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Affordable housing proposed for Peaks

Critics fear the project will alter the island's identity. City Council will vote on a zoning change July 19.

By Tom Bell tbell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

PORTLAND - A nonprofit organization plans to build three units of affordable housing on Peaks Island. In any other Portland neighborhood, a proposal so modest might escape notice.

But not on Peaks Island.

Depending on who you talk to, the project would either help preserve the island's identity or make way for its eventual demise.

Some critics even link the proposal to the island's failed attempt to secede from the city.

The City Council will decide the issue on July 19 because the proposal requires a zoning change.

Home Start, a nonprofit that's based on the island, plans to provide three affordable houses on a single lot at 18 Luther St., which Home Start bought in 2007. It would be the first affordable housing built for families on the island.

Home Start plans to refurbish the house that's on the lot now and build two energy-effecient modular homes. It needs a contract zone to divide the lot into three lots of 5,300 square feet -- about the same size as the other lots on the street, which is in the island's densely populated Downfront area.

The current zoning, which requires at least 20,000 square feet to build a house, was adopted in the 1980s to comply with new state rules for areas not served by public sewerage.

The city has since built a sewage treatment facility on the island, so proponents of the project argue that the zoning is out of date.

The Planning Board voted unanimously in May to recommend the zoning change. Twenty-three people testified or wrote letters, 15 in support and eight in opposition.

Supporters of the project say Peaks Island is becoming an enclave of well-to-do retirees. They say that the most "affordable" houses -- those that sell for less than $300,000 -- are run-down summer cottages that need extensive work and are costly to heat.

Karen Taylor, who has been a Peaks Island resident for 25 years, told the Planning Board that Home Start is working to "enable young folks of modest means to make a life here with the mostly older, wealthier people who, at present, are about the only ones who can afford to buy in."

But Rob Tiffany, a member of the Peaks Island Council, told the board that many residents value the island's "semi-rural feel."

Changing the zoning for the one lot, he said, would open the door to increasing the density of the entire island, and a "rapid change in the face and character of Peaks Island, which once done cannot be retrieved."

Michael Richards, chairman of the Peaks Island Council, who led the island's failed effort in 2007 to secede from Portland and form a separate town, said in an interview that supporters of Home Start opposed the secession effort and campaigned with the slogan "solutions not secession."

This solution, he said, is a "shill to prevent island independence and make it look like the city is doing something for the island."

Instead of allowing houses on nonconforming lots and upsetting a neighborhood, he said, the city should focus on finding ways to make the island more affordable to all residents, such as lowering the cost of parking and ferry transportation.

"We have 1,000 people on the island who need immediate help, and this is not going to help at all, he said.

Jane Banquer, president of Home Start, said secession has nothing to do with the proposal.

She said a survey of islanders showed that a significant number of families who live on the island are looking for more affordable housing.

This project, she said, is intended for families whose incomes are 80 to 120 percent of the median household income of the region.

"Our target audience is not the people from the other side of the bay," she said. "Our first target audience is the families who are already here."

The proposal is supported by City Councilor Kevin Donoghue, whose district includes Peaks Island.

He said the large-lot zoning in the area makes home ownership unaffordable for working families and wastes the sewer infrastructure.

Attracting and keeping working families is essential for the sustainability of the island's elementary school and the ferry system that serves the island, he said.

Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at:

tbell@pressherald.com