More Affordable Housing for Waterville
An editorial in the October 26 Morning Sentinel pointed out that most of Maine desperately needs more affordable housing, presumably including Waterville.
Housing costs in Waterville may be far lower than in Portland, but they are still higher than necessary due in part to exclusionary provisions in the zoning code, which are clearly intended to discourage new multi-unit housing. Waterville's zoning code, at only 100 pages, is a marvel of brevity compared to Portland's 1000 page tome, but it still includes nearly all the standard exclusionary features of most zoning codes nationwide.
If Waterville’s city government wants more affordable housing in the city, they could start by relaxing the more onerous provisions of their zoning code, at little or no cost.
There are at least six changes to Waterville’s zoning code that could reduce the cost of new multi-unit housing, including apartments and condos.
1. Ease Off Street Parking Requirements
All of Waterville’s residential zones require two off street parking spaces per apartment, no matter how small the apartment. Even little studio apartments, as small as 300 square feet, and typically occupied by only one person, are still required to provide two off street parking spaces, which typically require up to 300 square feet each. In other words, the space devoted to parking must be twice the size of a small studio apartment, even if the prospective tenant doesn’t own a car. Since the capital costs for all this parking are included in the overall cost of development, the rent must be high enough to pay for all this parking, even for tenants who don’t own a car.
2. Ease Minimum Land Area Requirements
In case the off street parking minimums are not enough to scare away most developers, the zoning code also includes minimum land area requirements for apartments in all residential zones. For example, even the Res. C zone around Ticonic Street, one of the less expensive parts of the city, requires 3750 square feet of land for each apartment, thus severely limiting the number of apartments allowed on a given lot size, and driving up the cost per apartment.
3. Allow Shared Parking in the downtown commercial zone
At first glance, the requirement for only one off street parking space per apartment in the downtown commercial zone appears to be a concession. But then the code requires that they must be dedicated parking for the tenants. In other words, no shared parking is allowed, where bank customers might use a parking lot during the day, and the tenants of a nearby apartment building might use the spaces overnight and on weekends.
4. Ease Restrictions on Mobile Homes
New Mobile Homes are only allowed in mobile home parks in the rural residential zone in the southern part of the city, beyond Thomas College. Although mobile homes are often viewed as affordable housing, the distant location, over three miles from City Hall, makes it impractical for anyone to commute from there to a job in downtown Waterville without a car. If we add the cost of an additional car to the cost of a mobile home, the total can be higher than for apartments downtown.
5. Allow ADUs, aka “Grannie Flats”
Accessory dwelling units (ADUs), often called “Grannie Flats” should be allowed in single family residential zones. Durango, Colorado, roughly the same size as Waterville, recently changed it’s zoning code to allow Grannie Flats, and expects a significant increase in affordable housing at no cost to the city.
6. Allow new multi-unit housing near clusters of jobs
Waterville’s zoning code disregards where the job clusters are. More new multi-unit housing should be allowed near existing job clusters, like the Hathaway Creative Center, Inland Hospital, the four nursing homes, etc. For example, the Hathaway building now hosts over 400 jobs, but the vacant lot just across Water Street is zoned Commercial C, where no new housing is allowed! Most land around several other job clusters is zoned for either commercial uses or low density residential, so most employees end up living far away, and need a car to get to work. The added cost of the car then eats up much of their take home pay.
To summarize, Waterville could encourage more affordable housing simply by relaxing the more onerous provisions of the zoning code, at little or no cost to the City.
___________________________________________________________________________
Bill Basford is a Maine native, Waterville resident and retired energy engineer, now developing Economic Self Defense plans for state and local governments