NORTHEAST HARBOR, May 7, 2024 - Vacation rental owners, businesses which cater to tourists and rental brokers swarmed the town meeting tonight and voted 134 to 72 against the proposed ordinance seeking to cap short-term vacation rentals.
“When you are involved in public planning of a space, demand that its social and environmental services are at the forefront of the conversation. Show up to council meetings, and remind your leaders that parks are essential and should be funded as so. Try also to challenge yourself to rethink what is valuable about your parks, and use and improve your parks, on whatever level you can, in the way that you would like to see them working for your community.
Speaking (and thinking) the language that reinforces parks as space for community building gives the power back to the land and the locals.”
This article, like many that are written by this journalist from away, is filled with inaccurate details and is obviously biased to the facts. It seems he thrives on creating division and is a trouble stirrer. The gym wasn't filled with businesses and rental brokers at the meeting. The majority of the over 200 people who filled the gymnasium at MDES to make their voices heard were local, year round residents who have lived here generationally. Most of whom went to that school from k-8. I resent the lies in this article especially from someone from away. Some of us are small business owners and yes, we cater to tourists because this is and has always been a seasonal community that relies on tourism. His anti-tourism rhetoric is typical from someone from away trying to change our community to suit his needs. If you didn't know, there is a National Park here and there will always be tourism. We rely on short term rental income to provide us with affordable housing. None of us are doing it to create wealth. We are trying to survive. We also care more about this island community than any of the folks from away because we want our kids to be able to stay and live here and have the opportunities like we have had to live on this beautiful island. I am an 8th generation Mainer and my 3rd great grandfather brought the lumber to this island on Windjammers to build a lot of these mansions you see today. We have roots. Folks want to move here but complain about affordability. Housing hasn't been affordable here since as far back as I can remember. We were fortunate to buy a house under foreclosure in 2000 and do the work ourselves to improve our property. My husband and I built a small cottage and by renting it to vacation renters, we were then able to build our family home on the property and rent out the old house to a guy year round for a decade now at $800 per month. It also allowed us to buy my parents a home so they could be close to us and we rent that to them for only $1000 per month annually. We need short term rental income to pay for the rising property taxes, insurance, upkeep and maintenance, etc. Nobody is getting rich here. There is a problem with people from away buying up homes but nobody wants more regulations and permits imposed on the property of the middle class. That will not solve the affordable housing problem. Logical solutions that we are actually seeing work in other communities are to incentivize property owners to build affordable housing through tax breaks and fixing the zoning to allow for dwellings to be built on our existing properties to be used for year round affordable rentals. Without that, there will never be affordable housing here. Also, everyone should know that of the approximately 500 vacation rental permits in Bar Harbor, a significant number of those permits are owned by local non-profits like COA who have 18 vacation rental permits. Why should they get any when they get significant tax breaks, they get millions each year in endowments and they have the money to build affordable housing to contribute to this community? When the permitting ordinance was passed in Bar Harbor, there was a mad dash for people to get VR permits even if they don't need them or intend to use them. But just in case they ever need them, and that takes away from a family who might need that income to survive here due to the cap on permits. There are many reasons why locals do NOT want this to pass. Just look at Bar Harbor. This ordinance has done nothing to create affordable housing like so many said it would. It's actually driving out small business and when you lose small businesses in a small community like ours, you end up with a lot of corporate investors taking over and creating a resort community. Or in the town of Mount Desert, you will end up with all people from away and you are already seeing so many local middle class families born and raised here being driven out. I would like to correct a statement made by Gail Marshall, because it is also not true. She keeps saying that the enrollment at the local school has gone down significantly and it's a direct result of families not being able to afford to live here. Enrollment is twice it was in the 80's. We also now have a pre-k program at the school that is doing quite well. Fortunately a lot of the families that go to the school are able to still move out of their homes in the summer, and rent them out to afford their homes. Gail is a lawyer married to a doctor so she probably doesn't fall into the middle class bracket. For those of us who are not lawyers married to doctors, but have always relied on tourism for our bread and butter, we sure do want to protect what we have worked so very hard for.
Additionally I really resent the lies in your comment and the arrogance that you think you represent all of us and that you think you can say that you care more than anyone else. We need year round rentals. If you need money rent out your properties to families that need to live here so they don’t have to sit in a line of traffic polluting out air for 2 hours to get here to fix our plumbing or teach our kids !!
I strongly disagree with you. Lincoln Millstein speaks for many of us. You don’t have to be a generational resident to share the value for the Quality of our lives instead making another freaking buck so you can have more exotic vacations or boats or camps or houses. There is much data available to show how short term rental markets ruin communities. You don’t have to look very hard.
According to AOS91, there were 239 students at MDES in 1998. As of this morning, it's at 140. (I couldn't get data before 1998.) There are 645 VR permits in BH, which is the only town in the region which has seen a decline in permits - about 100 fewer than when the regulation was first imposed two years ago. I left you a voicemail but did not get a return call.
