October 31, 2005
Closing time | Bar Harbor enacts a moratorium on new subdivisions over concerns about density and affordable housing
By Douglas Rooks
When Ted Koffman, who represents Bar Harbor in the Legislature, leaves Mount Desert Island in the early morning on his way to Augusta, he passes a long line of traffic, headlights on, making its way south from Ellsworth. Given the hour, these clearly aren't tourists, but commuters driving to work. "A lot of them are people who used to live, or want to live on the island, but can no longer afford the cost of housing," said Koffman, who co-chairs the Natural Resources Committee in his third term in the House of Representatives.
On what is in fact Maine's largest inhabited island, the ability to live and work without going "off island" is important to most year-round residents, and the commuter traffic along Route 3 provides evidence that, for many, staying isn't possible. A long-range planning group known as MDI Tomorrow has produced survey results indicating a shortfall of at least 400 units of affordable housing on the island ˆ a significant deficit among four towns with just 11,000 year-round residents. As the largest town, Bar Harbor has experienced the mismatch between residents' income and the price of housing to a greater extent than its neighbors.
Affordable housing is one of the reasons behind a residential subdivision moratorium enacted by the town council on Sept. 21, to the applause of more than 200 residents crowded into the council chamber. Dense development projects in some of the outlying areas of town had raised concerns among neighbors and questions about what the community will become amid the current construction boom, which produced several major projects and created backlogs for planning board review.
But the moratorium has its critics as well, and some planners question whether Bar Harbor can settle its growth and development issues during the six months allowed by state law (a six-month extension may be possible). While towns and cities across Maine have adopted moratoriums on both commercial and residential development, the situation on Mount Desert Island is a bit unusual. Where sheer numbers of new residents ˆ and demand for new school classrooms ˆ has prompted growth caps in southern Maine, the situation is Bar Harbor is more complex, combining regional concerns about affordable housing and very local concerns about what's being built next door.
For the most part, developers have reacted cautiously to the moratorium. Bob Baldacci of Ocean Properties of Portsmouth, N.H., whose sketch plan for a several-million-dollar, 40-unit condominium development off Spring Street some believe triggered the moratorium movement, said he had "some concerns about the rationale" of the decision. But he also said, "Our hope is that they use the six months to deal with the issues of growth they've identified." (Baldacci noted that work continues on other Ocean Properties projects in town, including construction of the new Harborside Hotel and renovation and expansion of the historic Bar Harbor Club, a long-vacant property being returned to some of its upscale glitter.)
Less measured about the moratorium is Perry Moore, a landscape architect who's worked on Ocean Properties' Spring Street condo plan and other projects. He also served on the Bar Harbor Planning Board for five years until June, when he resigned because he had married and moved out of town.Moore said that "the town council has known about problems with the zoning ordinance for years," but failed to heed the planning board's requests for changes. The council followed the path of least resistance, he said, "and now they've got a political hornet's nest on their hands."
Regarding the Ocean Properties proposal, Moore said that the developers wanted to work with the planning board. "We weren't invested in a particular plan, and wanted their input," he said. Instead, he said, "we were sandbagged" by the moratorium. Even Moore, however, said that a six-month delay in consideration of projects may not have much effect on business. "There is so much work in the different towns that a breather may be welcome," he said.
A matter of timing
The nub of the dispute, according to Town Planner Ann Krieg, is that, in keeping with the densely built downtown and oceanfront hotels, Bar Harbor's zoning ordinance permits many units per acre. But the same density requirements apply to outlying areas as well, which generates conflicts. Moore agrees with that part of Krieg's analysis, saying that "transitional zones" are a real problem as development moves out from downtown. "You can have a 200-unit hotel on one side of an undeveloped property, and single-family homes on the other," he said. "What's the appropriate use for the land in between?"
On the 16-acre parcel proposed for development by Ocean Properties, the zoning ordinance currently would allow up to 80 units, "but there's no way we would propose that," Moore said. Density is only one of the issues the planning board will try to deal with over the next six months. Affordable housing ˆ targeted at people who make up to 120% of the median income in town ˆ is another. So far, Krieg said, the board has looked at two approaches: requiring a certain number of affordable units in each new development, or requiring developers to pay into a fund the town could use to build its own affordable units. Neither approach is likely to be popular with developers, though they appear to be withholding judgment until the town comes up with a concrete proposal.
