Housing

Angus King III has built housing that was actually affordable for thousands of people in a number of states, and he’s focused on bringing that expertise and ability to solve the high cost of housing here in Maine. As the only candidate with that kind of experience, his emergency housing plan will cut red tape, support local communities, spur innovation, and expand housing across all income levels

As Governor, he will declare a Housing Emergency and implement the Charlie Plan, named for his grandfather Charlie Hazard, who fought in WWII and worked for much of his career at Maine State Housing. Building homes and training workers was key to the post-WWII recovery, and it will be key again today. 

1. A Statewide Commitment

• A Commitment to Build: Build 10,000 homes per year by end of first-term—with the data to prove it— across all income levels, which will lower housing costs and property taxes for all Mainers.
• Mainers Make Do: We have some of the oldest housing stock in the country, and with a shortage of new homes or nursing homes, we need to support weatherization and renovation to lower costs and help aging in place, improving quality of life for Mainers 
• Housing First: Prevent chronic homelessness through getting people into housing quickly, then assessing and addressing needs. If we don’t get people into housing, outcomes are worse for them and costs are higher for all of us: shelters are twice as expensive, jails are four times the cost, and hospitals are over 20 times more expensive. Let’s break down silos and do what’s best for our most vulnerable and for us. 

2. Support for Towns

• Local Control: Towns should keep agency over how and where to build new housing, with incentives for growth. Let’s support the towns that want help with state resources to help them navigate how to simplify permitting, codes and zoning, eliminating unnecessary delays while preserving standards and quality of life. 
• Carrots not Sticks: We’ll target revolving infrastructure loan funds along with technical support, using the state’s borrowing power to help towns that want to invest in housing—to reward towns that are developing housing—as well as to support re-use of existing buildings. We’ll also encourage productive use of state and town-owned land to help solve this challenge.

3. Lowering Barriers and Costs

• Lower Cost through Urgency and Speed: We can improve the  process so it isn’t more expensive to build affordable housing than it is to build market rate housing. Our state agencies aren’t aligned today and so projects get hung up in any number of places, without any coordination. A common goal with a real target and accountability will get the state focused on getting to yes rather than getting mired in process, and get more projects moving. Time always adds costs, and we need to help.  
• Get Out of Our Own Way: Let’s cut outdated red tape, and find more ways  to get to yes on housing. We’ll implement a top to bottom review of building codes and zoning laws—Maine ranks among the worst in the nation for complexity in a time when we need common sense. There are innovations and improvements being used across the country and around the world that we should deploy here, and quickly.

4. Raising Our Game

• Be Smart: We will incentivize “smart” growth, greater density and walkable housing, in line with climate, anti-sprawl and transportation goals. We should abandon the plank of our party platform that suggests building on the “outskirts” of towns, which leads to sprawl.
• Innovate: Other states have committed to support modular and manufactured housing, but Maine keeps making it harder and that has to change. We should also help enable 3D printed homes (which can be up to 30% cheaper), and support innovations on materials like TimberHP, design like ZeroEnergy Homes,, and finance through Maine State Housing.
• Strong Maine, Stronger Workforce: We must enhance training for middle and high school kids—too many critical jobs are unfilled today, while too many kids don’t think opportunity exists. Let’s engage schools, build on the work that the Associated General Contractors, Jobs for Maine’s Graduates and others are doing to prepare kids and help fill our pipeline of good-paying careers in the trades. My Back to Being the Best plan for education reform here in Maine gives more details around how we do it and the importance of training exposure early on for kids. We need to restore the dignity of work, and train our kids for it too.