Maine
Maine needs more housing, fast. Two companies are turning to the assembly line.
Workers at KBS Builders in South Paris work on modular components of an affordable housing complex on Dec. 13, 2024. The modular components will be trucked to Newcastle and lifted into place next week. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald
As more people look to lay down roots in Maine and fill critical jobs, Lincoln County is in a position where it needs to build nearly 2,000 homes in the next five years.
Washington County needs to increase its annual housing production by over 1,200%. Cumberland County is short more than 16,000 units.
Maine’s housing crisis has reached a boiling point, exacerbated by decades of underproduction.
Across the state, regulators, developers and housing advocates are scrambling to build more housing as quickly as possible to meet current and future needs.
One solution that has emerged is multifamily modular housing — an assembly-line, factory style of construction that can turn a hole in the ground into a turn-key apartment building in a matter of months, rather than the year or more required for traditional stick-built housing.
The style of building has been around for centuries but has struggled to overcome a pervasive stigma of poor quality and comparison to mobile homes.
But two Maine companies are trying to change the conversation around modular housing with multifamily buildings camouflaged as traditional New England-style homes. A flurry of projects are popping up from Sanford to Madison that, once completed, will add nearly 100 units across the state.
Dooryard, a developer and modular catalog company, and KBS Builders, a modular construction company, are spearheading the movement in Maine, which they say can not only lead to more houses in less time, but also is also labor- and cost-effective.
‘LEGO KIT OF PARTS’
Kara Wilbur, owner of Dooryard, wants to bring back the Sears and Roebuck-style catalog and is working to build one for her company with plans for anything from single-family to 20-unit buildings.
Having a “Lego kit of parts” makes it easier to go through the planning process, tweaking whatever is necessary to meet local codes, she said. The cost also goes down as elements of previous plans are reused.
Developer Kara Wilbur listens to Newcastle Town Manager Kevin Sutherland in December during a tour of KBS Builders in South Paris, where modular components of an affordable housing development were being constructed. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald
The factory setting can save time beyond the efficiency of an assembly line.
“You’re building in a climate-controlled environment, so the folks that are putting your house together aren’t trying to get ahead of a storm or freezing their hands off,” said Parlin Meyer, principal at BrightBuilt Home, a net-zero modular home design company in Portland that also works with KBS.
It also requires fewer people.
“Depending on the size and the scope of (a stick-built) project, you might have 20 to 30 different subcontractors on-site,” said Thatcher Butcher, president of KBS. “The builder’s biggest challenge is wrangling them and getting them to show up when they need them while getting them to show up to begin with.”
But with modular housing, 70% of the work is done in the factory, reducing the number of subcontractors needed. It allows the workers a more reliable and consistent schedule, too, providing a better work-life balance, Butcher said.
DOZENS OF UNITS IN THE PIPELINE
Wilbur, along with partners Brian Eng and Sam Hight, launched the affordable housing modular model in Madison with 18 apartments in two buildings reserved for people making 80% of the area median income. They broke ground in October 2023 and tenants moved in seven months later. Another 18-unit project is awaiting funding.
Wilbur hopes to replicate the process with similar projects planned for Rumford and, following planning board approval Wednesday, Yarmouth.
Workers at KBS Builders in South Paris work on modular components of an affordable housing complex on Dec. 13, 2024. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald
In Sanford, Wilbur is partnering with MaineHousing to try out a modular development for prospective homeowners, rather than renters. The project includes nine condos and one single-family home on a lot near the city’s former mill buildings. The condos are reserved for people making 120% of the area median income, and the pre-sale process is underway.
While those are still in the early stages, developer Rob Nelson is nearing the next stage on a project in Newcastle.
The Midcoast town, sandwiched between the Damariscotta and Sheepscot rivers, has a population of fewer than 2,000 people. Nelson wanted to make sure that the two-building, 16-unit project, which is within walking distance of the village center, blended in with the community.
“A 50-unit project would be hard to make work in a town like Newcastle. The smaller project fit better with the community,” he said. “A year from now, when people drive down the street, they’ll think they’ve always been there.”
Kevin Sutherland, town manager of Newcastle, inspects a modular component being built at KBS Builders in South Paris last December. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald
The building uses the same model as the Madison project. Crews broke ground in late October. The modules will be installed next week, and Nelson hopes to have the buildings ready for occupancy in the spring.
