Daniel Boucher appears to be like out of his condo in Biddeford. Boucher has served on a particular process drive charged with the right way to protect and create inexpensive housing in Biddeford, the place rents have elevated dramatically prior to now few years. Derek Davis/Workers Photographer
If it was as much as Michelle Byras she’d be residing in an condo in Biddeford together with her kids and grandchildren.
However after transferring out of a $2,400-a-month condo she shared with one other household, Byras has been unable to seek out an condo she will afford. She’s watched helplessly as buildings offered and rents jumped dramatically in a metropolis as soon as generally known as an inexpensive place to dwell.
“They’re scooping up all of the buildings in Biddeford, fixing up the residences, and charging New York costs,” stated Byras, who’s now paying $325 every week for a winter rental in Lisbon whereas she appears to be like for an condo.
Many long-term Biddeford residents are struggling to maintain up with the price of housing. A metropolis survey performed final summer season discovered that 70% of respondents knew somebody who needed to transfer as a result of it was too costly.
Metropolis officers are actually contemplating methods to protect and create extra inexpensive housing whereas sustaining town’s socioeconomic variety.
“We’re making an attempt to assist cease long-term residents from being priced out,” stated Doris Ortiz, a metropolis councilor and chairperson of a process drive that spent the previous 12 months inspecting methods to deal with Biddeford’s inexpensive housing disaster.
The ultimate suggestions from the Mayor’s Reasonably priced Housing Job Power can be offered to the Metropolis Council this month. They mirror a number of efforts in Portland and embrace adopting inclusionary zoning, creating an Affording Housing Fund, and a purpose of making or preserving 900 inexpensive items by 2028. The duty drive stopped in need of recommending hire management.
Revitalization work led by Coronary heart of Biddeford started in 2004, 5 years earlier than town’s final textile mill closed and eight years earlier than town bought the Maine Vitality Restoration Middle, which included the trash incinerator that dominated the downtown panorama. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Workers Photographer
‘A VERY TOUGH TIME’
Town council started housing affordability a number of years in the past as Biddeford’s revitalization drew extra individuals to town. It adopted an early set of targets: enhance house possession, create extra “subsequent house” alternatives for individuals to maneuver out of starter houses, and rehabilitate rental items to ensure they’re lead-free.
Town needed to create or protect 450 items of inexpensive housing annually for 5 years to serve individuals incomes 40% to 80% of the median earnings and create a minimum of 200 first-time homeownership alternatives for households incomes between 80% and 120% of the median earnings.
Quickly after these targets had been adopted, the pandemic hit. The influence on Biddeford housing was evident virtually instantly as skyrocketing housing prices pushed individuals out of huge cities all alongside the East Coast and distant staff moved to Maine.
Many introduced incomes that permit them to pay increased rents, native officers say. In only a few years, the elevated rental prices far outpaced the incomes of working-class residents.
Market rents in Biddeford – the place for many years it was straightforward to seek out inexpensive residences – have risen steeply since 2012, from $863 for a two-bedroom condo that 12 months to $1,211 in 2020, a 40% enhance in eight years. Some premier downtown rents are actually greater than$2,500 a month.
“It’s a really powerful time to be in Biddeford or a coastal group just like Biddeford as a result of individuals from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York are coming right here,” stated Daniel Boucher, a member of the housing process drive. “You don’t need to dwell the place you’re employed now in lots of instances. It’s modified the way in which individuals are housing and the place they need to dwell.”
Since 2012, greater than 800 multifamily buildings had been offered and by 2020 had been fetching upward of $94,000 per unit, up from lower than $53,000 per unit three years in the past, based on an evaluation from town’s assessing division.
Boucher, who has lived in Biddeford for 68 years and rents an condo close to downtown, has seen rents and residential costs rise to the best stage in his lifetime. He says he’s fortunate he hasn’t confronted steep hire hikes like many others.
