Housing
This section of the BDN aims to help readers understand Maine’s housing crisis, the volatile real estate market and the public policy behind them. Read more Housing coverage here.
After two years of meeting regional housing permitting goals, the Portland area is falling behind, lowering the state’s chance of adding 84,300 units by 2030.
The Greater Portland Council of Governments, an agency that offers planning and economic development services to communities in Cumberland County, recently launched an online database that tracks how many housing units have been approved in the Portland region each year since 2004.
The dashboard is a pilot project funded by a grant from the Department of Economic and Community Development, according to Rick Harbison, senior planner and data manager for the council. Now that it has been published, the organization hopes to update it annually and eventually expand to cover housing production statewide.
Collectively, 27 communities within Cumberland County issued permits for roughly 2,520 housing units in 2021 and again in 2022, exceeding the area’s goal of approving 2,400 new units every year.
However, that increase was followed by two years where the region fell short of its target by more than 600 units. In 2023, the region permitted 1,787 new housing units while 2024 saw 1,652 more.
The annual goal of adding 2,400 units is based on the State of Maine Housing Production Needs Study, which was released in October 2023. The report revealed the state needs 76,400 to 84,300 more homes to be built by 2030 to make up for historic underproduction and support existing and expected population growth.
“It’s good to have a target, even if it’s a little aspirational,” Harbison said. “A goal forces the issue of, if we’re not hitting it, why? That drives change.”
It’s unclear why 2021 and 2022 were “banner years” for new housing, Harbison said, though it could be tied to pent-up demand following the COVID-19 pandemic, or the consequence of lower interest rates, which made building costs cheaper for developers.
Multiple factors likely contributed to the steep drop in housing permits over the last two years, which Eamonn Dundon, advocacy director for the Portland Region Chamber of Commerce, called “a blinking red light.”
Some municipalities have zoning rules that restrict housing production, while building material and labor shortages and higher interest rates created headwinds for developers in recent years, Dundon said.
Despite these challenges, Dundon said the dashboard shows how some towns have encouraged development. Last year, Scarborough and Biddeford approved 261 and 101 new units, respectively.
On the other end of the spectrum, wealthy suburbs like Cape Elizabeth and Falmouth aren’t welcoming to new developments, Dundon said. Cape Elizabeth permitted only 16 homes in 2024 while Falmouth approved 40 units.
The goal of the dashboard is to track the state’s progress in increasing housing production, Harbison said.
“It’s hard to address our housing crisis if we don’t know where we stand,” Harbison said. “This dashboard brings together our housing data from the towns themselves to see whether we’re on track to meet our goals.”
The dashboard is a valuable tool for planners and policymakers in assessing progress toward the state’s housing goals, Scott Thistle, MaineHousing spokesperson, said.
“We hope others can replicate similar data tools for their areas,” Thistle said.
Benjamin Averill, housing opportunity program coordinator with the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, said it’s important to remember that issuing permits doesn’t necessarily mean more housing. Some units might not get built while others — especially large developments — take years to complete.
Averill said it could be beneficial to track how many certificates of occupancy communities issue, as that shows how much housing is completed and ready to be moved into.
That will likely be made easier by LD 1184, “An Act to Require Municipal Reporting on Residential Building Permits, Dwelling Units Permitted and Demolished and Certificates of Occupancy Issued,” which the Legislature enacted on Wednesday.