What If ?? The Culture of the Boothbay Peninsula Was Really Inclusive?
Still seeking a leader for a Museum of American Designer Craftsmen!
Yesterday I sent a post but my substack dashboard reported that it was sent only to one person. I waited to see if the reporting were the problem, as it happened the other day that Substack had issues with reporting and sent notice thereof, but today it still says the post was sent to only one person and so I am including it in this post, which you will find below.
Today I am hoping to finally complete my application to Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in Boston for help with applying for non-profit status for the Museum which will support the development of maker studios in the home for anywhere in the USA but especially around wherever the Museum will be located. This would be a more sustainable direction of affordable “workforce” housing development than the grid-style row houses being advocated by relator-developer activists, headed up by their new non-profit, The Boothbay Region Housing Trust.
One would hope there would be realtor developers who would respond to the development of studios in the home as a “quality” rural lifestyle and a more interesting architectural and community design project than the urban grid being advanced by others. I am sure there are a few such thinkers out there. The work incorporated in studios in a home is real, not imaginary. There has always been such an interest in rural cultures and even among those leaving Urbania behind. Such a culture is a natural blend with the new remote working culture now actively supported by large corporations. It seems far more likely that our peninsula can attract remote workers and a making and grassroots entrepreneurial culture than that a large corporation will set up headquarters with a (usually) tax-payer subsidized “workforce” working in “quality jobs” defined by the corporate state and its associate’s private realtor-developer friends as nothing more and nothing less than jobs paying larger than average incomes and benefits all arranged in negotiations between the public-private state. Although these jobs may instantly provide higher than average wages, they also put a cap on how much the workforce can make, which may explain why now there needs to be “affordable homes” built for that workforce, houses which are sounding less desirable in concept than existing affordable homes for those with below-average incomes.
But as I read the corporate charter for the Boothbay Region Housing Trust, I am wondering, shouldn’t whoever is going to be the leader of the Museum be included in the corporate charter? I don’t know the answer to that question but we don’t have a leader, or any community support, to date and so we will just have to move ahead on our own. Andersen Design is a historical provider of year-round jobs on the peninsula, but also long on the unspoken “businesses to be discontinued “ list of central management. I only say this because I have years of experience in trying to work with the system. All you have to do is read the “three factions” that Watson and Yale identify in the article below, to see that businesses in a home are not on their list, even though Watson and Yale are in real estate and development. Well! we have something in common because our company went into slip-cast production because we wanted to create a hand-made product affordable to the middle classes, but the difference is that each handmade product is unique.
Watson and Yale’s idea is to place urban city planning ( based on the image they used from the website of Martha Vineyard’s group) in a rural community with houses stacked wall to wall and the individual occupants having no plots of land to call their own.
My idea is much more environmentally sustainable and is historically consistent with the style of growth of the New England village- and I think, much more intriguing as an architectural design project.
So I will go ahead and apply for legal support in forming a non-profit on my own, And once I have gotten over that hurdle, I will be more proactive in finding a leader for a museum- which is a great community-involved job for someone. Maybe by the time we actually file for a non-profit, that person will be part of it.
Below is the post I tried to send yesterday. Let’s hope it goes out to my list today without any glitches:
Boothbay Region Land Trust Advocates Affordable Housing For the Professional Classes.
If we raise taxes high enough can the Boothbay Region become a viable Martha Vineyard copycat?
The recent article in the Boothbay Register titled BRHT looks to Martha’s Vineyard’s housing model, quotes The Boothbay Region Housing Trust’s Cindi Watson. in comparing the Boothbay Region to Martha’s Vineyard, MA “They're talking about an island and we're talking about a peninsula, they're talking about commuters coming over on the ferry, But we're talking about the 4,000 cars that are commuting into Boothbay every day and leave.”
FACT CHECK! “4,000 cars that are commuting into Boothbay every day and leave.”
If that is true the Boothbay Region must have expanded at a far more radical rate than it seems since 2015 when the Camoin Report, an economic development master plan produced by New York consultants, commissioned, by the JECD group, published this data taken from the year 2014:
Employed in Boothbay Region 2,358
Employed in Boothbay Region but Living Outside 1,417 60%
Employed and Living in Boothbay Region 941 40%
Living in Boothbay Region 2,415
Living in Boothbay Region but Employed Outside 1,474 61%
This chart is found on page 58 in the Camoin Report which additionally includes data from 2004. In short, the living population of the region has increased but employment within the region has decreased. The largest change is in the number of people living in the Region from 1893 in 2004 to 2415 in 2014, slightly under 22% growth in ten years, The same rate of increase would put the Region at 3,596 in 2024.
If you take the figure of 4000 cars a day commuting, it is greater than the populous of the Peninsula. Adding the figures of those commuting out and those commuting in it is less than 3000. Does it represent the growth that The Boothbay Region Land Trust wants to push on the region?
The rate of change quoted in the Camoin Report represents a rate that was already higher than the state average. according to the Adams Pond and Knickerbocker LakeWatershed Protection Plan.
