Bangor city leaders declared 2024 will be “the year of housing,” in which they will prioritize ensuring residents of all ages and income levels have access to safe, affordable, quality housing.
To achieve that goal, city councilors on Wednesday reviewed steps they can take to expand and improve housing, such as using a federal funding program to support improvements to multi-family homes and assisting developers in creating housing on city-owned properties.
Like other cities in Maine and the U.S., Bangor has struggled for years with not having enough housing, continuously rising rent and purchase costs, and an aging housing stock. These issues bleed into other challenges Bangor continues to face, including rising homelessness and a stagnant population.
One of the possible next steps City Manager Debbie Laurie proposed is creating a rental registry, which a housing work group first recommended in March 2019 but city leaders never adopted. The registry — a list of all rental properties in Bangor — would allow the city to see what it has, what it needs more of, and ensure existing units are safe.
Another option is for the city to create and approve architectural plans for various types of housing that developers can build. This may entice more of them to build here because they wouldn’t need to pay for the pre-approved plans, Laurie said.
The city can also continue efforts to improve and expand housing, such as altering city laws that limit what kinds of housing can be built where.
Bangor’s declaration to prioritize housing comes months after a Maine housing production needs study, released in October, revealed the state needs roughly 38,500 homes to make up for historic underproduction. Maine will need another additional 37,900 to 45,800 homes by 2030 to meet expected population growth.
Councilors stressed their focus on housing will include all types of housing, not just that aimed at people who are homeless.
“I think it’s important that we’re talking about housing not just for homebuyers, but for renters, tenants, affordable housing, low income housing, housing the unhoused, housing for aging seniors,” Councilor Gretchen Shaefer said.
Councilor Susan Hawes said Wednesday that a portion of the city’s housing improvement efforts must be ensuring existing buildings are safe, because “our infrastructure is, at best, in bad shape in some places.”
To assist this, Bangor could use Community Development Block Grants, a federal funding program from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to support improvements to multi-family housing, Laurie said. The Community Development Block Grants program allows states and communities to financially support developments that aid low- and moderate-income families.
In addition to improving existing infrastructure, Bangor has several vacant, placarded properties the city has taken ownership of. It now has the ability, Laurie said, to either demolish the property and use the land for new housing, or aid in rehabilitating the existing buildings.
For example, Bangor is looking for a developer to purchase a city-owned property at 324 Union St. and build a single family home on the land. The lot previously held a vacant home that was destroyed in a fire in December 2013.
Hawes said the list of next steps city councilors and department heads can take feels “doable” rather than “a pie-in-the-sky thing that will take 25 years to finish.”
