What's in a Study? Besides Political Motivations?
Looking at the Maine housing study that recommends a State take over of municipal ordinances and how it attempts to reconcile State corporatism with Home Rule.
This week the Boothbay Town Selectmen approved Washburn and Doughty’s plans for a worker’s boarding house and approved an affordable workforce housing development for $50,000 dollars in municipal American Rescue Plan Act funds.
The development is described by Erin Cooperrider, vice-president, and treasurer of the Boothbay Region Development Corporation as “local housing stock affordable and available to the workforce”. The latter phrasing suggests housing that is available only to those whose work function serves a purpose in the community planning master plan. Why not just say that is affordable and available? The noun, workforce, suggests a corporate need rather than a human need, useful for selling the industrial park, with convenient workforce housing, and an eighty-million dollar school where students can be industrially trained starting in secondary school and the training will be paid by the taxpayers. The term “workforce housing” is a constant reminder and acceptance that working for a living no longer means being able to afford a place to live. The notion of affordable workforce housing, as opposed to just affordable housing, addresses the symptom that working for a living no longer affords a place to live, and ignores the cause- which is the wealth divide.
Erin Cooperrider, vice president of the Boothbay Region Development Corporation is a principal in the New Heights Group, a developing corporation. Cooperrider was also a member of Maine’s Commission to Increase Housing Opportunities in Maine by Studying Zoning and Land Use Restrictions. She participated in the study that made recommendations for LD 2003 that gives the Legislative seal of approval for overcrowded housing across Maine, changes that developers have been pushing for in municipal ordinances for years but Maine’s Commission to Increase Housing Opportunities in Maine got the State to take the decision-making authority away from the municipalities and hand it to the State, allowing developers to overcrowd housing all across Maine.
So let’s look at the study, beginning with its members:
Sen. Craig V. Hickman, Chair
Spkr. Ryan M. Fecteau, Chair Fecteaus’s presentation for municipal leaders
Sen. Matthew G. Pouliot
Rep. Amy Arata
Hannah Pingree Director, Governor's Office of Policy Innovation and the Future
Kate Dufour Legislative Advocate at Maine Municipal Association
John Napolitano, President Maine State Building And Construction Trades Council
Heather (Heather Perkins) Spaulding, CIC, ACSR Commercial Lines Insurance Agent / Account Manager / Client Manager , Independent Avon Representative
Dana Totman recently president and CEO of Avesta Housing, effective later this year.
Erin Cooperrider, principal New Height Group
Cheryl Golek, author and political advocate with a passion for poverty and social justice related issues.
Madeleine Hill Real Estate Agent
Anthony Jackson Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine
Jeff Levine Faculty Lecturer, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Owner, Levine Planning Strategies, LLC
Daniel Brennan MaineHousing’s Director
The members of the staff are Hillary Risler, Samuel Prawer, Deirdre Schneider Legislative Analysts from the Office of Policy & Legal Analysis.
The most obvious legal issue in this State take over of municipal ordinances is the Home Rule Amendment:
Municipal Home Rule
Section 1. Power of municipalities to amend their charters. The inhabitants of any municipality shall have the power to alter and amend their charters on all matters, not prohibited by Constitution or general law, which are local and municipal in character. The Legislature shall prescribe the procedure by which the municipality may so act.
Section 2. Construction of buildings for industrial use. For the purposes of fostering, encouraging and assisting the physical location, settlement and resettlement of industrial and manufacturing enterprises within the physical boundaries of any municipality, the registered voters of that municipality may, by majority vote, authorize the issuance of notes or bonds in the name of the municipality for the purpose of purchasing land and interests therein or constructing buildings for industrial use, to be leased or sold by the municipality to any responsible industrial firm or corporation.
Highlights of The Commission’s Response to Home Rule: Second Meeting, September 9, 2021
Key points of the presentations and questions from the commission included:
The importance of home rule authority, the balance of state mandates and local control, and a recognition that municipalities cannot be relied upon to implement policy changes without resources and funding; quote from the study
The idea that is suggested here is that the State controls the municipalities through the redistribution of wealth and so the State should also have control over municipal ordinances. However the State functions as one player in a public-private for-profit-non-profit wealth concentration and redistribution system and so there are other sources that can be accessed for funding without trading in our local governance authority.
The report includes its own justification for why the Home Rule Amendment does not preclude the State from taking control over municipal ordinances. The rationale bypasses the language of the Home Rule Amendment and uses mandatory shoreline zoning as a precedent for State control of local municipal decisions correlating housing with shoreline issues because homelessness is a state-wide crisis:
…the municipal home rule authority granted by the Maine Constitution, gives municipalities in Maine wide latitude to enact ordinances, so long as these ordinances do not prevent the efficient accomplishment of a defined state purpose. However, this does not mean that the State cannot enact legislation requiring municipalities to adopt local ordinances consistent with state policy. One example is the mandatory shoreland zoning laws in the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 38 – this is an instance in which the state required local municipalities to adopt ordinances consistent with state law. quote from the study
I am sure there is a legal argument to that but it is beyond the scope of this post, however, I will make one obvious observation. The Commission is comparing statutes governing oceans that know no municipal and local boundaries with housing which has very diverse differences between one community and another. The function of the State is to govern issues that affect the whole which includes our natural environment. There is no comparison to be made between environmental regulations and local community regulations. And given the argument that the housing shortage is statewide, it is also a global crisis so following that argument through to its ultimate conclusion, local municipal ordinances can be decided by a global government because the housing shortage is all over the globe.