Christy please not make excuses for those generational residents who can’t make the effort to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Disingenuous to rag on the 6.6% who actually give a hoot to vote (whether or not you agree with their position). Sheesh.
Put it up to a real vote then. Let’s put it on a ballot so we all get the chance to vote and not just the few people who are able to show up at 6 pm on a Tuesday evening. Let’s see how well it does then.
It was the 93.4 percent of absent voters who abrogated their democratic responsibility in failing to vote for (or against) the referendum. The opposition showed up and voted in their interest. This is generally accepted as intelligent behavior.
"That meant the ordinance was rejected by 6.6 percent of the registered voters in town.
"It is a stark example of how a highly motivated cohort of self-interested residents can take over a town meeting."
Of course, and that's how it should be. People who have a dog in the fight will show up, thank goodness.
If you want to inspire citizen participation, propose a totally useless ordinance gorged with new regulations that does nothing other than antagonize the indigenous populace. Seems that works well.
Who are these "carbet baggers" of whom you speak? Were the "carpet baggers" allowed to vote? I don't think so. I couldn't show up either, but we are in a position where we will probably have to rent our property within a couple of years. We have lived here since 1976. Not interested in acquiring wealth, just being able to pay the ever-expanding property taxes and keep the property in the family. Do I have to rent NOW in order to protect my ability or my children's ability to rent my property in the future? Sorry, that's a non-starter.
Why in heck do you suppose property taxes are skyrocketing???? The reason year rounders can’t afford to live here is because every other house is charging 400$ a night for a bed to sleep in. 😳
Are all these generational residents actually residents? Who is getting to these people who think that they are the targets? Why do they think they will be better off when there is no police force, no ambulance, no restauarnts, no one to turn over their rentals? What dream world are they living in.
When I had to rent out my “generational home” I made a point to rent to a family that lived and worked here and contributed to the year round community for an affordable monthly rent. I did not use it to gain wealth. These people are ruining our community. Taxes go up and up and up and we can no longer afford to live here after 7 freaking generations! People that throw out the word communism when the community makes attempts to put quality of life over greed are Trump copycats.
“When you are involved in public planning of a space, demand that its social and environmental services are at the forefront of the conversation. Show up to council meetings, and remind your leaders that parks are essential and should be funded as so. Try also to challenge yourself to rethink what is valuable about your parks, and use and improve your parks, on whatever level you can, in the way that you would like to see them working for your community.
Speaking (and thinking) the language that reinforces parks as space for community building gives the power back to the land and the locals.”
https://parkspeople.substack.com/p/its-time-to-start-serving-our-communities?pos=0&utm_source=%2Fbrowse%2Frecommendations&utm_medium=reader2
This article, like many that are written by this journalist from away, is filled with inaccurate details and is obviously biased to the facts. It seems he thrives on creating division and is a trouble stirrer. The gym wasn't filled with businesses and rental brokers at the meeting. The majority of the over 200 people who filled the gymnasium at MDES to make their voices heard were local, year round residents who have lived here generationally. Most of whom went to that school from k-8. I resent the lies in this article especially from someone from away. Some of us are small business owners and yes, we cater to tourists because this is and has always been a seasonal community that relies on tourism. His anti-tourism rhetoric is typical from someone from away trying to change our community to suit his needs. If you didn't know, there is a National Park here and there will always be tourism. We rely on short term rental income to provide us with affordable housing. None of us are doing it to create wealth. We are trying to survive. We also care more about this island community than any of the folks from away because we want our kids to be able to stay and live here and have the opportunities like we have had to live on this beautiful island. I am an 8th generation Mainer and my 3rd great grandfather brought the lumber to this island on Windjammers to build a lot of these mansions you see today. We have roots. Folks want to move here but complain about affordability. Housing hasn't been affordable here since as far back as I can remember. We were fortunate to buy a house under foreclosure in 2000 and do the work ourselves to improve our property. My husband and I built a small cottage and by renting it to vacation renters, we were then able to build our family home on the property and rent out the old house to a guy year round for a decade now at $800 per month. It also allowed us to buy my parents a home so they could be close to us and we rent that to them for only $1000 per month annually. We need short term rental income to pay for the rising property taxes, insurance, upkeep and maintenance, etc. Nobody is getting rich here. There is a problem with people from away buying up homes but nobody wants more regulations and permits imposed on the property of the middle class. That will not solve the affordable housing problem. Logical solutions that we are actually seeing work in other communities are to incentivize property owners to build affordable housing through tax breaks and fixing the zoning to allow for dwellings to be built on our existing properties to be used for year round affordable rentals. Without that, there will never be affordable housing here. Also, everyone should know that of the approximately 500 vacation rental permits in Bar Harbor, a significant number of those permits are owned by local non-profits like COA who have 18 vacation rental permits. Why should they get any when they get significant tax breaks, they get millions each year in endowments and they have the money to build affordable housing to contribute to this community? When the permitting ordinance was passed in Bar Harbor, there was a mad dash for people to get VR permits even if they don't need them or intend to use them. But just in case they ever need them, and that takes away from a family who might need that income to survive here due to the cap on permits. There are many reasons why locals do NOT want this to pass. Just look at Bar Harbor. This ordinance has done nothing to create affordable housing like so many said it would. It's actually driving out small business and when you lose small businesses in a small community like ours, you end up with a lot of corporate investors taking over and creating a resort community. Or in the town of Mount Desert, you will end up with all people from away and you are already seeing so many local middle class families born and raised here being driven out. I would like to correct a statement made by Gail Marshall, because it is also not true. She keeps saying that the enrollment at the local school has gone down significantly and it's a direct result of families not being able to afford to live here. Enrollment is twice it was in the 80's. We also now have a pre-k program at the school that is doing quite well. Fortunately a lot of the families that go to the school are able to still move out of their homes in the summer, and rent them out to afford their homes. Gail is a lawyer married to a doctor so she probably doesn't fall into the middle class bracket. For those of us who are not lawyers married to doctors, but have always relied on tourism for our bread and butter, we sure do want to protect what we have worked so very hard for.