Another issue is how much can be done during the six-month moratorium. Bar Harbor is in the midst of reviewing its comprehensive plan, which was last updated in 1993. Jonathan Lockman, a former Bar Harbor town planner who now works for the Southern Maine Regional Planning Commission in York County, said it can take two years to properly review a comprehensive plan, and even longer to enact ordinances to carry out its recommendations. "If you're looking for a quick fix, this isn't it," he said.
Krieg said, however, that she's confident that the town can do much of what is necessary during the moratorium. The comprehensive plan review began in February, and is "not too far off the timeline" the planning board set for itself, she said. The key piece, she said, is to get a consensus on density rules in different parts of town. "We have to define what we see as super-saturation of a site, and get to the point where we can say, 'This is where the public is at.'"
Concerning affordability, she said the board is considering not just the standard definition of 80%-120% of median income, but another component of 120%-180%. That would cover many of what Krieg describes as the island's "good jobs," such as those at the Jackson Laboratory, where employees still have trouble finding mortgages or rents they can afford, she said. And, she added, the town wouldn't expect developers to just volunteer to provide lower-priced units. "We can provide incentives by allowing greater density, or waiving setbacks to make the project work."
For now, there appears to be no challenge to the moratorium, which took effect upon the council vote and will expire in March unless the council moves to adopt the single six-month extension allowed under state law.
(Perry Moore said that the moratorium should have been adopted by town meeting, rather than by the council. The relevant state statute specifies that, in municipalities where the legislative body is the town meeting, selectmen can extend a moratorium, but not create it. Bar Harbor may be an unusual case because of its "hybrid" form of government. Even though it has a town council, which in most communities is the legislative and executive branch of government, it retains the town meeting, too.)
The southern situation
There's little question that Mount Desert Island has some highly desirable residential real estate. For the quarter ending Aug. 31, median sales prices in Hancock County were up 34% over the previous year, far outpacing the statewide average of 8.3%, according to the Maine Association of Realtors. The median price rose from $162,500 to $218,000, putting Hancock fourth among Maine's 16 counties, behind only Cumberland, York and Lincoln.
Despite such pressures, development moratoriums haven't been used often in the area. Some towns have discussed them, but besides Bar Harbor, only Sedgwick has adopted one, said Tom Martin, executive director of the Hancock County Planning Commission.
Martin agrees with critics that moratoriums can backfire, and that towns should "proceed very cautiously" with them. If a town fails to resolve the issues that led to adoption in the first place, it is likely to face a bigger backlog of projects after the moratorium expires, he said. But Bar Harbor, unlike most towns in the county, has a full-time planner, so "if anyone can do it, they can," he said.
The issues that led to Bar Harbor's moratorium ˆ affordable housing and development density ˆ are different from those affecting York County, which along with Cumberland has produced most of Maine's population growth each of the last three decades. Yet even in York County, said planner Jonathan Lockman, it is easy to misread the signals that communities send regarding growth. Even though about half of York County's municipalities have growth ordinances, usually restricting the number of building permits that can be issued, the ordinances typically are based on the average of permits issued over the previous three or five years. "It really isn't a growth cap so much as a way of spreading out growth and making it predictable," Lockman said.
Moratoriums have been rare, and many York County communities continue to add large numbers of new housing units despite the ordinances. In Wells, for instance, the campgrounds and RV parks that attract thousands of seasonal residents are exempt from building permit restrictions, as they are considered commercial development, Lockman said. Since State Planning Office figures reflect only dwelling units, they miss much of the "unbelievable growth" in coastal York County represented by such seasonal residents, who may stay six months of the year, Lockman said. Neither campgrounds nor hotels and motels are affected by most building permit ordinances, he said. If there's a lid on growth in southern Maine, it's certainly not a tight one.
In Bar Harbor, too, there are exemptions that make the halt to residential development far from ironclad. The immediate downtown area is exempt from the moratorium, as are affordable housing projects already in the pipeline.