The circular reasoning argument justifying State take over of municipal ordinances:
One theme that carried throughout these discussions was the necessity of achieving the appropriate balance between state mandates on municipalities and preserving local control under Maine’s home rule authority. However, as evidenced by the Legislature’s passage of the enabling legislation of this commission, some zoning and land use restrictions have historically, and continue, to act as barriers to increasing housing opportunities in this State. quote from the study
And does the Commission understand that the Maine Legislature is the State?
The Doublespeak Rationale for State Centralization of Municipal Ordinances- It’s all about the money!
Challenges & Resources Home Rule, Partnerships & Collaboration. However, implementation of policies that veer from the norm will take time, investment and assistance from State partners. Key among the first steps is the need to honor home rule authority through the development of state/local/private partnerships to ensure that municipalities have access to resources and tools necessary to implement locally designed and state incentivized solutions. Furthermore, as recommendations are designed the Commission is encouraged to turn to local officials for feedback on the feasibility of implementing particular solutions. quote from the study
Once again since our government is all about the money, our government helped to create the public-private for-profit non-profit wealth concentration and redistribution industrial complex. In so doing, in terms of the money argument, the government put itself on equal terms with other wealth redistribution agencies. Model A fiscal sponsorship, especially (as opposed to Model L- which is keyed to hegemonic powers). opens up doors for decentralization, the way of the future, unless we want to return to feudalism
Here in Boothbay, we have our Town selectmen drooling over the volunteer group who came up with an affordable housing solution which I cannot help but compare to the hostility this same select board directed at Lester Spear when he produced an original economic development event on our Town Commons using his own financial resources. The contrast is as stark as it is political.
The Act uses linguistic smoke and mirrors, for example overcrowding the housing of the working class is called a “density bonus”. Who is the density a bonus for? - not the working classes. The overcrowding mandate is for all of Maine, not only for urban areas where there may be an argument for it. Maine is a rural state with lots of open space.
Chair Ryan M. Fecteau’s presentation states that “Maine needs to build 1000 affordable units each year to meet demand. From 2014-2020, we were building only 25% of that need on average”. It’s just a statement without providing a source. It may or may not be a reasonable conclusion. It doesn’t explain why the need for new affordable housing is expected to remain consistent year after year, nor does it provide any detail about where these homes are needed across the entire state. I am inclined to believe that the need is not evenly distributed, but we are talking about the State level- not the municipal level assessment. The state deals in large masses and geographical areas.
Recommendation #5. Create density bonuses in all residential zones throughout the State, giving low to middle-income housing projects 2.5 times the density of the existing zone, with a parking requirement of no more than .66 spaces per unit for the additional units (generous!), and with the requirement that those units be protected as affordable for a specific period of time. (emphasis by author)
Recommendation #8. Strengthen Maine’s Fair Housing Act by eliminating the terms “character,” “overcrowding of land,” and “undue concentration of population” as legal bases for zoning regulations.
Does Recommendation #8 conflict with what the Maine Constitution says?
Section 8. Taxation
5. Historic and scenic preservation. The Legislature shall have the power to provide that municipalities may reduce taxes on real property if the property owner agrees to maintain the property in accordance with criteria adopted by the governing legislative body of the municipality to maintain the historic integrity of important structures or to provide scenic view easements of significant vistas.
With Maine #8 globally in Airbnb bookings, the Commission gave Airbnbs a mention but decided it was a concern that could be put off until later:
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. (smooth!) 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. (yes- well isn’t that the cause of the worldwide housing shortage?) 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. (as do owners who rent out their own homes! The benefit is a rental business in a home, the only business in a home that you are willing to qualify as a benefit-productive businesses in a home are not even on your map but they also provide an income!) 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. (Wouldn’t it make more sense to include it in the current study which is incomplete without it?) 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. (additions in parenthesis by author).
When the selectmen raised the concern to The Boothbay Region Development Corporation that the housing might be rented out, the answer was that the owner who did so would have to pay back subsidies. The owner can use his property to get a loan to pay back subsidies while short-term rentals would cover the payments and probably more, making paying back the subsidies a very weak deterrent, but it was enough to satisfy the selectmen who had nothing but praise for the Boothbay Region Development Corporation, said to be volunteers, who had come up with a solution for workforce housing.
This is glib-speak, which Erin Cooperrider seems very accomplished at, judging by the article Public responds skeptically to 84-unit commercial/residential development plan for Rockport’s RES parcel about a similar development that the New Height Group, is developing in Rockport where the public could not get answers to their questions. (note added later- The first time I read this, because the page is broken up by a large empty space, I did not see an entire question and answer session where some questions were sort of answered. read it and judge for yourself)
Nonetheless, citizens weighed in on the conceptual plan, which Cooperride admitted did not reflect the favored scale of density that the 339 residents who filled out a survey last winter concerning the RES parcel.
