Submitted by MrsBeansAppleSnaps t3_zmnprk in Maine
NIMBY towns have a virtual monopoly on the land in Maine. Whether through grotesque zoning restrictions like mandating enormous lot sizes or outright caps on new housing i.e. "growth ordinances", most towns in Maine have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of helping to alleviate the unrelenting housing crisis that we are currently experiencing. Falmouth for example allows a total of 65 new housing units to be built per year. They want to remain a rural town in perpetuity, when in reality Falmouth is not a rural area, it is 9 minutes from everything downtown Portland has to offer. Scarborough, Windham, Cumberland, North Yarmouth all have similar rules on the books, and these are just the ones I could be bothered to look up. Freeport is currently home to 250 people per square mile, a number that would make the average farming village blush, yet in 2020 killed a project that would have built 300 new homes over 20 years (https://www.pressherald.com/2020/11/15/l-l-bean-scraps-major-development-in-freeport/). It was fine when people who live in Freeport built their homes but new families who want to move there? Well that would be an absolute calamity! Anyone remember that pesky golden rule? I guess not.
These towns are hogging all of the land and using that land very poorly. They should be broken up, with new towns formed that will allow people to live there. If you carved out even just a few measly square miles from every NIMBY town in Greater Portland for example, you could make an enormous impact on the housing market. Don't believe me? Here's the math: a mix of 75% single family homes and 25% duplexes built on normal sized lots (1/8th acre) allows for a density of over 6,000 per square mile assuming 2 people per household. You don't even need big scary apartment buildings; all you need to do is not use land ridiculously inefficiently and it turns out you can house a lot of people on not a lot of land. Plus, because these new places would be compact and walkable, they'd be much nicer places to live than the average town in Maine where you get in the car 6 times a day to go about routine tasks.
Of course I know this will never happen. Nothing will change. LD 2003 will do almost nothing (ADUs will not save us). Towns will kill every housing project in sight. People will continue moving away, or they will stay and struggle with housing costs forever. Maine's population will remain stagnant. Our population will continue to age alarmingly quickly. No new businesses will come here (reminder that we have a bottom 10 economy in the nation, for those unaware). And all the while our politicians will shrug their shoulders and wonder why.