Bangor is taking a new approach to its goal of adding more housing in the city.
Staff drafted new language to a city rule that allows taller buildings to be built on major roads in some residential areas, such as Broadway, State Street and Stillwater Avenue. The revision would cap buildings in those areas at 60 feet, which is tall enough for a five- to six-story building.
Now, buildings in those areas are limited to 35 to 45 feet tall, or about three to four stories, said Anja Collette, Bangor’s planning officer.
The Bangor Planning Board unanimously green-lit the rule change on Tuesday, which sends the idea to the City Council to receive final approval in the coming weeks.
The allowance of taller buildings creates space for more housing at a time when the city and state desperately need it. The region’s lack of housing bleeds into Bangor’s other major challenges, including expensive rent and home costs and homelessness.
The addition of one or two stories is designed to entice developers by making it more cost-effective to build in Bangor, Collette said. As the costs of materials and labor increase, developers are looking to create taller buildings to recoup their investment.
“It’s hard to make multifamily projects affordable when they’re shorter than four stories,” Collette said. “It’s one more thing we’re trying to do to enable housing that people in general can afford.”
It’s unclear what effect this change would have. In recent years, Bangor has approved startlingly few housing projects that would bring more than a few new homes at a time compared with other bustling communities. Between 2017 and 2022, 315 new housing units have been permitted to be built in Bangor, which pales in comparison to the to the 1,700 new units Scarborough approved in the same timeframe.
Many large-scale housing developments that have come to Bangor in recent years are for a certain demographic of the population, including the 50-unit senior housing building on Sunset Avenue that was approved in August 2023.
City officials have cleared some larger multi-family housing projects in recent memory, such as a 34-unit tiny home park on Hammond Street. Others, like the 60-unit Maine Woods duplex development, were approved after months of forceful pushback from local residents and a legal battle that slowed the process.
The building height change aligns with Bangor’s 2022 Comprehensive Plan, which suggests revising regulations to encourage housing development.
Staff may also revisit citywide building height limits again in the coming years as Bangor implements the Comprehensive Plan, Collette said.
“This change is a stopgap to make sure that we’re allowing housing projects to come in that may want to be taller without it being a wholesale change,” Collette said.
Collette stressed that taller buildings could only come to busier roads in developed residential areas that surround downtown. Other streets where taller buildings could arrive under the new rule include Essex Street and Mount Hope Avenue.
If a lot is adjacent to a smaller neighborhood, the height of the building will need to be staggered, under the updated rule. For example, a building that has sides of about 20 feet could get taller toward the middle, Collette said.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated how many large-scale housing developments have been approved in Bangor in recent years. The story has been updated.