September 30, 2003

While Mount Desert Community Trust and others will track and send housing progress notes to all on this mailing list, the real work on the issue for the next three months will be in the email-committees noted below and at the end of this message, coordinated by Marla Major and John Ryan.

Note Contact Marla Major (marla@prexar.com) to sign up for some email discussion of three interrelated strategies as John Ryan works with local committees on assessing housing needs and addressing strategies to increase housing stock (for purchase or rental) for core community work-force:

Financing options

Panelists helped frame the community housing issue for participants, forecasting that if we don’t begin to act now, the problem will escalate—people who work in our communities will not be living here, they will have displaced by others who have greater means to purchase homes.

Eric Henry, a builder, suggested that a non-profit trust raise funds in order to purchase, at market rates, up to 500 existing homes that would, in turn, be sold to families who are part of the community work force, sharing with the trust any increase in equity according to proportional share of initial investment. Jeannine Ross cited her experience as a realtor and, now, as a banker, with first time home-buyers and how escalation of house prices, in even the last two years, have moved the "entry fee" for buying a home higher than most prospective buyers can afford. Chris Owen, from MDI Hospital, cited the difficulty that employers like MDI Hospital have in attracting employees, regardless of pay scale. Jerry Suminsby, an appraiser and Mount Desert Selectman, indicated the importance of addressing unintended consequences of current land use zoning ordinances on the ability to supply purchase and rental units for the core community workforce. Cliff Vandenbosch noted that it shouldn’t feel as though it were a crime to be a developer, and noted the tendency of other property owners to block development of infill and clustered development of housing. Developers, he said, find it much easier to build homes on 2-5 acre lots, which are beyond the means of most employees.

Terry Kelley, Executive Director of MDI Housing Authorities, noted the general role of quasi-municipal housing authorities and elements that led to the success of the West Eden Meadows shared-equity housing project, in which applicants needed to demonstrate "value to the community" as judged by an anonymous panel of screeners. Stan MacDonald provided background on the genesis and status of the Mount Desert Community Trust as an island-wide resource for housing, with a number of prospective projects. Margaret Bean, Deputy Director of the Maine State Housing Authority, affirmed MDI efforts to work on the issue of community housing, and cited examples of how the state housing office could assist with funding of specific projects and as a source of technical assistance.

John Abrams, of South Mountain Builders, said that as he heard panelists and participants discussing the issue and its solutions, he felt like a time traveler who has come back from the future, represented by his home of Martha’s Vineyard, in which there are several interactive initiatives aimed at providing community housing, including a "used house lot" where houses slated for demolition are moved pending permanent location and sale, with covenants to local buyers, and real estate transfer taxes that raise millions annually that can help reduce municipal costs associated with development.

John Ryan, who has worked as a housing consultant on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and elsewhere in New England, also noted the sense of time travel and, despite how serious the problem felt to us here, it was far worse in other communities and we were acting in time to prevent a serious out-migration of community members. He noted his role in helping local organizations (he has been commissioned by Mount Desert Community Trust) come up with a plan for addressing housing in connection with the overall MDI Tomorrow vision to retain and sustain viable, healthy year-round communities where all residents, year-round and seasonal, contribute to the "commonwealth" and sense of place.

He took comments from participants, asking what had been left out or needed to be addressed as he helped Mt Desert Community Trust and MDI Housing Authorities create an action plan.

• Be sure to link housing to the other aspects of "healthy, vibrant and year-round communities."

• Don’ leave out "in-fill" as an option to develop housing in village centers and neighborhoods.

• Given the overall market forces that drive up the prices of scarce land and homes, what can we put in place to counter these market forces, what incentives have worked elsewhere?

• What incentives or dis-incentives favor construction of smaller, more affordable homes?

• Where does housing for families with low incomes fit into the equation?

• How do we assure that as we develop, we protect views from surrounding hills and trails?

• How do we include more people in the process who actually want to find housing in the community… how do we gather their stories?

• What is the relation of year-round community housing to the trend toward property owners to engage in seasonal rentals? (Some refer to this as the summer shuffle in which people who have full time jobs but rent, must move to a campground, share a house or live off island for the summer months, because landlords will not rent year round due to what they can make by renting by the week.

• Are there disincentives or penalties for so called "illegal" summer rentals?

• What legislative action is needed to support our efforts, including enabling local option taxes, real estate transfer taxes, and encouragement to share conservation and housing goals on single pieces of property?

• What would prevent banks from providing 100% financing to qualified buyers with low debt and who are of defined value to the community?

• What about the trend in summer residents to become year-round residents?

• Shouldn’t we look at building fees as part of the problem of the escalating cost of homes… can applicants with certain criteria be exempted from punitive building fees?

• There are 4 towns (more with Cranberry Isles, Swans Island, Trenton and Lamoine) with four "personalities". Are there 4 (or more) visions for the way townspeople want the island to be in the future… can 4 towns be an advantage, wherein one town experiments with a technique or strategy and others learn from the experience and adapt the ideas to their own situation and vision?

• Can we, in fact, encourage a patchwork solution to the community housing issue, but hold things together via coordination?

• How might deed restrictions safeguard the town that might be interested in using town owned land or property for community housing projects?

• How important is appreciation (taking advantage of escalating land costs) in the decision by prospective buyers to get involved in public-private program—can this appreciation be shared with homebuyer and the public entity which aided in its purchase and sale?

• How important is it for first time buyers and others to accumulate "wealth"… generally speaking, home ownership does generate wealth and yet our "accounting system" does not fairly describe the true, long run community costs… if the island and Acadia National Park and the sense of community are all assets that tend to inflate the value of housing, where does the homeowner have a chance to give something back to account for "unearned" value escalation.

• How can we connect seasonal homeowners to the issue… is it perhaps by linking them to the larger vision for "healthy, vibrant, year-round communities where all residents, year-round and seasonal, make contributions to the common good"?

• Can we promote "one community" wherein diversity is valued, where there is a sense of all sharing a common destiny?

• What is the relation of housing to conservation land, can we find incentives that will help landowners see the value and benefit to providing land for community housing? Can we link land conservation with "people conservation" and heritage with sense of place?

John Ryan then sought names of summit participants and others to work via email on four interrelated strands of the housing study / action plan:

• The role of land-use regulation and local policies that encourage or discourage more rental, purchase of existing or construction of new housing for core community members.

• How we can work on making more land available and use non-profit or municipal status to reduce the overall cost of homeownership by eliminating or subsidizing the cost of land.

• Work on financial strategies that reduce the cost of home construction or ownership—private, government and combination of strategies.

• Collecting the voices and stories of those who are seeking year-round housing for purchase or rental, so that we can put "a human face" on the data.

While Mount Desert Community Trust and others will track and send housing progress notes to all on this mailing list, the real work on the issue for the next three months will be in the email-committees noted above, coordinated by Marla Major and John Ryan.

If you are interested in working in one of these four sub committees or in general with board members and staff of Mount Desert Island Housing Authorities and Mount Desert Community Trust on housing issues, please send a separate message to Marla Major at 288-3340 or marla@prexar.com.

To contact MDI Tomorrow:
MDI Tomorrow, c/o University of Maine Cooperative Extension, 63 Boggy Brook Rd., Ellsworth, ME 04605, 207-288-8212.

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