The Island Institute hosted a training on affordable housing in late September of 2019. Three of us from Isle au Haut joined residents of other island and coastal communities and experts in the fields of housing, community planning, and financing to discuss the challenges facing our communities and how we might best approach them. Additional links and presentations from the training can be found here: http://www.islandinstitute.org/program/community-development/leadership

Funding

• Subdivisions/multi-family housing: MSHA has funding available for subdivisions but they generally need to be at least 5 units and are intended for homeownership programs, not rentals. This program provides up to $22,500 per unit to be sold to homebuyers who qualify for the First Home Loan program.
• They are also considering piloting a program for smaller projects but this funding is not yet available.
• Affordable housing bond: Genesis is working on resurrecting the 2010 bond that funded affordable housing on Maine islands. If that becomes available again, it could be used for new construction of a duplex or single-family homes.
• There is no direct funding available to support the purchase of an existing home.
• Small foundation grants (between $5,000-$10,000) are a good supplement to on-island fundraising and other programs. Community banks, etc.

Facilitation

• The training stressed the importance of community engagement and facilitated conversations to spark design ideas and feedback. I feel confident that we have done this well and continue to include community engagement in our process.

ADUs:

• ADUs (accessory dwelling units) are a traditional means of providing seasonal or year-round workforce housing. Think of mother-in-law apartments, guest cottages, etc. Increasingly, ADUs are viewed as a cost-effective way to use the existing housing stock to provide extra housing units where they are needed.
• There are two ways that ADUs could help with the housing shortage. You could build onto an existing structure to create a small ADU, or start with a small, temporary dwelling and expand it to a full, permanent house or keep it as a separate unit that could then be rented.
• Either way, it begins with adopting a permissive zoning ordinance for ADUs. IaH permits "mother-in-law" apartments which are not intended to be rented out to tenants. How do we draw the line here? How could the zoning be amended to permit ADUs for rentals?
• How might we incorporate ADUs into a program to support/encourage them?
• Collective self-build model: could multiple homeowners form a collective to pool resources and save on materials/construction costs?
• Chris Miller gave an insightful presentation on ADUs which is available here: http://www.islandinstitute.org/sites/default/files/ADUs-Midcoast-CMFinal.pdf