Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed L.D. 2173 into law this month, seeking to settle technical questions that arose after the state required municipalities to revise zoning rules aimed at boosting housing construction. The bill follows a sequence of changes that began with L.D. 2003 in 2022, when the Legislature took the unusual step of requiring towns to adjust land-use regulations in an effort to encourage more homes—including affordable housing—amid growing demand.
Supporters said the earlier reforms targeted barriers in local rules, while critics argued the state’s “universal approach” overreached and conflicted with Maine’s long-standing local control over planning. The resulting debate helped generate frustration and uncertainty as towns worked through complex compliance issues around density, lot sizes, water and sewer infrastructure, and where housing could be built.
The policy thread began with L.D. 2003, which lawmakers designed to change housing density rules by eliminating single-family zoning restrictions and making it easier to build accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. Under the law, municipalities were required to allow ADUs on the same lot as single-family homes and to permit affordable housing developers to create more units than typically allowed, according to the AP reporting.
The law also required municipalities to focus much of the allowed growth in designated growth areas—areas where towns plan to target most residential, commercial or industrial development over the next 10 years—and it created rules for greater housing density and for affordable housing projects in those zones. Municipal officials and legal experts later raised concerns about how those requirements would work in practice and complained that the statewide framework did not account for local differences in infrastructure and community resources.
Lawmakers tried to address some of those implementation questions last year with L.D. 1829, including a limit on minimum lot sizes to no greater than 5,000 square feet. The bill also modified ADU rules by changing sprinkler requirements, prohibiting towns from requiring ADU owners to live on site to construct an ADU, and expanding where ADUs could be built, while also allowing more affordable housing units per lot and reducing parking space requirements for some projects.
Those L.D. 1829 changes quickly drew pushback from municipalities, including over a height exemption that would allow certain affordable housing projects to be built one story higher than standard local zoning. Rep. Amanda Collamore, R-Pittsfield, ranking Republican on the housing and economic development committee, said some towns lacked firetrucks with ladders, making multi-story development without height caps dangerous, and she also criticized limits tied to areas outside of serviced water and sewer systems.
L.D. 2173, signed by Mills last week, was conceived as a “fixer bill” to address those concerns, AP reported. It clarified what counts as a public water and sewer system, limited density requirements to areas served by those systems, and exempted environmentally sensitive regions from density rules. The new law also offered communities more flexibility in setting lot sizes and density ceilings outside growth areas and subjected affordable housing development height bonuses to additional review.
House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, who sponsored L.D. 2003 and supported its core goals, said in a recent interview that while the bill was ambitious, it did not add rules that would reduce allowable minimum lot sizes, which he said would make “starter homes” more affordable. He also acknowledged that lawmakers would need “give and take” to keep towns engaged, framing the balance as between a state interest in affordable homes and local control that the state has valued for generations.
With the latest zoning changes rolling forward, municipalities that had not yet adopted requirements from L.D. 1829 now have more time. The new law pushed back the deadline from July of this year to July 2027, and municipal attorney Gray Louis said the extension would give towns “wiggle room” and could be the last time they need to adjust their zoning rules.
Louis, who works as a municipal attorney with Preti Flaherty, said the four years of statewide changes exposed the difficulty some smaller communities face in updating ordinances, which often requires hiring legal counsel. He described the repeated adjustments as creating a “whiplash” effect from the Legislature, and he said each community’s zoning and infrastructure profile is different.
State and regional officials also said it has been hard to measure the effects of the 2022 reforms because the rules have changed again before consistent statewide data could be gathered. Jamie Garvin, director of community affairs for the Greater Portland Council of Governments, said standardized measurement has been limited and that the state’s new reporting requirement—requiring municipalities with populations over 4,000 to report building permits each year—will help, with data expected to be made public later this spring.
Garvin said some fast-growing communities around the greater Portland metro area already needed infrastructure support alongside housing policy changes, describing costs that can be beyond any one town’s ability to address alone. He said Scarborough, for instance, has seen decades of growth partly due to its proximity to Portland and connectivity to major roadways, and he pointed to continuing permitting activity and redevelopment projects that have increased apartment housing.
Not every town, however, sees state zoning mandates as necessary to encourage development. Scarborough Planning and Codes Director Autumn Speer said her department typically receives 200 to 250 building permits per year, and Town Manager Thomas Hall said Scarborough did not need help encouraging housing. Hall said officials supported changes in L.D. 2173 because they feared the earlier rules would require the town to grow more even as it struggles to keep up with current development, and he said transportation constraints, including traffic, are the “number-one issue” limiting the region.
Even among advocates for affordable housing, implementation issues can run beyond zoning language. Elizabeth Frazier, a partner at Pierce Atwood who represents the Maine Real Estate & Development Association, said the argument that towns were being forced to grow beyond their desires through L.D. 1829 is “pearl-clutching,” arguing towns have tools to avoid growth and that the reforms largely empower communities to add housing through growth zones they ultimately control.
Frazier also said the impact of the 2003-era changes and the subsequent bills may be limited because they focus on adding housing units in designated areas, including ADUs, and she argued the state should consider tackling subdivision limits that restrict parcel splits to once every five years. She said zoning adjustments can help projects move, but developers also face other obstacles such as environmental studies, neighborhood appeals and construction costs—issues illustrated by a workforce housing project in Ellsworth that had support but remained delayed.
In Ellsworth, developer LB Ellsworth LLC is backing a workforce housing project on Beals Avenue, with the city seeking grants and the project planned for the urban core where residential housing is encouraged. Partner Dan Black said the 36-condominium project cannot yet move forward, citing an estimated cost of $425,000 per unit against expected sales prices around $279,000, along with early delays tied to a vernal pool study and a zoning waiver appeal by a neighbor, even as he said the parcel’s zoning made the project feasible in the first place.