The density is higher, she said, as a matter of economics.
Rockland Citizens weighed in in October, 2021 but by June things had changed, LD 2003 had been passed by the Maine Legislature. Cooperrider participated in the study that became LD 2003, a new law that prohibits any ordinances against overcrowding across the entire state of Maine. Cooperrider explained away greater density than the Town people wanted as “a matter of economics” another phase that explains nothing much.
Steve Malcom, the CEO of the Knickerbocker Group, is the president of the Boothbay Region Development Corporation, or so we are told by the Register article. No other information can be found for the corporation. On the Secretary of State website, a corporate name search came up empty, and also no results at GuideStar or ProPublica. Curiously when it was announced that a local group was requesting a portion of Boothbay’s American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funding for an affordable housing project, the group was not identified even as Town Manager Dan Bryer reported he has worked with the group, a registered 501(c)3 entity, for several months.
The corporation is identified in the announcement of receiving the funding where the officers are also identified. Steve Malcom is the president, well known for doing work for Paul Coulombe, who is not identified as having a role in the Boothbay Region Development Corporation, but in the comments, Paul Coulombe speaks as though he was overseeing the whole deal:
Paul Coulombe jack bauer • It is the generosity of a few good people that are willing to donate money and their time to helping (working) people that cannot afford housing. There will be no money made by any individual lot business period. I can assure you of that. I will examine every invoice … it’s all about creating workforce housing that is affordable and reasonable. (addition in parenthesis by author)
Not named as a principal in the only source of information available about BRDC but Mr. Coulombe assures us that he will go over every invoice. Meanwhile, the entire organization remains a mystery and inaccessible to the public. One gets the feeling that Paul Coulombe is pulling a Donald Trump on the other collaborators. It feels as if pains are made to keep something secret and it seems to have to do with Paul Coulombe’s involvement. Everyone kept Mr. Coulombe out of the public eye until Coulombe opens his mouth and says “Oh Yeah! And I’m in charge of this!”
The article describes the financing targets:
The corporation is seeking an additional $2.1 million in private capital, and $800,000 in local and state funds. “Yielding a 40/60% split of public to private funds for the first two phases. source
But Paul Coulombe says:
No government involved in this project . It is being run by a private organization. I would not be involved if the government was involved. source
See! Coulombe is like Trump!
Contradicting one’s self and other sources seems to be sanctified as a dialogue technique. Amazingly after making the above recommendations, The report concludes with Opportunities which include:
Honor home rule authority by providing communities with a list of options to consider, including form-based zoning to encourage mixed-use development or relatively higher density residential development that also supports and protects community character (emphasis by author)
The study also suggests that rules protecting public safety should be reviewed if they impede growth and development:
Review State policies that may impede growth and development, including the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code, and septic and subsurface wastewater rules
There is the term “mixed-use” used above, but it is not defined. Being that businesses in a home receive no mention elsewhere in the discussion and are treated as not a part of reality, I am inclined to believe that businesses in a home are not part of the definition of “mixed-use”.
The report is followed by a report on exclusionary zoning, defined as “Exclusionary zoning: restrictive land use and zoning policies meant to exclude certain uses of land”
But, from scrolling through the report, it seems that businesses in a home are also excluded from the exclusionary zoning category. You cannot exclude something that is simply dealt with as non-existent. Before something can be excluded it has to exist or be recognized to exist. This entire report is treated as if the only thing that exists is the corporate world order. There is no such thing as small entrepreneurs and businesses in a home.
Why is that? Because the ultimate goal of the wealth divide is to divide society into the ownership class and the contributor-working class, no longer called slaves or servants but functionally getting closer all the time.
The small business owner exists outside of the corporate system on their own terms. Wendy Wolf, former head of the JECD, could not conceive of such a thing as people existing outside the corporate hierarchical grid when she sent the message (reasoned speculation since it came via another source) down the hierarchical pipeline that I should not approach the JECD but attend their meetings for a year in silence to show my respect! She apparently does not know how to relate to a world existing beyond the realms of corporate power, which includes the State and its private partners. Her attitude is emblematic of all that is wrong with corporate culture and why the “workforce” just doesn’t want to take it anymore!
The political denial of an independent decentralized economy has a long history. Archeologists debate over whether itinerate craftsmen of the bronze ages were free men or just servants of the wealthy producing “prestige objects” Even in today’s world some associate “art” with “prestige objects”, thus the board of Fractured Atlas declared that the word “production” means that one is only in it for the money- occluding any artistic involvement in the process.-Just like that! By thinking it!
Maine is still a Home Rule State. We do not need this report to guide our future municipalities. We can make our own. We do not need the State’s money. We can find our own. We can tell our own stories and we can bring the tower down! The time is ripe for that tower to deconstruct into the dust of history!
Mackenzie Andersen’s Fiscal Sponsorship Profile on The Field.