Future perfect
That encourages Ron Beard, director of MDI Tomorrow, which has actively encouraged an affordable housing plan that would create 20-30 units on the old Pooler Farm along Route 3, on a site that also has extensive conservation easements. Elsewhere on the island, a developer is working on co-housing plans, where prospective residents help plan the development and its common facilities. And the Island Housing Trust, a nonprofit group, is negotiating with the town of Mount Desert for a 10-acre parcel that would be donated by the town so affordable units could be built there.
Beard thinks there are ways to cool off the heated debate in Bar Harbor and relieve concerns residents may have about large-scale development in their neighborhoods. One of the most promising is a computer software program called Community Views that allows the "virtual" creation of different development plans on a particular site, allowing abutters to see how different setbacks, sizes and numbers of units will work. It's been used extensively at College of the Atlantic, and could be put to use in evaluating proposals in Bar Harbor's transitional areas. "Words don't always convey what the effect of a development will be," he said. "You can specify a lot of things in an ordinance without getting at what people's concerns are."
Beard says such presentations will be particularly important for public acceptance of affordable housing plans, which by their nature tend to involve smaller, but more densely spaced, units. "It helps people envision what a neighborhood can and should look like. It helps them think about what they like, as well as what's legal."
Bob Baldacci says that Bar Harbor is justified in debating "the impact that high-density development can have on a neighborhood." But he's also confident that Ocean Properties will ultimately come up with an acceptable plan for "this beautiful spot" that can offer a mix of both primary residences and second homes. "Like all of our projects, we're looking to provide something that will be an asset to the community, and one that can meet all the zoning issues the town needs to consider," he said. As a long-time resident of Bar Harbor who has seen the town prosper, Ted Koffman said that cumulative, smaller changes may be more important than dramatic gestures by planners or town officials. Locating housing downtown, for instance, may require a look at many different zoning requirements. The minimum rental unit size is currently 1,000 sq. ft. Changing that to 780 sq. ft., as the town is considering, could make a number of downtown projects feasible, while relieving some of the development pressure on outlying areas.
The future most islanders envision is not "Acadia National Park surrounded by an affluent suburb," according to Koffman, but a diverse community including families of different ages, incomes and interests. While a residential subdivision moratorium may or may not encourage such an outcome, he hopes the town will not lose sight of its goal.
On what is in fact Maine's largest inhabited island, the ability to live and work without going "off island" is important to most year-round residents, and the commuter traffic along Route 3 provides evidence that, for many, staying isn't possible. A long-range planning group known as MDI Tomorrow has produced survey results indicating a shortfall of at least 400 units of affordable housing on the island ˆ a significant deficit among four towns with just 11,000 year-round residents. As the largest town, Bar Harbor has experienced the mismatch between residents' income and the price of housing to a greater extent than its neighbors.
Affordable housing is one of the reasons behind a residential subdivision moratorium enacted by the town council on Sept. 21, to the applause of more than 200 residents crowded into the council chamber. Dense development projects in some of the outlying areas of town had raised concerns among neighbors and questions about what the community will become amid the current construction boom, which produced several major projects and created backlogs for planning board review.
But the moratorium has its critics as well, and some planners question whether Bar Harbor can settle its growth and development issues during the six months allowed by state law (a six-month extension may be possible). While towns and cities across Maine have adopted moratoriums on both commercial and residential development, the situation on Mount Desert Island is a bit unusual. Where sheer numbers of new residents ˆ and demand for new school classrooms ˆ has prompted growth caps in southern Maine, the situation is Bar Harbor is more complex, combining regional concerns about affordable housing and very local concerns about what's being built next door.
For the most part, developers have reacted cautiously to the moratorium. Bob Baldacci of Ocean Properties of Portsmouth, N.H., whose sketch plan for a several-million-dollar, 40-unit condominium development off Spring Street some believe triggered the moratorium movement, said he had "some concerns about the rationale" of the decision. But he also said, "Our hope is that they use the six months to deal with the issues of growth they've identified." (Baldacci noted that work continues on other Ocean Properties projects in town, including construction of the new Harborside Hotel and renovation and expansion of the historic Bar Harbor Club, a long-vacant property being returned to some of its upscale glitter.)
