Business Leaders: Kevin Bunker and Laura Reading are tackling Maine’s affordable housing crisis

Photo / Tim Greenway Kevin Bunker and Laura Reading say their mission is to responsibly use their platform as developers.

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By Laurie Schreiber

2025 Business Leaders of the Year
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Kevin Bunker is founder and Laura Reading is director of affordable housing at Developers Collaborative, a leading developer of affordable housing and practitioner of smart growth principles. Affordable family, senior and workforce housing projects span Portland to Ellsworth. Other projects include commercial, market-rate housing and historic redevelopment projects.

Mainebiz: What makes Developers Collaborative different from other developers?

Kevin Bunker: We have a smart growth filter. Most developers look at profitability and that’s okay. We have other filters such as: what will it do for the community, where is it located, how will people use it, will it be a net positive? We want to leave the world better than we found it and use our platform as developers responsibly.

MB: What’s the company’s reach?

KB: We have two main divisions: affordable housing and commercial, which is everything else. Laura runs affordable housing and Mike Lyne runs commercial.

MB: How much of your portfolio is affordable housing?

KB: Maybe two-thirds. We are the largest affordable housing developer in Maine. Of the competitive MaineHousing awards in the last 10 years, we’ve done 24%.

Laura Reading: We’ve completed projects in 10 of the 16 counties in Maine and built about 1,600 units.

MB: How do affordable housing projects come to you?

LR: Typically, clients come to us. We also look for our own projects to develop.

MB: What do you look for in a location?

LR: It’s based on MaineHousing’s qualified action plan [used to score proposals for allocations of federal low-income housing tax credits]. Scoring includes housing need and smart growth points such as access to public transportation and walkable destinations like grocery stores. We also look at communities that are good partners.

MB: Is affordable housing sustainable from the profitability standpoint?

KB: Our two divisions are counter-cyclical. Affordable housing is steady and unspectacular, but it pays the bills. And we’re so experienced at it now — I know Laura will win one or two projects every year. That allows us to keep the lights on. Then we take more risks to do big things for the community like build a homeless shelter. Or we take a big risk financially like build condos with more of a financial goal. Affordable housing is the platform for us to do other things socially or financially.

MB: What are your growth trends?

KB: We have 32 employees across three affiliates — two property management companies and the smaller development company, which has five full-time developers and five support staff. Property management is our primary growth area. We develop properties and we own them and that requires managers, maintenance, technicians, leasing, etc. It adds more employees more quickly. We’ll continue that rapid growth. For a long time we didn’t manage our own affordable housing. Now we’re in the process of bringing affordable housing into in-house management, which will mean more hiring. By the way, we’re looking for a controller.

Right now, we have $75 million under construction. Our pipeline and development output has consistently been $60 million to $80 million per year for the past seven years.

MB: What projects are underway?

LR: I have four: Sturgeon Landing for Augusta Housing Authority, with 32 units, finishing in the next month or so. Peasely Park, 49 units of senior housing in Rockland, finishing in about two months. Rumford Senior Living, 33 units, finishes in the fall. Equality Commons in Portland, 54 units, finishing early summer 2026.

KB: I have one: Rumery Lofts in Portland, 38 apartments that will be done in June.

MB: What do you love about this field?

KB: It’s never a dull moment. There’s always a new challenge.

LR: The other day one of our property managers was talking about all the feedback he gets from tenants. It’s great to hear when tenants are really satisfied. Having this housing available changes their lives.

Developers Collaborative

developerscollaborative.com / 631 Stevens Ave., Suite 203, Portland

What it does: Association of developers interested in projects that build community and employ smart growth principles.

Founded: 2007

Employees: 32 across Developers Collaborative and DC Management

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