An interesting approach to housing, perhaps

The Bangor Daily News (disable Java to evade the cash wall) reports on a project in Yarmouth that’s built market-rate housing, combined with commercial retail, on unused space right along Route One.

“A Coastal Maine Suburb is Filling Empty Spaces With Housing”. It’s a bit of a puff piece, but still, it strikes me that there are a lot of such spaces in Connecticut where it might work. The best way to achieve affordable housing is to create more supply, and even if these particular units are going to be market-rate, they’ll have a tempering effect on the prices of older housing; especially if enough of them are built.

U.S. Route 1 runs through quaint Maine coastal towns with stretches of retail stores and parking lots disrupting the feeling of a downtown.

The Portland suburb of Yarmouth is working to change that, employing “character-based development” to create cozier, mixed-use developments in commercial corridors.

Under the town’s plan, new residence and retail buildings would go into large parking lots and empty spaces near the highway. Buildings would be close to the road with parking in the rear to make them more accessible. One such development completed in January — Yarmouth Commons — has 18 market-rate apartments and four ground-floor commercial spaces.

Character-based development comes with little red tape. It neither limits the number of building residents nor prescribes minimum lot sizes and includes either liberal or non-existent setback requirements.

“It turns zoning on its head,” said Erin Zwirko, director of the town’s planning department.

The town is not alone in supporting these types of mixed-use developments to boost much-needed housing. A slew of proposed bills and a landmark housing law about to hit the books are offering various ways to remove barriers to housing developments.

“We want to make sure to create laws that empower communities to address the challenge that we’re all facing, which is to make sure that people have affordable, attainable and safe places to live,” said Rep. Traci Gere, D-Kennebunkport, who co-chairs a new housing panel.

She is sponsoring a bill that is still being drafted and would make better use of corridor space around towns and villages as part of the Policy Action 2023 advocacy plan created by GrowSmart Maine and Build Maine that aims to reduce barriers to development and create financial incentives to reuse commercial areas that are not thriving.

The plan recommends having no density limits and no on-site parking or open space requirements to better repurpose existing areas rather than expanding into green space or leaving commercial strips to languish, said Nancy Smith, CEO of GrowSmart Maine, a development advocacy group.”