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Castine Looks To Overcome High Housing Costs
Joseph Slocum,
Castine town manager, takes a welcome break Thursday night after
voters approved a well-drilling moratorium. The moratorium gives
town officials time to conduct a study on the effect of private
wells on the public water supply. |
The highest housing
costs in
Maine
may be found in Castine, Town Manager Joseph Slocum said during a
recent interview.
A quick tour of the
seacoast town with its beautifully preserved, historic buildings,
and with
Maine
Maritime
Academy
beside Main Street’s mansions and townhouses surrounded by lush
lawns—all reaching down to the waterfront—tell any visitor that this
is no ordinary community.
White clapboard
townhouses, stately brick mansions and painstakingly kept flower
gardens are the norm here. Even the waterfront businesses lack that
gritty quality of boatyards in other Maine coastal towns. Everything
is picture-perfect and tourists are hard-pressed to find a view not
worth saving on film.
Well-heeled people
come to Castine to retire or to have summer homes. At one time MMA
teachers could afford to live here. No more, say those in charge of
MMA faculty at the much-respected school. MMA prepares youths from
all over the world to take up rewarding careers on the seas but
cannot find a place in town to house many of its teaching staff.
Slocum said he had
seen the cost of housing rise and predicted it would rise farther
out of reach of working people. But there was something happening in
town that he found encouraging.
Many of the
well-off people of Castine, not wishing to keep out those of lower
socio-economic status, have undertaken to help people who work in
town live there, too.
“When the cost of
property exceeds the ability of most people, it threatens the
existence of a community,” Slocum said. He was not referring to a
community of buildings, libraries or schools, but of a coming
together in a higher sense—a community of many kinds of people
having a cultural significance and a sense of belonging.
Slocum told of a
$10,000 Community Development Block Grant given to Castine to plan
affordable housing. “This is exciting. It goes to the heart of the
community. A community is a diversity of age, experience, not just
resources or a place to get a nice sandwich. It is the interaction
of people that makes a community,” Slocum said.
“It’s particularly
exciting to see that some of those most interested are not
year-round residents,” Slocum said of the support for affordable
housing. “You would think that someone with a house in Texas and one
in Castine … they wouldn’t be as interested in people of middle or
lower income. But I’m finding they are,” Slocum said.
He spoke of one
summer resident who brought him a 500-page document from Aspen,
Colo., dealing with affordable housing issues in that trendy
community where jet-setters ski in the winter and high-priced shops
hawk creations of Paris and New York clothiers to Hollywood
clientele. The document was meant to help Castine officials in their
quest to provide housing for everyone.
Aspen, at one time, was a working community but as the very
rich discovered its natural blessings and moved in, housing prices
rose so high that few people today can afford to live there. But
Aspen
officials have been looking for a solution and the large three-ring
binder the summer resident brought with him may help provide one for
Castine, as well.
“Coastal Maine is
getting hurt with this issue”, Slocum explained. “If a town like
Castine can have a plan, though, there isn’t a town on the coast
that can’t.”
Castine officials
are working with the Maine State Housing Authority,
Washington-Hancock Community Agency, and many other institutions
trying to find a solution to housing costs. “This represents a
commitment to the future,” Slocum said. “It flies in the face of the
feeling about ‘people from away.’ It’s a powerful statement and a
pleasant surprise.”
Slocum predicted
officials would succeed in finding homes for “many economic levels,”
and in doing so would reverse a 30-year trend.
MMA has begun
planning an apartment complex, which would provide space for
teachers. In January, one Castine selectman expressed outrage that
MMA was planning the complex when the town was experiencing the
worst drought ever. The addition of more people would strain the
town’s resources, he said.
But since then a
solution to the water woes may have been found. Also, John Staples,
chief of staff at MMA, said in January that the academy had only
begun what he described as the concept phase of planning and that a
feasibility study would be required before any decision was made to
proceed on the apartment project.
At that time,
Staples said a year might be required to enter the building phase of
the project, and even then, it is “a big if” the project faces.
Staples said a 40-unit apartment building might help solve the
problem teachers at MMA face. They cannot afford to live in town, he
said, and must commute from other communities. |
