Maine is experiencing a housing shortage to the tune of more than 80,000 homes. Maine’s housing woes aren’t unique; they reflect the plight of communities across America that are reeling from the damage decades of overly restrictive zoning and NIMBYism have caused.
Maine’s housing shortage grew over several decades. From 2010 to 2019, fewer homes were built in the Pine Tree State than in any other decade since the 1960s, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. At the same time, many communities enacted zoning restrictions, height restrictions, lot coverage requirements, and more that have all but banned denser types of housing (such as duplexes, townhomes, or garden apartments). Those same types of housing are now in significant need.
Housing development has picked up since the COVID-19 pandemic, but developers are running into significant problems with NIMBYs (individuals who generally oppose development in their backyards). In a state where residents have a significant say over what’s built in their communities, NIMBY groups have stopped numerous housing developments from getting constructed. In March, Cumberland residents overwhelmingly blocked a 107-unit apartment complex meant for workers and seniors. The same day, Kingfield voters shot down a 45-unit workforce housing development by a two-thirds vote. This month, Wells voters passed a temporary ban on building large housing projects and expanding existing ones by a vote of 980-82.
Local groups have also stood in the way of state-level efforts to fix housing shortages. Two years ago, Maine enacted a set of reforms meant to encourage more housing development. The legislation required communities to allow for greater density in areas previously zoned only for single-family homes in the form of accessory dwelling units. But almost immediately the reforms faced local opposition.
What’s happening in Maine is a microcosm of the challenges communities face across the country. Like Maine, decades of communities limiting housing have left towns, cities, and states across the nation without enough homes to meet today’s demand. And just like Maine, NIMBYism and local opposition are holding back state-level efforts to address the problem. Housing prices have skyrocketed as a result, locking entire groups out of accessing a major part of the American Dream: homeownership.
From Minnesota, to Texas, to Virginia, and beyond, NIMBY groups have filed lawsuits to stop zoning reforms. In Montana—whose reforms mirror those passed in Maine—NIMBY groups sued claiming the state’s zoning reforms violate their constitutional rights. The Montana Supreme Court will decide whether that’s true, but in May, the Institute for Justice (IJ) filed a brief in the case arguing that the reforms can’t violate people’s rights because they restrict no one’s rights. Instead, they restore rights to every Montanan that’ve been eroded away for more than a century.
The predicament Maine finds itself in resembles the quagmire countless other communities are stuck in. Decades of overly restrictive rules limited housing development to a point where millions of Americans are now shut out from owning a home. NIMBY groups continue to stifle efforts to address housing shortages in their communities through opposition and lawsuits. States like Maine show that while progress is being made, plenty of work is left to be done to undo the damage decades of overzoning have caused.
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