Calling for an Alternate Reality Headquarters!
A coalition needs to gather for building a better Maine!
(full disclosure- I am not a lawyer)
I wrote to the Merry Barn and learned that the reason it is closing is because it is being sold. To become the new steward, all an individual or group has to do is buy the building. Such resources that I do not have, nor do I have a group, but when I attended a pop-up show on Saturday at the Merry Barn, I could see that the space has generated a lot of energy. The show was very well attended from the minute it opened its doors. I was impressed.
I have been interested in joining forces to form a coalition as an alternate movement to the centralized economy. I shall entertain that thought for a while and project that the Merry Barn would be a very good location for alternative reality headquarters because it already has that going for it. The location is central to Wiscasset, Damariscotta, Edgecomb, Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Southport, and the extended area.
I have been making proposals in this newsletter about community projects and so I am an open book about what my interests are. If anyone else is interested and/or has resources or ideas about how to acquire the Merry Barn in the interests of a mutual community, I am open for collaboration.
Strategic planning needed for a better Maine!
I have been reconsidering the thought I expressed in my last post that an intentional community cannot be a priority zone. While it is true that priority zones cap income and that is not desirable, overcrowding and inadequate parking space are merely allowed and not mandated. It would be better for an intentional community to fulfill the mandated priority zone status, to keep overcrowded housing developments that provide inadequate parking for residents from moving in. That does not preclude developing intentional communities outside of the priority zone framework, We need both to overcome the damage potentially done by LD 2003
This is what the act HP 1489, known as the bill LD 2003 says:
§5250-U. Priority development zones required A municipality shall designate an area within the municipality as a priority development zone. A priority development zone must be located in an area that has significant potential for housing development and is located near community resources, as determined by the Department of Economic and Community Development. A priority development zone must comply with the requirements of this section and any rules adopted under subsection 3.
I previously discussed the above statutory requirement of a priority zone in my last post. Assuming that the Butler Road location has been approved as an appropriate location by the Department of Economic and Community Development, then meeting the criteria is not difficult, but it might be political.
2. Review. Prior to adopting an ordinance designating a priority development zone, a municipality shall submit a draft ordinance for review to the Department of Economic and Community Development. Upon receipt of a draft ordinance, the department shall conduct a review to ensure compliance with this section and any applicable rules adopted under 36 subsection 3.
I wonder if that has been done pursuant to Butler Road?
In the new state-wide municipal ordinance, municipalities are required to meet state-wide housing production goals, like subsidiaries of central management, not a Home Rule state.
There is nothing extraordinary about Maine's population growth to account for the government’s new housing manufacturing enterprise. The highest rate of population growth in recent years was 1.39% in 2020 and has steadily declined to .43% in 2023. There was a higher rate of growth in 1988 at 1.63% and 1972 at 1.86% but there was no big housing shortage declared causing the government to go into mass housing production and institute dystopian statewide municipal ordinances.
I grew up in ceramic slip-casting production in the home, which was a response to the dehumanization of production in the factories of the Industrial Revolution. Production housing is in the same class as Industrial Revolution factory production. It is the type of housing that my parents were living in in Ohio which motivated them to move to Maine where they had the freedom to operate a business from their home.
LD 2003 or HP1490 never explains why there is a housing shortage but the government report produced in response to the commissioner’s study attributes “This drastic need for housing in Maine, particularly affordable housing” to “various factors including low housing production, an aging housing stock, sudden in-migration of households with higher incomes, and declining labor force participation among Maine’s aging population”
This chart of the USA housing and demand might give another clue:
You see where the sudden decline begins- around 2008, the year of two major events the financial crisis caused by mortgage-backed securities and the birth of Airbnb. The former is a financial crisis caused by mortgage-backed assets- that means existing real estate for which the financing collapsed. The financial crisis caused a housing crisis in which people lost their homes and/or couldn’t afford to buy one but it wasn’t caused by low housing stock. Units relative to demand were climbing right before the market collapsed. The latter event caused an ongoing repurposing of residential homes for commercial purposes, taking those residential homes out of the existing available full-time residential stock.
The population growth in the US the population has been increasing but at a declining rate since 2008. It doesn’t seem like enough to create a housing shortage.
