Last month, the town of Stonington, with the encouragement of Maine’s congressional delegation, filed applications for congressionally designated spending grants to acquire and convert the Stonington Methodist Church – one of our downtown working waterfront’s empty, disused and historic buildings – to badly needed workforce housing.

Sadly, however, the trustees of the New England United Methodist Conference have to date rejected reasonable purchase offers for this historic asset that would enable the town and its partner, the nonprofit Island Workforce Housing, to acquire and convert the property.

This is the sad, sad story many of Maine’s historic downtowns are facing.

Stonington is Maine’s number 1 lobster port as well as a highly sought-after destination for seasonal visitors. We are home to more than 350 individually owned and operated fishing boats and to one of Maine’s largest and most acclaimed boat yards, Billings Marine. Unlike many similar small, rural Maine communities, the availability of jobs is not our issue.

What we have lost and continue to lose is a labor force and year-round population sufficient to assure our community resilience. We have already lost our nursing home. Our schools, year-round restaurants and other businesses are in jeopardy. We are in danger of not having enough trades people to thrive 12 months of the year – or even to support the seasonal population for 10 weeks of the year.

The cause of these losses? The wholesale conversion of our housing inventory to seasonal and short-term use. Fifty six percent of our downtown properties and 80% of our shorefront is now owned by non-residents.

Despite our strong working waterfront and tourism, Stonington is not a wealthy community. Fifty-one percent of Stonington’s population is low-to-moderate income. The annual median income in Stonington is $59,147, lower than for all comparative geographies and the lowest in Hancock County with 19% – again, the largest in the surrounding area – living below the poverty line. We are struggling to sustain our working waterfront and year-round community in the face of external pressures.

An unregulated real estate market, in which every property is sold to the highest bidder for “highest and best use,” drives prices skyward and beyond the reach of our year-round workers. Those who can afford such prices are typically from more urban areas, where both salaries and the costs of living are higher, making Stonington an “affordable” second home location for many – and shutting the lights on our town for 10 months of the year.

We cannot turn this tide and preserve our community without the help of people such as the trustees of the New England United Methodist Conference. We need together to take action to slow down, stop and reverse the loss of control of local – and especially public – properties to those who neither vote nor reside here.

Stonington is about to release a new Economic Resilience Plan, crafted in association with our community and nationally recognized Camoin Associates, that does just this. Top recommended strategies include attracting and retaining workforce by identifying, protecting and creating workforce housing; as well as regaining local control of important property assets that have been lost or, like the Methodist Church, are vulnerable.

The town’s varied strategies include incentivizing developers, sellers, first-time home buyers and renters to make smart choices that support a year round economy; and disincentivizing investment properties for use as seasonal and short-term rentals.

Together, we can and must make different choices that create a more balanced approach to local land use and year-round prosperity.

We urge all public, charitable organizations such as the New England United Methodist Conference to join with our International Order of Odd Fellows, who recently and thoughtfully gave the town first option on its historic waterfront building to keep it locally owned.

We are in this together to sustain Stonington and other Maine towns as the hardworking, year-round waterfront communities for which Maine is known and loved around the world.

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