The Harpswell Select Board appointed five members to a new, permanent Housing Committee on Nov. 6.
Bob Gaudreau, Cheryl Golek, Steve Normand, Sean Ruel, and Courtenay Snellings were the only applicants and received the board’s unanimous approval.
Gaudreau, a retired developer, Normand, an architect who volunteers with Harpswell Aging at Home, and Snellings, who serves on the town’s Planning Board, were members of the Affordable Housing Working Group, which this committee will replace. Golek represents Harpswell and part of Brunswick in the Maine House of Representatives, where she serves on the Joint Select Committee on Housing. Ruel is an arborist.
The committee is tasked with helping to create more affordable housing to rent and own, in part by implementing the Housing for Harpswell plan developed by the working group.
The group found that working families and both young and older residents struggle to afford housing in Harpswell, where the median home listing is closing in on $1 million and little rental housing exists.
Their plan, presented to the Select Board in July, promotes using existing properties to create more housing by adding accessory dwelling units and splitting or sharing homes. It also recommended that Harpswell reduce its minimum lot size for small homes and multiple-unit buildings.
But the working group backed away from some of the goals in an earlier draft of its report, such as building apartments in Harpswell and developing affordable subdivisions on town-owned properties such as George J. Mitchell Field. Those recommendations had encountered resistance from residents.