C. Watershed NPS Threats
The greatest threat to Adams Pond and Knickerbocker Lake is NPS pollution associated with development. Boothbay’s population is growing at a rate higher than the state average. Data from the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission indicate Boothbay’s population has grown 18% and there has been a 44% increase in housing units since 1990. Residential development is the most common type of development in Boothbay overall and in the Adams Pond and Knickerbocker Lake watersheds. As Boothbay’s population grows, residential development is expected to continue to be the dominant development type in the watershed. Analysis of the housing trends in Boothbay shows most residential development has been occurring on a lot-by-lot basis or in small subdivisions, which are subjected to less rigorous environmental review than large subdivisions.
Adams Pond and Knickerbocker Lake currently meet state water quality standards, but both are listed on Chapter 502 of the Maine Stormwater Law as “Most at Risk from New Development” and on Maine’s NPS Priority Watersheds List. Adams Pond and Knickerbocker Lake Water Shed Protection Plan published 2015
The Report from the water department occurred around the same time as the Camoin Report, but they did not consult with each other, a drawback to working with consultants at a very long distance from a location.
There is very little information publicly available about the Boothbay Region Housing Trust so I downloaded its corporate charter found on the Secretary of State website.
The box below is checked:
This corporation is organized as a public benefit corporation for the following purpose or purposes:
To create and preserve affordable housing on the Boothbay Peninsula and adopt housing strategies that will balance the needs of the Boothbay Region.
Resouces will be sought through private donations, grants, and federal and state funding. Those applying would meet the needs set forth by the Boothbay Region Housing Trust.
This option is NOT checked:
No substantial part of the activities of the Corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and the Corporation shall not participate in or intervene in (including the publication and distribution of statements) any political campaign on the behalf of any candidate.
We know that the BRLT was formed to push legislation because in the introductory Boothbay Register article Deborah Yale referred to the “archaic ordinances” from 1986 in Boothbay Harbor, which if only they could be gotten rid of. the condominiums on prime waterfront property could be used for “affordable workforce housing”. I looked into the ordinances and found that she was referring to ordinances protecting the working waterfront, a class that probably accounts for a large part of the demographic segment that lives and works in the region. Does getting rid of the ordinances that protect the working waterfront satisfy “housing strategies that will balance the needs of the Boothbay Region.”? Apparently so, in MS Yale’s world view, which includes using Martha’s Vineyard, one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world, as a model for the Boothbay Region.
The 1986 Ordinances
WATERFRONT DEVELOPMENT AND REVITALIZATION PROJECT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (1986)
Findings
1. Boothbay Harbor is the center of a $12-million-a-year Lincoln County
fishing, industry. This industry generates $36 million dollars of additional
revenues for the area and state. A commercial fish pier on the east side of
the harbor is economically viable if the volume of landings can be maintained;2. Condominiums and other land uses are severely reducing the number and
quality of landing facilities available for commercial fish landing and proces-
sing. Current land use regulations are not adequate to resist development
pressures over the long term;
The non-profit purpose statement of the BRLT says that “Those applying would meet the needs set forth by the Boothbay Region Housing Trust.” but if Watson and Yale have set forth needs in an official capacity, they aren’t telling. BRLT does not have a website, and so Marthas Vineyard’s website will do as a proxy.
In the Boothbay Register article, Watson and Yale tell us who meets the needs of BRLT:
BRHT is focusing on granular workforce housing – one piece of a trinity of housing problems plaguing the peninsula. Not the other two – subsidized or senior housing, said BRHT’s Debrah Yale. Though each issue’s problems are about the same – high cost, low inventory and high demand – the Boothbay Region, like Martha’s Vineyard, can find a way for workers, teachers and other professionals to live here, said Yale and Watson. Boothbay Register BRHT looks to Martha’s Vineyard’s housing model
How can “the needs of the region be balanced” If only one faction is given consideration by intent? Considering that Watson and Yale use Marthas Vineyard as their model, it sounds like they are intending to define “affordable housing” as affordable housing, by Martha Vineyards measure for a “professional class of people”, which in Maine means those working “quality jobs”, defined by the State Legislature as “jobs with higher than average wages and benefits” a requirement for taxpayer subsidization, which also requires an X number of “quality jobs” in order to qualify for subsidies, tax exemptions, free worker training, and other fine gifts. X number of jobs makes a “workforce” and so it comes across that Watson and Yale are selling the idea that we need to attract the corporations to hire the workforces that will employ the workers who will live in the “affordable workforce housing”.
What is the average rent in Martha's Vineyard, MA?
The average one-bedroom apartment in Martha's Vineyard, MA city centre stands at around $2,600 per month. If you're okay with an apartment outside of the city centre that will be cost around $2,340. Cost of Living in Martha’s Vineyard, MA
All of that, of course, will require incentives, as so mentioned, in his write-up in the Register, Boothbay Harbor selectman, and former JECD group member, Kenneth Rayle, as he let us know his intention to turn up the speed dial on affordable housing.
Where do we find these incentives? Massachusettes of course, say Watson and Yale through the proxy of Marthas Vineyard “Affordable Housing” leader. It’s a great opportunity to advocate for full-fledged state capitalism at the municipal level and push for instituting Masachussettes law in Maine which will allow the wealthy residents to donate for credits, the only ones left who can afford to live here after the taxes for the fifty million dollar school, broadband for an already overserved community, and tax credits for the community investment in “affordable housing” are instituted. The JECD Party has it all coordinated, but is their plan constitutional in Maine? That is a thought for another post…. And …. Let us not forget! Marthas Vineyard does not have the water sustainability issues that the Boothbay Region has.