The commissioner’s study for LD 2003 had this to say about short-term rentals:
Short-term rentals: Short term rentals, such as Airbnb’s, are another area of concern that was raised but that the commission believes requires a more in-depth study. Commissioners noted that the rapid growth of short-term rentals in Maine has taken existing housing stock out of the year-round rental pool, putting pressure on rental rates throughout the State. Although long-term impacts may not yet be known, there is evidence that short-term rentals are impacting the housing market. Of particular concern is the rise of non-owner-occupied short-term rentals in strong housing markets. While owners who rent out their own units at times can supplement their household income, non-owner-occupied short-term rentals do not provide the same benefits and can essentially remove a housing unit from the market. While the commission has not made a formal recommendation, this may be a topic that deserves further study to assess the benefits and drawbacks of regulating short-term rentals. Commission members are particularly interested in ensuring that new housing units produced using the recommendations from this report are used primarily as permanent, year-round housing for Maine residents. source (emphasis by author)
Thus we have the reasoning for government-managed housing production as we are led to believe that if a short-term rental is in an owner-occupied building, it does not remove that rental from the full-time residential housing stock but if there is no owner living in the building, then the short term rental-depletes the full-time rental housing stock. That is called fuzzy math, needed to justify the next conclusions in this housing study.
The study concludes:
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows: 2 Sec. 1. 30-A MRSA §3015 is enacted to read:
§3015. Accessory dwelling units 2. Prohibited requirements. A municipality may not
E. Prohibit use of the single-family dwelling unit or the accessory dwelling unit as a short-term rental or vacation rental, as defined in Title 22, section 2491, subsection 17, except that a municipality may require additional off-street parking and that the owner occupy the dwelling unit not used as a short-term rental or vacation rental;
SUMMARY This bill requires municipalities to allow one accessory dwelling unit to be included within or located on the same lot as a single-family dwelling unit. It prevents municipalities from imposing any of the following for accessory dwelling units: ……. off-street parking requirements; ……. or owner occupancy of one of the units unless one of the units is being used for short-term or vacation rentals. A municipality may not restrict use of one of the units on a lot as a short-term or vacation rental source
After observing that short-term rentals have taken housing out of the housing stock, and declaring that members are particularly interested in ensuring that new housing units produced using the recommendations from this report are used primarily as permanent, year-round housing for Maine residents. The commissioners concluded that short-term rentals may require an in-depth study to assess the benefits and drawbacks of regulating short-term rentals, but the commissioners would not take the radical step of making a formal recommendation for such a study. Instead, they took the more moderate approach of formally recommending laws be enacted mandating municipalities to allow accessory dwelling units for single-family homes and allowing the use of the dwelling units as short-term or vacation rentals even though the newly enacted accessory dwelling units qualify as new housing units.
Why would the commissioners make such a recommendation in a study of the housing shortage affecting full-term resident Mainers? Are they not veering off their focus on housing and getting into economic development and favoring short-term rentals as accessory units for the sake of the higher profits that such rentals provide, and the 9% sales tax revenue going to the state, over renting to full-term residents, whose needs are supposed to be the focus of the study? The owners of the single-family homes could supplement their income by renting accessory units as full-time rentals.
Or could it have to do with the agreement made in 2015 between Maine and Airbnb to collect the short-term rental Maine sales tax?
Rumor has it that the agreement that makes Airbnb the sales tax collector includes terms negotiated with governments that they will not create ordinances that regulate Airbnb.
In what areas is occupancy tax collection and remittance by Airbnb available?
County- and City-level Airbnb Rules in Maine
The lack of state-level legislation of short term rentals leaves it to the hands of county and city governments. Most local councils however have no regulations on the books for short term vacation rentals. Cities that do regulate Airbnbs and other vacation rentals tend to be popular tourist destinations.
Here are the Airbnb vacation rental laws, regulations, and taxes applicable at a local level in some of the most popular tourist cities in Maine.
LD 2003 does give a tip of the hat to Home Rule by saying that municipalities may regulate short-term rentals, an authority granted by the Home Rule Amendment of the Maine Constitution. It also regulates short-term rentals in priority zones but only to rentals that are less than thirty days, which fails to ensure that priority zones
are used primarily as permanent, year-round housing for Maine residents”. When did thirty-one days come to qualify as a full-time rental?
Instead of conducting an in-depth study on the effects of short-term rentals, the commissioners recommend:
9. Establish statewide housing production goals. Establish, in coordination with the Maine State Housing Authority, a statewide housing production goal that increases the availability and affordability of all types of housing in all parts of the State. ….
