“One of my inalienable rights as a property owner is the right to ‘quiet enjoyment’ of my property,” a South Portland resident wrote to city councilors about a proposed zoning change at the historic Liberty Shipyard.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that resident was a member of “No Yard South,” a group of residents organizing against a proposed 1,200-unit housing development at the former shipyard known as “The Yard South.”
However, the letter was written in 1998. It shows that opposition to housing development is an ever-present theme in Maine. But it also shows that residents often derided as “NIMBYs” — or “not in my backyard” activists — most often have little power to stop big changes.
Despite the complaints, that parcel of the shipyard was ultimately rezoned 25 years ago as a mixed-use area. Yard South developer PK Realty Management is close to submitting a proposal to rezone the area one lot over to allow similar residential and commercial developments.
“What commonly happens is communities figure it out, and housing gets built,” said Scott Thistle, a spokesperson for MaineHousing, the state housing authority.
Thistle was speaking about resistance to affordable housing projects. With some exceptions, those observations hold up when examining a wide range of developments proposed over the past few years.
“I would not describe the South Portland community as oppositional to housing,” said Milan Nevajda, the city’s planning director.
Nevajda cited the redevelopment of South Portland’s former public works yard, Avesta’s Westbrook Street project and the Thornton Heights Commons project as just some examples of new city housing. Overall, South Portland has issued more than 400 building permits since 2020, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
But in opposition to The Yard South project, more than 650 South Portland residents signed a petition on election day in November, said Cathy Chapman, the spokesperson behind the movement formed this year.
Not all of those people would count themselves as members of the group, whose Facebook page has fewer than 200 followers. But Chapman says they all have some combination of worries about traffic, decreasing property values or environmental concerns.
At least some of them are probably unfounded. Studies have shown that property values are largely unaffected by a home’s proximity to affordable housing, though, only about 10 percent of the new units proposed there will be “big ‘A’ affordable housing,” PK Realty president Jen Packard said.
But demand for housing remains sky-high in cities like South Portland. That has sent home values skyrocketing from $300,000 in early 2020 to north of $580,000 in October, according to Zillow.
On the environmental front, however, a great deal of clean up does need to be done at the proposed site of The Yard South, which is a brownfield, a site the federal Environmental Protection Agency has found to have contamination that might hinder redevelopment.
That has spooked some residents like Chapman who don’t believe housing should be built on the historic shipyard. A 2020 environmental site assessment of the site found petroleum-related contaminants and metals in its groundwater and soil, respectively.
But there are brownfields all around Maine being redeveloped under federal and state oversight, noted Jamie Madore, an environmental engineer who has worked with the city. Cleaning up this site will be important to residents and the waterfront whether it becomes housing or not. But if the 3-acre parcel is cleaned up to state standards, it will be fit for habitation, Madore said.
Other stories of brownfield remediation include the mills that are getting turned into apartments around Maine, such as the proposed housing project at the former Lockwood Mill in Waterville. A Thornton Heights project in South Portland was also a brownfield redevelopment that turned an old, contaminated church and school into 42 affordable housing units that opened this year.
Chapman and the “No Yard South” group worry that until PK Realty remediates the rest of that 30-acre lot, remaining contamination could still harm residents on The Yard South’s 3 acre parcel.
“I would not consider that safe for children to be playing outside or people of any stripe to be living there,” said Chapman, who lives a mile from the shipyard.
But even if people began living at the site before remediation efforts were completed on the entire 30-acre lot, there would never be a scenario where people would come into direct contact with contaminated soil, Yard South project manager Amy Magida said.
Developer Jen Packard doesn’t agree with much of the criticism that’s come The Yard South’s way, but through a series of public workshops and community engagement meetings this year, she said she has actually found some constructive feedback in early pushback.
Her comments touch on a view shared by many developers and community planners around Maine: that not all so-called NIMBYs are created equal.
“[One] concern that we’ve heard is this fear of everything happening at once, and we were previously working with a plan that didn’t allow for a very efficient phasing,” Packard said. “So we’ve reworked the plan in a way where the site can actually grow incrementally over time.”
Housing developments might be slowed down or stopped by “NIMBYism.” A senior official at a Bangor-area social services agency said last month that developers often won’t bring projects forward if they sense community opposition. A major affordable housing project in pricey Cape Elizabeth was canceled in 2021 for that reason.
As a former social worker herself, Chapman said she is for more affordable housing in general. But if cities need to aggressively push for more production to reach the state’s lofty goals, she thinks developments should be thoughtfully presented.
“It has to be looked at carefully no matter what the project is, not just accepted at face value,” Chapman said.