BRUNSWICK

Brunswick Landing Condominiums expects to start building new condo units at Brunswick Landing as early as next month. The condos will be part of a larger housing development plan at the former Navy base that may destabilize the market and force families out of Brunswick, warns a member of the town council.

Brunswick Landing Condominiums were approved by the planning board on Tuesday. The project consists of 12 buildings with a mix of two-, three- and four-units, for a total of 40 at the site of former Navy housing. Brunswick Landing Venture owns 115 acres encompassing most of the housing located at Brunswick Landing.

According to the application, Brunswick Landing Condominiums will own three undeveloped lots on which the condos will be built. Three new condo buildings will be located on Anchor Drive; two condos will be located on Independence Drive, and seven new condo buildings will be located on Intrepid Street.

The new two- and three-bedroom condos will initially cost between $290,000 and $325,000.

Additionally, Brunswick Landing Venture is converting 147 rental units to condos for sale — a decision that has raised alarms in town, according to Brunswick Planning Board chairman Charles Frizzle.

Shortly before Tuesday’s meeting, board members received copies of an email from Town Councilor Christopher Watkinson asking that the board either deny the application, or approve it with the caveat that a percentage of existing and new construction be set aside permanently for rental.

“BLV’s plans as currently stand will destabilize the rental and for sale market,” Watkinson wrote, “and is forcing many families out of our community.”

Frizzle said Watkinson raised a policy issue that wasn’t within the board’s authority to address as part of its review Tuesday.

$300,000 condos

With prices in the realm of $300,000, there is question as to whether prospective local home buyers can afford the new condos.

The Maine State Housing Authority’s 2017 housing facts and affordability index lists $283,000 as the median home price for the Brunswick micropolitan housing market. The median income was only $58,367, compared to the $68,121 income needed to afford a median home price.

The Maine Association of Realtors recently announced that 1,201 homes were sold in Maine in April — an 8.6 percent jump compared to April 2017 — with an 8 percent jump in median sales price, because there are fewer single-family homes on the market.

The rolling quarter of February to April in 2017 compared to the current year showed the median sales price for single-family homes sold in Cumberland County increased 5 percent to $290,000 and in Sagadahoc County, increased just shy of 10 percent to $222,500.

“With limited for sale inventory and tight markets in many areas of Maine, we’re seeing increasing sales prices,” said Kim Gleason, president of the Maine Association of Realtors.

Mike Baribeau, broker-owner of Century 21 Baribeau Agency in Brunswick, said the current seller’s market is a double-edged sword. Homeowners can sell their home, but may not be able to find one in the same price range in Brunswick. Many listings are of homes not occupied by owners.

Many first-time buyers are looking for a home in the range of $150,000 to $200,000 — that’s what is affordable, Baribeau said. Some are trying to buy multi-units and rent one of the units to help pay the mortgage, but those are slim pickings as well. Others opt to rent instead, but rentals are scarce, too.

As of Tuesday, he had 23 singlefamily properties available in Brunswick and Topsham, ranging in cost from $150,000 to $350,000 — all but two more than $200,000.

“Not too many people can afford to spend $250,000 to $300,000,” Baribeau said.

There were also eight condos for sale, ranging from $179,000 for an older house converted into condos to $249,900 for a two-bedroom unit on Granite Hill Drive in Topsham.

The Portland effect

“I’m getting a lot of brokers from Portland coming into the area with their buyers because they can’t find anything in Portland,” Baribeau said. “So they’re moving up the coast and Brunswick is within fairly easy striking distance of Portland.”

Because of the lack of housing inventory, he is seeing more sales of plots without existing structures.

“So we’re seeing some new construction happening,” Baribeau said. “However, there is a shortage of builders,” after many went out of business when the housing market crashed in 2007-08. It’s a national problem, he said.

Drew Preston of Brunswick Landing Condominiums, also a partner with Brunswick Landing Venture, said many tenants were banging on their door after they bought the housing, to say they’d like to buy their unit.

And he said talks with the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority and local developers revealed that, “what’s holding them back from giving out more office space or developing more land is housing.”

“People are starting to have to

drive 45 minutes or an hour from away and they want to buy homes,” Preston said.

As to complaints circulating about Brunswick Landing Venture’s decision to convert rentals into condos, Preston said, “There will be more to address.”

“We own other land and we’re trying to make our numbers work for building new apartments as well,” he said.

Whether it’s rental or for sale housing, Preston said, “we’ll meet all the demand that’s there.”

He expects to start building the new condos in July; once ground is broken, construction should take 120 days. The units will likely start being pre-marketed at the end of this month.

dmoore@timesrecord.com