I looked for these goals on the DECD website but there was so much there that I sent an email request asking to be pointed in the right direction related to the Boothbay Peninsula.
I received these two links in response to my inquiry:
DECD recently published a report outlining the state’s statewide and regional goals. The report can be found here
The report does not, however, go into detail on what individual municipalities must accomplish for housing goals. Instead, the regional goals are set at a county level. I should further note that there is no state requirement for municipalities to establish housing goals, but certainly some municipalities (or groups of municipalities) may feel like they want to create goals to help incentivize the creation of housing.
As a helpful resource, I also wanted to share the State of Maine’s Housing Data Portal. This resource provides demographic and housing data on the state, county, and municipal level. There is an option, for instance, to find data on Boothbay Harbor, Southport and Boothbay.
A glance at the report produces this:
To meet Maine’s current and future needs, the Housing Study found that Maine needs approximately 38,500 homes to remedy historic underproduction and will need an additional 37,900 to 45,800 homes to meet expected population growth and household changes by 2030.
The population expectation is reasonable but not out of proportion to Maine’s historical rate of growth. Where does this historic underproduction come from? The need to accommodate short-term rentals into the new economy of Maine? That seems to be the real purpose of LD 2003, despite its rhetorical claims of purpose. The study claims one thing and the act does another.
In support of the concept that an intentional community can institute its own rules on the priority zones. here is a relevant part of LD 2003:
7. Restrictive covenants. This section may not be construed to interfere with abrogate or annul the validity or enforceability of any valid and enforceable easement, covenant, deed restriction or other agreement or instrument between private parties that imposes greater restrictions than those provided in this section, as long as the agreement does not abrogate rights under the United States Constitution or the Constitution of Maine.
So how does one interpret “greater restrictions” in regards to :
2. Density requirements. A municipality shall allow an affordable housing development where multifamily dwellings are allowed to have a dwelling unit density of at least 2 1/2 times the base density that is otherwise allowed in that location and may not require more than 2 off-street parking spaces for every 3 units. The development must be in a designated growth area of a municipality consistent with section 4349-A, subsection 1, paragraph A or B or the development must be served by a public, special district or other centrally managed water system and a public, special district or other comparable sewer system.
The word “allow” is a permission, not a restriction. 7. Restrictive covenants says
This section may not be construed to interfere with an …..agreement or instrument between private parties that imposes greater restrictions than those provided in this section, as long as the agreement does not abrogate rights under the United States Constitution or the Constitution of Maine. So restrictions can be made over those allowances by private-party agreements.
What about“may not require more than 2 off-street parking spaces for every 3 units.” The restriction is applied to the municipality, so a greater restriction would be worse for the inhabitants. However, since greater restrictions can be applied to housing density, housing density can be restricted to allow ample parking space for every unit and at the same time provide additional parking for two cars for every three units as parking for visitors clients, and customers, thus bringing about a return to Maine’s historical quality of life for the full-time residents and working classes.
Intentional community bylaws can impose greater restrictions on housing density than provided (allowed) in LD 2003, allowing for more humanistic housing within a priority zone. Priority zones cap the income of the residents but that can be mitigated by implementing intentional housing communities tailored to an opportunity economy that can allow people in income-capped housing to transition to the opportunity economy. Placing such communities side by side or in close proximity would encourage co-ordination between them.
Then there is this:
9. Establish statewide housing production goals. Establish, in coordination with the Maine State Housing Authority, a statewide housing production goal that increases the availability and affordability of all types of housing in all parts of the State. The department shall establish regional housing production goals based on the statewide housing production goal. In establishing these goals, the department shall:
”All” is the keyword that has to include businesses in a home. The current development plans are not doing that. The housing project by the Boothbay Region Development Corporation is suitable only for workers at corporate headquarters, based on the only description I have seen of the size of the units. It’s only one description but it goes along with trending new developments. The spaces are continually made smaller, two parking spaces per three units being a case in point. The squeezing of space for common folks is reflective of the ever-expanding wealth divide that has been incrementally diminishing the working-class standard of living since the seventies.
But the law says “all types of housing” so that must include working in the home housing. We just have to make it happen! Speak up organize!
See Foundation for Intentional Communities, Starter Guide to Intentional Communities.