The units will be reserved for people making 80% or less of the area median income. Rent will be about $1,400 a month for a one-bedroom.
“That is by no means cheap, but it’s filling a need in the market,” he said.
LACK OF HOUSING AN ‘EXISTENTIAL THREAT’
Nelson’s project could serve as an example to other communities in Lincoln County — and elsewhere — that are desperate for more affordable housing, said Emily Rabbe, executive director of the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission.
“The potential for these modular units to be able to speed up construction, maintain the affordability of the unit and make it work from a development perspective to me feels like it’s critical,” she said. “We’re in a housing crisis now, and to have to wait another two to three years before we have units that are move-in ready is a really hard thing to tell people when they need a home today.”
The median sale price for a home in Lincoln County has climbed 127% in the last five years, more than any other county. Comparatively, the statewide median has risen 77%.
In 2023, the median sale price in Lincoln County was $440,000, a price that according to MaineHousing, was unaffordable to almost 90% of the population. By November 2024, the price had increased to $510,000.
Gerry Howley of KBS Builders, left, points out a detail to Kara Wilbur and Rob Nelson inside one of the modular components for an affordable housing development that will be constructed in Newcastle. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald
The 16 units from Nelson’s project in Newcastle, coupled with at least 40 units of modular housing (part of a larger, 136-unit development) headed for nearby Boothbay, seem like a drop in the bucket, but they’re a start. Modular housing can’t solve all the problems, but Rabbe said these projects can play a key role as Lincoln County evaluates its future.
For one of the oldest counties in the nation’s oldest state, affordability is key to simply keeping the economy up and running – let alone growing it – when an anticipated 19% of the workforce retires in the next 10 years. That new workforce needs homes to live in and the retiring workers will likely need homes they can manage on a fixed income.
A study commissioned last year by MaineHousing found that the area’s workforce housing shortage poses an “existential threat” to the region’s economic future.
“The housing issue is so multifaceted and the need is so dire,” Rabbe said. “No action is not an option for Lincoln County.”
AESTHETICS KEY TO FIGHTING STIGMA
While modular construction has been around for centuries, it really took off in the early 1900s when Sears and Roebuck began selling mail-order catalog homes by the tens of thousands.
Still, it only represents about 3% of the country’s residential construction and just 1% of new multifamily homes.
This is in stark contrast to other countries like Finland, Norway and Sweden, where 45% of homes are modular, and Japan, where modular housing represents 15% of construction, according to the Center for American Progress.
A rendering of the modular eight-unit condo building and single-family home on Bodwell Street in Sanford. Rendering by Dooryard and New Paradigm Design Workshop
Butcher chalks the reticence up to stigma – and it’s the biggest hurdle he sees to widespread adoption.
“I think a lot of it is largely driven by the way that the U.S. pursued HUD-style mobile homes back throughout the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, and unfortunately that product was low-quality and low-performance,” Butcher said. “It gave modular and offsite housing a bad name, and those two (modular and mobile homes) have become synonymous in people’s minds. Our biggest challenge is unwrapping those two and unpackaging them and getting people to see that modular housing is not mobile homes.”
Wilbur said that making the buildings blend in with their surroundings is key to reshaping those perceptions, which is why most of her developments are modeled after the traditional “New England village aesthetic” with pitched roofs, bay windows and front porches.
She wants to showcase that modular housing can be more attractive than “off-the-shelf ranch-style” homes, while still being compact and energy-efficient.
“It makes the most sense to put housing in our village downtowns,” she said, “so if we want to get community buy-in around new development in general, we have to do a good job designing projects. They’re beloved places in communities so the bar is set a lot higher.”
FUNDING STILL NECESSARY
While the approach is in many ways less costly for developers, it’s still expensive, especially at smaller scales of under 20 units, where it’s generally not feasible to use low-income housing tax credits.
A program from MaineHousing, the Rural Affordable Rental Housing program, aims to help by providing funding to developers of five- to 18-unit projects of affordable housing in rural areas.
Hight, co-developer on the Madison project, said the financing from MaineHousing was “completely necessary for anyone in their right mind to take on a project like this.”
Gerry Howley of KBS Builders, left, talks with Kara Wilbur and Rob Nelson inside one of the modular components at KBS in South Paris. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald
Building materials are expensive no matter how a house gets built.
“The only options are subsidized projects or luxury projects, and there are only so many places in Maine that could even support that,” Wilbur said. “It’s why the Rural Affordable Rental Program is critical because it is, in rural Maine, one of the only sources of funding available.”
