Maine Speaker of the House Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford) is seeking regulatory changes to affordable housing law in the state with LD 1829, a bill amending housing regulations impacting neighborhoods throughout the state by amending major legislation approved in recent years.
Originally passed in 2022, LD 2003 required that municipalities across the state make a number of changes to their local ordinances in the name of improving access to affordable housing.
During a public hearing before the Legislature’s Housing and Economic Development Tuesday afternoon, Speaker Fecteau explained that his bill would be “amending and expanding upon LD 2003” by simplifying certain provisions and tweaking others.
One of the most notable changes imposed upon municipalities by LD 2003 was the unconditional allowance of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on any residential housing lot — meaning that these additional structures are not to be subjected to the same parking and density requirements as other buildings.
The other primary change that municipalities must make in the near future to their zoning ordinances under LD 2003 is the implementation of an “affordable housing density bonus” — which automatically multiplies the maximum allowed density for an area by 2.5 times for qualified affordable housing developments.
According to Fecteau, the changes proposed in this bill would “reduc[e] barriers to new housing production,” something he suggests may help respond to the state’s current housing shortage.
Fecteau went on to outline a handful of key changes his bill would make to the state statutes governing housing development in Maine.
For example LD 1829 would create a “height bonus” for affordable housing developments, allowing such developments to construct buildings up to one story above the otherwise permissible height limit.
According to Fecteau, this comes in response to the fact that many affordable housing developments struggle to make use of the density bonus offered by LD 2003 due to spacial limitations. This change would, in turn, allow such projects to build upward in order to take full advantage of this offering.
This bill would also result in “streamlined municipal review” for certain smaller housing developments, transitioning this from being a planning board process to an administrative one for developments with four or fewer units.
Fecteau explained that this legislation would also implement a “vastly simplified” version of the provisions from LD 2003 outlining the number of units allowed on a given lot. More specifically, lots in either designated growth areas or serviced by public utilities would be allowed to contain four units, while all other properties would be permitted to have two.
Under his proposal, all structures except for the first accessory dwelling unit (ADU) built on a property would be subject to local density requirements.
Municipalities would also be barred from instituting growth caps in residential areas located within a designated growth area, as Fecteau argued doing so would be “counterintuitive.”
This legislation would further require that all members of municipal planning boards attend land use planning trainings within 180 days of their appointment, since the work they do is “highly technical and the responsibility quasi-judicial.”
Although this bill originally sought to create an appeals board for municipal land use decisions with final authority, Fecteau explained that he removed this from the bill as part of his sponsor’s amendment.
Fecteau suggested during his testimony to the Committee that his bill is “not nearly as revolutionary” as LD 2003, despite its wide-ranging list of provisions.
While much of the negative testimony offered in writing against this bill focused on the now-removed provisions pertaining to the appeals board, supportive testimony highlighted the changes it would make to the guidelines for municipal-level land use policies.
For example, testimony shared by the Maine Association of Realtors was bifurcated between opposition to the appeals board and support for the various policy changes.
The Maine Municipal Association (MMA), however, expressed opposition to LD 1829 in full.
“Even with the benefit of all doubt, this bill would effectively supplant local legislative authority and the ability for Maine’s municipalities to determine, for themselves, the terms under which their communities will grow and develop with state-mandated, universally applicable standards wholly devoid of local input, preferences, or priorities,” the MMA said.
“At worst,” the MMA continued, “this bill reflects an embarrassingly ill-informed and misguided attempt to fix a perceived problem in ways so unworkable that they belie a total lack of understanding of existing and foundational principles of law, governance, and best practices for community planning.”
The MMA critique might have hit the bill’s sponsor a little close to home. Fecteau joined Avesta Housing, a self-described non-profit dedicated to creating affordable housing, in November 2023.
Organizations representing the housing development industry, on the other hand, expressed full support for LD 1829, drawing attention to the ways in which the proposed policy changes would make it easier to construct more homes and apartments throughout the state.
“This legislation builds on the lessons learned from LD 2003, identifies implementation gaps, and proposes targeted, commonsense improvements that will accelerate the creation of housing across Maine,” said the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce.
“Whether municipalities had to undertake minor adjustments or complete zoning overhauls under LD 2003, all are now on a path toward modernized codes that better align with our statewide goal of producing 80,000 new homes by 2030,” the Chamber said. “LD 1829 ensures we keep moving forward.”
The full text of the sponsor’s amendment is not currently available online for further review.
A work session for LD 1829 has been scheduled for Friday, May 16 at 10am, at which point members of the Housing and Economic Development Committee will give this proposal further consideration.
