A bill initiated and co-written by Harpswell officials to facilitate coastal rebuilding from the January 2024 storms has been expanded to include all coastal communities in Maine.
Maine Senate President Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, submitted the bill, L.D. 1864, to the Legislature in early May. It would allow working waterfront property owners to bypass certain zoning rules so they can rebuild structures damaged during the back-to-back coastal storms.
If passed, the bill would let communities grant variances to their shoreland zoning and floodplain management ordinances to repair or rebuild structures that don’t meet the typical threshold for approval.
The bill was drafted to apply only to Harpswell but was amended in committee to cover all coastal communities in Maine. It received a public hearing on May 12 before the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Housing and Economic Development. Three days later, the committee voted unanimously that the amended bill “ought to pass” in the full Legislature.
Harpswell Town Administrator Kristi Eiane, who helped draft the bill, said her understanding is that it would next go before the Legislature’s Revisor of Statutes for a review of the amended language before being sent on to the full Legislature.
According to Maine’s interpretation of Federal Emergency Management Agency rules, if a business in a high-flood-risk area applies for a building permit to repair or replace a damaged structure, it must demonstrate that denial of its application would result in a property that can’t generate a “reasonable return” on investment.
The “reasonable return” test essentially requires property owners to prove that they can’t make any financially viable use of their land or structure unless a variance is granted. While meant to reserve variances for cases of true economic hardship, local leaders have said the standard is impossible for many working waterfront businesses to meet.
In October, the Harpswell Select Board directed town staff to lobby Maine elected officials to ease restrictions on rebuilding damaged fish houses and other coastal structures in the January 2024 storms’ aftermath.
The bill is specific to the storms that struck on Jan. 9 and 13, 2024. Select Board member Matt Gilley, a lobsterman, has said town officials decided a narrowly targeted bill would be more likely to be approved quickly.
Still, Gilley said he would like to see the working waterfront exception expanded even further to apply to damage from future weather events.