Additionally I really resent the lies in your comment and the arrogance that you think you represent all of us and that you think you can say that you care more than anyone else. We need year round rentals. If you need money rent out your properties to families that need to live here so they don’t have to sit in a line of traffic polluting out air for 2 hours to get here to fix our plumbing or teach our kids !!
I strongly disagree with you. Lincoln Millstein speaks for many of us. You don’t have to be a generational resident to share the value for the Quality of our lives instead making another freaking buck so you can have more exotic vacations or boats or camps or houses. There is much data available to show how short term rental markets ruin communities. You don’t have to look very hard.
According to AOS91, there were 239 students at MDES in 1998. As of this morning, it's at 140. (I couldn't get data before 1998.) There are 645 VR permits in BH, which is the only town in the region which has seen a decline in permits - about 100 fewer than when the regulation was first imposed two years ago. I left you a voicemail but did not get a return call.
Thank you for shining a light on these issues! 🙏🙏
If the reasons for not voting are what was stated here then it’s obvious the nay voters didn’t read the actual ordinance.
There’s nothing in this ordinance that prevents owners or inherited properties from renting as long as a rental license is maintained.
It would appear there’s little local concern for the impact of rentals on year round islanders that are becoming priced out of housing.
Christy please not make excuses for those generational residents who can’t make the effort to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Disingenuous to rag on the 6.6% who actually give a hoot to vote (whether or not you agree with their position). Sheesh.
Put it up to a real vote then. Let’s put it on a ballot so we all get the chance to vote and not just the few people who are able to show up at 6 pm on a Tuesday evening. Let’s see how well it does then.
It was the 93.4 percent of absent voters who abrogated their democratic responsibility in failing to vote for (or against) the referendum. The opposition showed up and voted in their interest. This is generally accepted as intelligent behavior.
"That meant the ordinance was rejected by 6.6 percent of the registered voters in town.
"It is a stark example of how a highly motivated cohort of self-interested residents can take over a town meeting."
Of course, and that's how it should be. People who have a dog in the fight will show up, thank goodness.
If you want to inspire citizen participation, propose a totally useless ordinance gorged with new regulations that does nothing other than antagonize the indigenous populace. Seems that works well.
Some of us have reasons we can’t show up and who would have thought there would be so many carpet baggers in my hometown!!
Who are these "carbet baggers" of whom you speak? Were the "carpet baggers" allowed to vote? I don't think so. I couldn't show up either, but we are in a position where we will probably have to rent our property within a couple of years. We have lived here since 1976. Not interested in acquiring wealth, just being able to pay the ever-expanding property taxes and keep the property in the family. Do I have to rent NOW in order to protect my ability or my children's ability to rent my property in the future? Sorry, that's a non-starter.
Why in heck do you suppose property taxes are skyrocketing???? The reason year rounders can’t afford to live here is because every other house is charging 400$ a night for a bed to sleep in. 😳
Are all these generational residents actually residents? Who is getting to these people who think that they are the targets? Why do they think they will be better off when there is no police force, no ambulance, no restauarnts, no one to turn over their rentals? What dream world are they living in.
😳😳😳😢😢😢😢😢
When I had to rent out my “generational home” I made a point to rent to a family that lived and worked here and contributed to the year round community for an affordable monthly rent. I did not use it to gain wealth. These people are ruining our community. Taxes go up and up and up and we can no longer afford to live here after 7 freaking generations! People that throw out the word communism when the community makes attempts to put quality of life over greed are Trump copycats.
People are not paying attention. Someone needs to go a FOIA for who voted (not how they voted)
It is the real estate interests scaring people into thinking they will be unable to rent.
https://substack.perfectunion.us/p/hawaii-moves-to-ban-short-term-rentals