The Bangor City Council is standing by its tax reimbursement deal for a 30-unit permanent supportive housing development after striking down a push to reconsider.
The council already approved the deal last week. It held a special meeting Monday to reconsider, but that effort failed in a 7-2 vote.
The Yellen Pines development, which will provide housing and 24/7 supportive services for people who have been chronically homeless in Bangor, has been the subject of heated public debate in recent weeks at city meetings and online, and Monday’s meeting became chaotic after residents in attendance were not offered the chance to weigh in.
The deal includes the creation of a tax increment financing district, or TIF district, and an accompanying credit enhancement agreement that directs the city to reimburse 75% of the property taxes paid by the Yellen Pines facility for a 30-year period.
Councilors voted 6-3 last week in favor of the deal. Council Chair Susan Hawes was the only councilor who switched sides Monday, voting not to reconsider the initial decision she had previously opposed.
Also voting not to reconsider the deal were Michael Beck, Daniel Carson, Susan Deane, Susan Faloon, Joe Leonard and Angela Walker.
“This is something our city is badly in need of,” Deane said of the housing project.
Carson noted that he’d already secured an amendment to the order before it passed, allowing the city manager to place conditions on the credit enhancement agreement when it’s drafted, and suggested that the council discuss those conditions at its workshop next week.
Councilors Carolyn Fish and Wayne Mallar, both critics of the deal from the get-go, voted in favor of reconsideration.
Pushback against the project has included qualms about housing that offers treatment for mental health and substance use disorder as an option rather than a requirement Some community members said they don’t believe the apartment building is worth sacrificing potential tax revenue.
The land on Corporate Drive where the developer, the Bangor Housing Development Corporation, plans to build the housing is currently empty and not generating tax revenue, but the city has estimated that the project would generate about $46,000 in taxes each year — meaning about $34,500 per year would be reimbursed back to the project.
The council voted nearly immediately after opening the special meeting, and the motion to reconsider the deal was the only agenda item.
Despite the relatively short notice for the meeting, the council chambers were nearly full, and clearly residents on both sides of the issue had shown up in force. Some brought signs with messages like “Bangor needs housing.”
After the vote concluded, chatter grew louder in the room. Mallar leaned over to Hawes, who was sitting next to him, and asked, “Did we call for public comment?” Hawes replied that she did not.
City policy states that general public comment periods will not be held at special meetings “unless it is required by law or contains a public hearing agenda item specifically.”
Numerous residents began talking in the gallery and addressing the council, arguing that the council should have asked for public comment.
“The vote is finished now,” City Solicitor David Szewczyk said, noting that the council already held public hearings on the item last week.
Community members continued speaking as Beck tried to prompt Hawes to respond to the chaos in the room. When the chatter continued, Szewczyk added, “Chair, we can’t have the public running the meeting. The council has to run the meeting.”
Hawes called the meeting adjourned — about 20 minutes after it began — at which point many residents got up to leave.
“You guys are a clown show,” one person said as they walked out.