Less measured about the moratorium is Perry Moore, a landscape architect who's worked on Ocean Properties' Spring Street condo plan and other projects. He also served on the Bar Harbor Planning Board for five years until June, when he resigned because he had married and moved out of town.Moore said that "the town council has known about problems with the zoning ordinance for years," but failed to heed the planning board's requests for changes. The council followed the path of least resistance, he said, "and now they've got a political hornet's nest on their hands."
Regarding the Ocean Properties proposal, Moore said that the developers wanted to work with the planning board. "We weren't invested in a particular plan, and wanted their input," he said. Instead, he said, "we were sandbagged" by the moratorium. Even Moore, however, said that a six-month delay in consideration of projects may not have much effect on business. "There is so much work in the different towns that a breather may be welcome," he said.
A matter of timing
The nub of the dispute, according to Town Planner Ann Krieg, is that, in keeping with the densely built downtown and oceanfront hotels, Bar Harbor's zoning ordinance permits many units per acre. But the same density requirements apply to outlying areas as well, which generates conflicts. Moore agrees with that part of Krieg's analysis, saying that "transitional zones" are a real problem as development moves out from downtown. "You can have a 200-unit hotel on one side of an undeveloped property, and single-family homes on the other," he said. "What's the appropriate use for the land in between?"
On the 16-acre parcel proposed for development by Ocean Properties, the zoning ordinance currently would allow up to 80 units, "but there's no way we would propose that," Moore said. Density is only one of the issues the planning board will try to deal with over the next six months. Affordable housing ˆ targeted at people who make up to 120% of the median income in town ˆ is another. So far, Krieg said, the board has looked at two approaches: requiring a certain number of affordable units in each new development, or requiring developers to pay into a fund the town could use to build its own affordable units. Neither approach is likely to be popular with developers, though they appear to be withholding judgment until the town comes up with a concrete proposal.
Another issue is how much can be done during the six-month moratorium. Bar Harbor is in the midst of reviewing its comprehensive plan, which was last updated in 1993. Jonathan Lockman, a former Bar Harbor town planner who now works for the Southern Maine Regional Planning Commission in York County, said it can take two years to properly review a comprehensive plan, and even longer to enact ordinances to carry out its recommendations. "If you're looking for a quick fix, this isn't it," he said.
Krieg said, however, that she's confident that the town can do much of what is necessary during the moratorium. The comprehensive plan review began in February, and is "not too far off the timeline" the planning board set for itself, she said. The key piece, she said, is to get a consensus on density rules in different parts of town. "We have to define what we see as super-saturation of a site, and get to the point where we can say, 'This is where the public is at.'"
Concerning affordability, she said the board is considering not just the standard definition of 80%-120% of median income, but another component of 120%-180%. That would cover many of what Krieg describes as the island's "good jobs," such as those at the Jackson Laboratory, where employees still have trouble finding mortgages or rents they can afford, she said. And, she added, the town wouldn't expect developers to just volunteer to provide lower-priced units. "We can provide incentives by allowing greater density, or waiving setbacks to make the project work."
For now, there appears to be no challenge to the moratorium, which took effect upon the council vote and will expire in March unless the council moves to adopt the single six-month extension allowed under state law.
(Perry Moore said that the moratorium should have been adopted by town meeting, rather than by the council. The relevant state statute specifies that, in municipalities where the legislative body is the town meeting, selectmen can extend a moratorium, but not create it. Bar Harbor may be an unusual case because of its "hybrid" form of government. Even though it has a town council, which in most communities is the legislative and executive branch of government, it retains the town meeting, too.)
The southern situation
There's little question that Mount Desert Island has some highly desirable residential real estate. For the quarter ending Aug. 31, median sales prices in Hancock County were up 34% over the previous year, far outpacing the statewide average of 8.3%, according to the Maine Association of Realtors. The median price rose from $162,500 to $218,000, putting Hancock fourth among Maine's 16 counties, behind only Cumberland, York and Lincoln.