“I’ve seen Biddeford, particularly the downtown space, on its excessive word and I’ve seen it within the ’80s at its lowest,” he stated. “Now I see a resurgence and the price of housing has gone up as a result of it’s now a pretty place to be. It’s come full circle.”
Daniel Boucher has served on a process drive charged with the right way to protect and create inexpensive housing in Biddeford, the place rents have elevated dramatically prior to now few years. Derek Davis/Workers Photographer
As process drive members examined the housing market, they had been confronted with a paradox: as a result of the earnings of renters in the neighborhood rose almost 52% in simply three years ($31,048 in 2017 to $47,140 in 2020) town seemed to be extra inexpensive to renters, based on the Division of Housing and City Growth’s Rental Affordability Index.
However the actuality was completely different for a lot of people. Many long-term residents pay a better share of their month-to-month earnings at present than they did after they began renting 5 or 10 years in the past, the duty drive concluded.
“The longer you’ve lived right here, the much less possible you’ll be capable to afford it,” Ortiz stated.
STRATEGIES CONSIDERED
After almost a 12 months of analysis and dialogue, the duty drive voted this month to current its suggestions to town council on the Jan. 24 assembly. Metropolis Supervisor James Bennett instructed the duty drive he anticipates the council will take up the problem immediately, whilst they head into the busy funds season.
“I don’t imagine there’s any member of the council that doesn’t see this as a urgent challenge,” he stated.
Probably the most important suggestion is that town adopts an inclusionary zoning ordinance that requires all new rental buildings to put aside some items as inexpensive housing.
Biddeford Metropolis Supervisor James Bennett Metropolis of Biddeford Photograph
Portland adopted an identical inclusionary zoning ordinance in 2015 that requires all new developments with 10 or extra items to fulfill a ten% workforce housing requirement or pay a payment. In 2020, voters elevated the workforce housing requirement to 25%.
Biddeford is contemplating a tiered strategy primarily based on the variety of inexpensive items and the way lengthy the hire can be capped primarily based on the affordability stage. For instance, if the items had been inexpensive at 80% of the world median earnings, 7.5% of items would should be inexpensive for 10 years.
Or builders may apply for a waiver and pay $100,000 per unit that might have been rented at an inexpensive charge. Smaller initiatives, between 5 and 9 items, would pay a hard and fast payment of $7,500 per unit, although some members need the council to contemplate an inexpensive unit choice, too. That cash would go into an Reasonably priced Housing Fund to help new inexpensive housing and the homeless inhabitants.
Job drive member Ian Garcia-Grant stated throughout a Jan. 3 assembly that the main focus all alongside has been on ensuring {that a} share of recent housing is locked in at inexpensive charges.
“The extra provide we create in Biddeford, the extra demand that comes into Biddeford from the encircling space. We now have all of the overflow from Portland and its surrounding cities,” he stated. “We’re in a scenario on the bottom the place there’s primarily a limiteless demand that can at all times saturate any provide we will create.”
The duty drive finally determined hire management was not a superb match due to potential unfavorable impacts seen in different cities, together with property house owners changing rental items to condos and landlords not sustaining buildings. Ortiz stated process drive members didn’t really feel hire management would assist obtain its targets.
Portland, the place voters accepted hire management in 2020 and added new restrictions final 12 months, is the one Maine metropolis with community-wide hire management. The ordinance caps the quantity landlords can enhance hire yearly, places limits on safety deposits, outlines how a lot discover landlords can provide for hire will increase, and outlaws software charges.
Ortiz is keen to leap into discussions with the council, however acknowledges it’s a fancy challenge and stated “time isn’t on our facet.” She additionally is aware of town can’t repair the issue alone.
“It’s one thing that we’re making an attempt to do domestically right here, but it surely’s one thing that as a area we’re going to need to work on as effectively,” she stated. “We’re going to finish up with loads of homeless individuals. We don’t have a shelter right here and the state has not but executed one thing to assist the area. We’re making an attempt to keep away from that scenario and maintain of us right here.”
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