So far, all five developments have either received or have applied for financing from MaineHousing, but Wilbur said she hopes to make traditional financing viable for future projects without having to sacrifice quality.
Dooryard and KBS are also working on conceptual models for multifamily housing projects that would align with federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit standards, which might appeal to larger developers.
“There’s not one silver bullet that’s going to solve the housing crisis,” said Meyer, at Brightbuilt. “(But) I think modular is absolutely a piece of the puzzle, and it’s one that can help solve the need in a shorter timeline.”
FALMOUTH, Maine (WABI) – The now former commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has a new role.
Judy Camuso has been selected as the new president of Maine Audubon.
She will take over Andy Beahm’s position.
Beahm will be retiring next month.
Camuso will become the first woman to lead the environmental organization.
She became the first woman to become commissioner of the MDIFW back in 2019, a position she held for seven years.
Copyright 2026 WABI. All rights reserved.
TOPSFIELD, Maine — Jenna Stoddard is not sure where her son will spend his days when he starts preschool next fall.
Sending him to East Range II School would be convenient and continue a legacy. Stoddard lives just down the street and her husband graduated eighth grade there in 2007, one in a class of three. Topsfield’s population has dropped since then. The school now has five students, two teachers, few extracurricular activities and nobody trained to teach music, art, gym or health.
Stoddard’s son is too young for her to worry about that now. But the school may not be open by the time he is ready to go. Topsfield, a town of just 175 residents, will vote on whether to close the school on April 30. If it closes, the boy would likely be sent to preschool up to 30 minutes away in Princeton or Baileyville.
“That’s a pretty fair distance for a kid, a 4-year-old, who is now on a bus all by himself,” she said. “[If] school starts at [7:45 a.m.], what time is the bus picking 4-year-olds up here? And what time is he going to get home at?”
Topsfield is an extreme example of how an aging, shrinking population and rising property taxes are forcing Maine towns to make difficult choices about their community institutions. Just over a dozen people came to a Wednesday hearing on the idea of closing the school. The crowd was mostly in favor of it.
“It is emotional to close the school in a town,” Superintendent Amanda Belanger of the sprawling Eastern Maine Area School System said then. “But we do feel it’s in the best interest of the students in the town.”
Teacher Paula Johnson walked a reporter through the building, which is small by Maine standards but cavernous for its five students. It has four classrooms, a small library, and a gymnasium. There is also a cook and a custodian for the tiny school.
A hallway trophy case serves as a reminder of when the school was big enough to field basketball teams. Topsfield’s student population has never been large, but the school’s population has dropped dramatically over the past few years. It had 25 students in 2023, with many coming from nearby Vanceboro, which closed its own school in 2015.
As the student population dwindled, the cost of sending students to Topsfield climbed. With fewer students to defray the costs, Vanceboro officials realized they would be paying $23,000 per student by the last school year. So they opted to direct students to nearby Danforth, where tuition was only $11,000 per student.
East Range lost seven students from Vanceboro, bringing its enrollment below 10. Under Maine law, that means the district may offer students the option to go elsewhere. Parents of the remaining students in grades 5 through 8 took the option and sent their kids to Baileyville. This school began the year with eight students; three have since pulled out.
In Topsfield, Johnson teaches four of the remaining five, holding lessons for pre-K through second grade in one classroom. Another one down the short hallway is home base for the other teacher. She focuses on the school’s lone fourth grader and occasionally teaches one of Johnson’s first graders, who is learning at an advanced level.
The other teacher, who holds a special education certificate despite having no students with those needs, plans to leave at the end of the school year. If the school stays open, that will leave Johnson responsible for educating Topsfield’s youngest students, though the school will need to budget for a part-time special education teacher just in case.
After 11 years at the school, Johnson is not sure what she will do if voters shut it down.
“We’ll see what happens here,” she said.
Topsfield’s school board, which operates as a part of the Eastern Maine Area School System, is offering its residents a choice: continue funding the school only for students between preschool and second grade at an estimated cost of $434,000 next year or send all students elsewhere, which would cost less than $200,000.
At Wednesday’s hearing, the attendees leaned heavily toward the latter option. Deborah Mello said she moved from Rhode Island to Topsfield years ago to escape high taxes.
“It’s not feasible for the town of Topsfield,” she said. “We cannot afford it and it’s not like the children don’t have a school to go to.”
