Harpswell’s current conversations about affordable housing are not new. The town was grappling with many of the same issues a generation ago. The 2005 update to Harpswell’s comprehensive plan notes that “statewide, regional, and local trends add up to an increasing shortage of affordable housing,” and lists affordable housing as a top priority for most residents at the time.
The solution Harpswell arrived at was Hamilton Place: a development of single-family homes built on Harpswell Neck that would be sold below market value to people with a connection to the town.
Almost a decade after the last of these houses was finished, most of the original owners still live there. But sales on the open market in the last several years mean there are fewer affordable homes in the neighborhood now.
As for whether Hamilton Place could be a model for future affordable housing, people who were part of the project and others who are involved with Harpswell’s current Affordable Housing Working Group say it would be hard to replicate, largely because it was expensive.
‘The most wonderful neighborhood in the world’
An organization called the Harpswell Heritage Housing Trust took the lead on a new affordable housing project. The group helped to find and buy the 22-acre property off Shore Acres Road, south of the post office, from the Hamilton family.
The property’s many wetlands made it difficult to abide by the town’s requirement that new homes be built on 2-acre parcels. So David Chipman, a member of the group and the Select Board, lobbied the town planner to allow the homes to be built on 0.5-acre parcels, with another 1.5 acres put into conservation.
The trust collected donations and was able to make a down payment on the land. But it was the Greater Brunswick Housing Corp., a nonprofit affordable housing developer, that took on the bulk of the work.
Executive Director John Hodge recalls that the organization had been looking for a site to build in Harpswell and the town steered the company to the Hamilton land. “We both saw the need (for affordable housing),” Hodge says.
The Greater Brunswick Housing Corp. sold one lot, donated two to the home-building charity Habitat for Humanity, and built 11 affordable homes to sell. The houses are built along a single road with a cul-de-sac. They share wells and septic systems, which lowers the cost of construction.
With the help of a grant from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Greater Brunswick Housing Corp. was able to sell the houses at cost for around $175,000 each, according to town property records. A U.S. Department of Agriculture program gave subsidized, 38-year loans to first-time homebuyers.
Those buyers did have to meet some criteria, however. They had to prove they had a connection to Harpswell, whether they lived here already or had a job or family in the town. The buyers’ household income had to be less than 120% of the area median income. And for the first five years, certain lots could only be sold to people under lower income thresholds, with five lots reserved for people making less than 50% of the median income.
An owner in the neighborhood also could not sell their house like any other homeowner might. Hamilton Place homeowners signed a covenant with the Greater Brunswick Housing Corp. stipulating that they can sell the house back to the corporation for less than market value.
Or, if the owner sells the house on the open market to a buyer who does not meet the income eligibility, they have to pay the corporation an amount that reflects the value the house gained during their ownership, called a recapture rate. That option means the property is removed from the stock of affordable housing. “But we get some money to keep doing our work,” Hodge says.
Three Hamilton Place houses have now been resold, all in the last three years. Town records list their sale prices as $247,000, $400,000, and $415,000. Hodge says two of those were sold on the market and subject to the recapture rate. One of those went into foreclosure after the owners failed to make payments on their Department of Agriculture home loan.
Aaron Robison is one of the new Hamilton Place owners. He bought his ranch-style house in July 2020, after six months in an apartment in Bath. Robison moved to Maine from Utah for a job in health care information technology. Robison says he bought the home at market price.
Neither he nor his partner have connections to Harpswell, but Robison says they feel embraced by the town. And he says they’re planning to stay for the foreseeable future. They’ve already started making improvements to the house, like installing rooftop solar panels.
Another newcomer to the neighborhood is Pam Mason, who bought her two-story colonial in May. She moved to Cundy’s Harbor in 1980, where her daughter still lives with her family. Affordability was the draw for Mason, who wanted a house in Harpswell big enough to host her kids and grandkids. She says she has no plans to sell the house.
After her first few months there, she calls it “the most wonderful neighborhood in the world.” Mason says her neighbors look out for one another, and the street is safe for her grandkids to play on.
Kaitie Bubier, on the other hand, has lived in the neighborhood almost since its beginning. She moved in with her husband, Zachary Bubier, in 2013. He was one of the original buyers, in 2012, which meant he got to make some of the design choices as the house was being built. They live with their two children.
Zachary grew up in Harpswell. He has worked as a lobsterman and now owns a landscaping business. Kaitie is an artist who also grew up in Maine. Like Mason, Kaitie says they have no plans to sell the house. For one thing, she says, they couldn’t afford to buy another in Harpswell.
Another Hamilton Place?
Chipman believes the development succeeded in providing houses that people needed. One house sold to a lobsterman and his young family, he says, and another to a person who was living in Brunswick after a fire destroyed their home in Harpswell.
The 2005 comprehensive plan update recommended that the town “pursue the development of 5-10 new affordable housing units annually over the next ten years.” Hamilton Place provided 11 total before 2015.
Harpswell still needs more affordable housing, according to Chipman. “We have the same issue now. Maybe even worse.” But the Harpswell Heritage Housing Trust he helped start dissolved after it got the one development of affordable houses going.
“We’re realizing now we could have used more of it,” he says.
Whether Hamilton Place should be a model for future affordable housing is up for debate.
One issue is cost. “Hamilton Place was an expensive project,” says Town Planner Mark Eyerman, pointing to the paved road and the work that was needed to accommodate the property’s wetlands. He calls it a success, since it delivered low-cost houses. But replicating it today, he says, probably wouldn’t produce affordable houses.
Retired developer Bob Gaudreau, who is a member of Harpswell’s Affordable Housing Working Group, agrees that a subdivision of single-family homes would probably be too expensive now.
For his part, Hodge says the Greater Brunswick Housing Corp. would build another development like Hamilton Place. “I think these types of subdivisions are needed in Harpswell and elsewhere,” he says. But he also says the organization is currently focused almost entirely on multiunit rental properties, which are in higher demand.
Instead of another single-family development in the model of Hamilton Place, Gaudreau thinks Harpswell would be better served by what’s known as a planned-unit development. These projects can include single-family or multifamily units, but owners pay fees to a homeowners association to maintain shared resources, which could include roads or septic systems.
A planned-unit development could be more tightly clustered, according to Gaudreau, allowing a developer to save on the cost of roads and utilities. He and others point to land Harpswell owns behind the Town Office as one place such a development might go. But he says Harpswell’s building codes would need to be adjusted to allow it.
Gaudreau and Eyerman both think there is demand for single-family homes like those at Hamilton Place in Harpswell. But they also say the working group is discovering that the town needs other types of affordable housing too.
Eyerman says Harpswell needs more rental units, although multiunit rental properties have water and sewage needs that can be difficult to meet with wells and septic fields. He says there are also Harpswell residents, many older, who live in larger homes or on more property than they need, and who also don’t have the income to maintain them. Gaudreau thinks that something like dividing a single-family, four-bedroom home into a pair of two-bedroom units may be another prong in Harpswell’s next stab at creating more affordable housing.