Despite such pressures, development moratoriums haven't been used often in the area. Some towns have discussed them, but besides Bar Harbor, only Sedgwick has adopted one, said Tom Martin, executive director of the Hancock County Planning Commission.
Martin agrees with critics that moratoriums can backfire, and that towns should "proceed very cautiously" with them. If a town fails to resolve the issues that led to adoption in the first place, it is likely to face a bigger backlog of projects after the moratorium expires, he said. But Bar Harbor, unlike most towns in the county, has a full-time planner, so "if anyone can do it, they can," he said.
The issues that led to Bar Harbor's moratorium ˆ affordable housing and development density ˆ are different from those affecting York County, which along with Cumberland has produced most of Maine's population growth each of the last three decades. Yet even in York County, said planner Jonathan Lockman, it is easy to misread the signals that communities send regarding growth. Even though about half of York County's municipalities have growth ordinances, usually restricting the number of building permits that can be issued, the ordinances typically are based on the average of permits issued over the previous three or five years. "It really isn't a growth cap so much as a way of spreading out growth and making it predictable," Lockman said.
Moratoriums have been rare, and many York County communities continue to add large numbers of new housing units despite the ordinances. In Wells, for instance, the campgrounds and RV parks that attract thousands of seasonal residents are exempt from building permit restrictions, as they are considered commercial development, Lockman said. Since State Planning Office figures reflect only dwelling units, they miss much of the "unbelievable growth" in coastal York County represented by such seasonal residents, who may stay six months of the year, Lockman said. Neither campgrounds nor hotels and motels are affected by most building permit ordinances, he said. If there's a lid on growth in southern Maine, it's certainly not a tight one.
In Bar Harbor, too, there are exemptions that make the halt to residential development far from ironclad. The immediate downtown area is exempt from the moratorium, as are affordable housing projects already in the pipeline.
Future perfect
That encourages Ron Beard, director of MDI Tomorrow, which has actively encouraged an affordable housing plan that would create 20-30 units on the old Pooler Farm along Route 3, on a site that also has extensive conservation easements. Elsewhere on the island, a developer is working on co-housing plans, where prospective residents help plan the development and its common facilities. And the Island Housing Trust, a nonprofit group, is negotiating with the town of Mount Desert for a 10-acre parcel that would be donated by the town so affordable units could be built there.
Beard thinks there are ways to cool off the heated debate in Bar Harbor and relieve concerns residents may have about large-scale development in their neighborhoods. One of the most promising is a computer software program called Community Views that allows the "virtual" creation of different development plans on a particular site, allowing abutters to see how different setbacks, sizes and numbers of units will work. It's been used extensively at College of the Atlantic, and could be put to use in evaluating proposals in Bar Harbor's transitional areas. "Words don't always convey what the effect of a development will be," he said. "You can specify a lot of things in an ordinance without getting at what people's concerns are."
Beard says such presentations will be particularly important for public acceptance of affordable housing plans, which by their nature tend to involve smaller, but more densely spaced, units. "It helps people envision what a neighborhood can and should look like. It helps them think about what they like, as well as what's legal."
Bob Baldacci says that Bar Harbor is justified in debating "the impact that high-density development can have on a neighborhood." But he's also confident that Ocean Properties will ultimately come up with an acceptable plan for "this beautiful spot" that can offer a mix of both primary residences and second homes. "Like all of our projects, we're looking to provide something that will be an asset to the community, and one that can meet all the zoning issues the town needs to consider," he said. As a long-time resident of Bar Harbor who has seen the town prosper, Ted Koffman said that cumulative, smaller changes may be more important than dramatic gestures by planners or town officials. Locating housing downtown, for instance, may require a look at many different zoning requirements. The minimum rental unit size is currently 1,000 sq. ft. Changing that to 780 sq. ft., as the town is considering, could make a number of downtown projects feasible, while relieving some of the development pressure on outlying areas.
The future most islanders envision is not "Acadia National Park surrounded by an affluent suburb," according to Koffman, but a diverse community including families of different ages, incomes and interests. While a residential subdivision moratorium may or may not encourage such an outcome, he hopes the town will not lose sight of its goal.
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