Others bemoaned the burden of legal requirements for the small district, including the need to provide special education teachers even if they don’t need one. Board members also mentioned that in 2028, the district will become responsible for educating 3-year-olds under a new state law. That adds another layer of uncertainty to future budgeting.
“It sounds like we’ve been burdened something severely by this program and that program by the Department of Education, to the point where a small school can’t even exist,” resident Alan Harriman said.
“And that’s been happening for a long time,” East Range board chair Peggy White responded.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Good morning and Happy Sunday everyone. Skies are cloudy with fog across much of Maine this morning. Rain has entered locations along the interstate and to the northwest. Temperatures vary from the upper 30s to mid 40s. Winds are out of the SE between about 5-15 mph.
Today will be a wet and impactful day with rain and even snow anticipated as a large cold front passes through Maine. Skies will be cloudy with plenty of fog lasting through the morning. Rain will expand across the interstate by the late morning hours, reaching Downeast locations by midday/the early afternoon.
By the early to midafternoon, temperatures will start to drop across northwestern locations as the cold front passes through Maine. This will result in rain turning over to mixed precipitation and eventually snow across the Western Mountains, Moosehead region, and Northern Maine. Rain will continue steadily and at times heavily across the foothills, Interstate, Coast, and Downeast. A few thunderstorms are even possible closer to the coast.
Snow will expand across areas to the northwest of the interstate this evening, reaching all the way down to Interior Midcoast communities, the Bangor region, and Interior Downeast areas by sunset and into the start of the night. Precipitation will taper off across Western Maine shortly after sunset, before exiting the entire state around midnight tonight. High temps today will vary from the low 40s to low 50s with SSE to NW gusts reaching 20-25 mph.
Snowfall totals will vary under 2 inches across Western, Northern, and Interior Downeast locations. However, a few pockets of 2-4 inches are possible, mostly in higher elevations across the mountains. Rainfall totals will accumulate around a half inch to three quarters of an inch when all is said and done.
Precipitation will be out of Maine by midnight tonight, with cloudy conditions giving way to mostly clear skies by sunrise. Lows overnight will dip back below freezing across much of the state, from the low 20s to mid 30s tonight, so cover up any plants or flowers outside. WNW gusts will reach 20-25 mph. A Small Craft Advisory is expected offshore.
Skies will be partly to mostly sunny across the interstate and coast on Monday morning. However, by the late morning to midday hours, clouds will build with a few scattered rain and snow showers in spots. Conditions will remain on the cloudier side in the afternoon before clearing up around sunset into the start of Monday night. Highs will be chilly on Monday, from the low 30s to upper 40s. WNW to SW gusts will be a bit breezy, reaching 20-25 mph, which will add to the wind chill factor.
High pressure will build on Monday night, remaining overhead on Tuesday. Skies will be sunny in the morning, becoming partly to mostly sunny in the afternoon. Highs will remain cool, in the 40s across the board with North to SW gusts only reaching 15-20 mph.
A weaker low-pressure system could bring showers across Maine on Wednesday and Thursday. There is a bit of model uncertainty on exactly when it will impact Maine. The GFS has impacts on Wednesday, while the EURO, GRAF, and GDPS models have most of the impacts on Thursday. We will continue to monitor this system and potential impacts. All it looks to provide as of now are cloudier skies and rain showers, with some snow shower chances farther to the North.
By Friday and Saturday, conditions are trending on the drier side with sunshine and average temperatures returning to the forecast.
SUNDAY: Highs from low 40s to low 50s. Cloudy with AM fog. Rain becoming widespread throughout the day, turning over to snow to the north & west during PM. SSE to NW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
MONDAY: Highs from low 30s to upper 40s. Partly to mostly sunny early. Developing clouds with scattered rain/snow showers by midday/afternoon. WNW to SW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
TUESDAY: Highs throughout the 40s. Sunnier AM. Partly to mostly sunny PM. North to SW gusts reach 15-20 mph.
WEDNESDAY: Highs from low 40s to low 50s. Mostly cloudy with a few rain showers. Few AM snow showers possible North. SSE to SSW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
THURSDAY: Highs from mid 40s to mid 50s. Cloudier skies with rain showers possible. Some AM snow showers possible North. NW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
FRIDAY: Highs from upper 40s to mid 50s. Partly cloudy. NNW gusts reach 20 mph.
Copyright 2026 WABI. All rights reserved.
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