Yarmouth affordable housing project gets swift planning board approval
COURTESY / 36 CLEAVES ST. LLC
Rendering of one of the two affordable apartment buildings, containing 8-10 units, to be built behind Yarmouth town hall.
The first new affordable housing project to be approved in the town of Yarmouth in 10 years easily won the planning board’s unanimous blessing in late January and is expected to break ground in September.
Eighteen one-bedroom apartments will be split between two buildings on Cleaves Street, on a 17,000-square-foot lot behind town hall, currently a parking lot. The 36 Cleaves Street LLC development group, made up of Kara Wilbur, Sam Hight and Brad Moll, have agreed on a purchase price for the lot from the town for $200,000.
The two-story buildings will total 6,600 square feet and will be modular construction, from KBS Builders Inc., which has factories in South Paris and Oxford.
The on-site build will be managed by Wilbur’s Rumford-based Dooryard, which has a catalog of modular units from KBS. Wilbur and Hight have done similar projects in Madison, Rumford and Newcastle; another is in the works for Sanford.
Hight is a principal at the Hight Family of Dealerships in Skowhegan. Moll is a Yarmouth resident with 30 years in the construction industry in Maine, focused on industrial, commercial and residential. He’s currently working on residential remodels and new home construction. Moll is also co-owner of Brickyard Hollow restaurant and brew pub that has six Maine locations, from Skowhegan to Ogunquit. The Yarmouth location of Brickyard Hollow is on the corner of Cleaves and Main streets, less than half a block from the planned housing project.
Fast pace
The relatively rapid approval for the project in just one meeting is out of the ordinary for the planning board according to Yarmouth Town Planner Erin Zwirko.
“The development team and their partners worked hard to put together a complete application and execute community outreach so that the project was well-received by the Yarmouth community," she said. “The planning board appreciated those efforts, and acknowledging the timeline, was able to grant approval quickly in order for the project to move to the next step.”
Wilbur said she felt the project was well-received for a variety of reasons, including making adjustments for resident input, and because the project "compliments the neighborhood."
Zwirko said the town put out an RFP for an affordable housing partner last year, and received just one other proposal in addition to the 36 Cleaves Street LLC team.
The Yarmouth Affordable Housing Committee, formed in 2020, has been a vocal advocate to the town council to make town-owned land available for affordable housing. Zwirko said, “The committee made several recommendations to the council that making town-owned land available at low or reduced cost eliminates one of the major barriers for developing affordable housing, the cost of the land.
“The committee is thrilled that the council took this step and supports the council’s efforts to make other town-owned land available in the future.”
All of the apartments will be available only to households earning no more than 80% of the area mean income. According to HUD, the median family income for the Portland region is $127,500 (based on a family of four), so 80% AMI would for a single person equal $68,500 and for a couple, $78,250.
The Cleaves Street project developers are awaiting financing approvals from Maine Housing’s Rural Affordable Housing Rental program, according to Moll, who estimates the final project cost will total $6 million.
Other affordable housing projects in Yarmouth include Bartlett Woods, which was approved in 2015 and consists of 28 apartments restricted to residents aged 55-plus, and Bartlett Circle, which also has 28 apartments and was built in 1975. Yarmouth Falls on Vespa Lane is Section 8 housing for seniors aged 62 and over.
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