactment. For example, §4364. Affordable housing density codifies LD 2003 which was not enacted until April of 2022 but its codification date is 2021. I have observed this phenomenon before so it is not attributable to a mistake.
The deceptively written passage below calls for prohibiting short-term rentals in affordable housing zones, but in the codified law the Legislature merely pretends to give permission to municipalities to do so through the innocuous use of the word “may”, with a caveat:
Title 30-A:§4364-C. Municipal role in statewide housing production goals may regulate short-term rentals. A municipality may establish and enforce regulations regarding short-term rental units in order to achieve the statewide or regional housing production goal. For the purposes of this subsection, "short-term rental unit" means living quarters offered for rental through a transient rental platform as defined by Title 36, section 1752, subsection 20‑C.
It is a true statement that Maine municipalities “may regulate STRs” whether or not they are doing so to support the State’s overproduction of housing plans. It is true not because the Maine Legislature has given municipalities permission to do so but because our Constitution grants municipalities that authority. Maine municipalities can also regulate STRs in the spaces outside of the housing concentration zones, but the state does not inform municipalities of this constitutional right. That would put a spanner in the work of LD 2003!
Since the first study decided to treat STRs as inconsequential it could hardly write a statewide regulation of STR’s and statewide general laws are the only option Maine State Inc has to affect municipal ordinances. This codification of LD 2003’s intent reflects that the State does not want to regulate STR’s and so it pretends that it is letting municipalities regulate them. It is on the order of writing a law that says Maine citizens may exercise free speech as if it was the Maine Legislature that grants us that freedom and not the US Constitution.
One narrative spins the rational that crowding people into concentrated living zones and reserving open spaces for growing food and recreation is for the sake of the environment. Following the logic, all formerly built homes should be torn down “for the sake of the environment” and everyone should live in concentrated housing zones.
There is no reduction in transportation use in the areas where the unregulated short-term industry expands but if the working classes are living in tiny spaces that do not allow for remote or other working spaces, they must commute to work.
commuting has a major impact on the Earth’s atmosphere and environment. …including pollutants like nitrogen oxides (NOxgases), particulate matter (PM), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)—as well as greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. source
In addition, the overproduction of houses will have its own environmental cost.
CO2 emissions – According to an article published in Bold Business, the construction sector contributes to 25% – 40% of the world’s carbon emissions. source
So maybe we should take a little more time to think this thing through?
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While I was composing this post, I tried to download the latest Annual Reports from the Maine Secretary of State Corporate Name Search
I have been downloading reports for years and it went 100% smoothly until a while back when I tried to download the report for the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation and the download screen went to 99% and then stopped and I had to write to the service to get the file.
A couple of days ago I down the tried to download the latest annual report for PGC3, LLC the company building a workforce boarding house in Boothbay Harbor, which I believe is Paul Coulombe. I keep running into an internal error screen on that one. I wrote to the service and the webmaster and so far I have only received the file that is the article of formation dated 2014- NOT the latest annual report. I have written back to say I received the wrong report but that was a few days ago and I still have not received the file I ordered.
When I tried to download the latest annual report for The New Height Group, I got an Electronic Filing Acknowledgement that an annual report had been filed.
I wrote back and said:
Your list of Filings identifies the document I ordered as an annual report but all I got was an Electronic Filing Acknowledgement. I would like to receive what I ordered. The 2022 Annual Report for The New Height Group LLC
This is the response:
Corporations, CEC
Mar 23, 2023, 9:42 AM (1 day ago)
to me
Good afternoon.
What you received is the annual report. It says ‘electronic filing acknowledgement’ because they processed online. ( Me- How is that for a dangling modifier?)
I apologize for the confusion.
Thank you.
Angela M. Giuffrida
Corporations Specialist
Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions
101 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333
PH: (207)624-7753; FX: (207)287-5874
Email: angela.giuffrida@maine.gov
Since when was an annual report synonymous with an acknowledgement that one has a file an annual report?
What should one do to get the report one pays for that is stated online as an annual report=NOT an acknowledgement that a report has been filed. IF that is all one gets it should be identified that way in the menu.