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.
Bangor city leaders have made a series of changes to local rules hoping to encourage more housing to be built, but developers say they haven’t made much of a difference.
City councilors named expanding housing as one of their top priorities for the last three years. To achieve this, city staff have tweaked several rules hoping to encourage and allow more housing to be built in the city.
The rule alterations include reducing setback requirements, cutting how much parking is needed for each unit and bumping up building height limits, among other adjustments.
While Bangor’s well-intentioned adjustments likely haven’t prevented new housing, they also haven’t spurred it, according to a few local developers. Instead, cost and some state or federal regulations remain the biggest barriers to adding new housing to a city that desperately needs it.
“I’ve had Boston-area developers want to do a 300-unit complex, but they walked away from it because of construction,” Anne Krieg, Bangor’s director of community and economic development, said. “They said, ‘You have Boston construction pricing, but we can’t get a Boston rent for it to make it work.’”
It’s difficult to quantify whether Bangor’s rule changes have made a noticeable difference or paved the way for any projects to move forward that previously wouldn’t have been allowed, Krieg said.
Bangor’s local goal of expanding housing aligns with a statewide push, aimed at compensating for years of underproduction and meeting anticipated future need. This mission took on new urgency after a 2023 statewide housing study found the state needs at least 76,400 more homes by 2023.
Several gubernatorial candidates have pointed to local and statewide “red tape” as something holding back new housing development in Maine. The candidates also expressed interest in axing the restrictions and regulations to allow more projects to move forward.
So far this fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026, Bangor has issued certificates of occupancy to 80 units, according to the city website. In the most recent quarter, spanning from January 1 through the end of March, only six units were completed.
In the previous year, developers completed 82 units of housing. The year before, the city gave certificates of occupancy to 76 homes.
Bangor’s boosted building height limits allows the Bangor Housing Authority to add solar panels on some multi-story projects, but didn’t push the project over the finish line, according to Mike Myatt, BangorHousing executive director.
“Bangor has always been good about approving and being supportive of multi-family housing projects,” Myatt said. “Our number one issue has always been financing.”
Specifically, the growing cost of land, construction materials and labor remain the biggest barriers to bringing more housing to Bangor, Myatt said. Many of BangorHousing’s properties also serve lower income families and seniors, which caps how much the organization can charge for rent to offset the building costs.
For Emily Ellis, a local real estate agent and Bangor housing developer, ever-changing state regulations for new construction are her biggest challenge. For example, changing requirements for insulation or air exchanger systems in a building trickles down to additional, sometimes unexpected, costs for the developer, she said.
“My goal is to supply basic housing to young professionals,” Ellis said. “Rules and regulations from the state are very cumbersome, and just when you get it, they change.”
Ellis developed the contentious Maine Woods project off Essex Street in Bangor, which offers 60 townhouses. In March, the planning board approved her latest project, a 13-duplex neighborhood containing 26 townhouses.
Bangor’s expanded allowances for housing construction can also create additional costs or requirements for developers that the city can’t typically control.
For example, larger buildings need additional safety and accessibility features, such as sprinkler systems and elevators, Krieg said. Those requirements are expensive, and developers may shrink a project to avoid them.
“When you get to the third unit, you need to put in sprinklers,” Krieg said. “We’ve heard many, many times that that’s a project killer.”
City staff proposed adding a $2 million affordable housing fund in next year’s budget to assist developers with costly requirements on multi-unit projects, Krieg said. Councilors are reviewing the proposed budget now and may make changes before voting on it next month.
While the impact of some rule changes are unclear, Krieg said the city allowing tiny home parks in October 2022 cleared the way for two such projects in Bangor. Since then, one 30-unit park has been built and the city’s planning board approved another tiny home development off Pushaw Drive, which is expected to create another 30 homes.
“I’m really glad we got a second tiny home park because people are looking for different styles of housing now,” Krieg said. “They don’t necessarily want a big house, especially first-time homebuyers.”
Allowing multifamily housing in Bangor’s shopping and commercial districts also expands the possibilities for developers, such as Michael Cole, who wants to redevelop the Bangor Mall and add roughly 175 condominiums to the site, Krieg said.