How Deer Isle built workforce housing in speedy fashion while Quietside towns dither
Banker report shines light on Bar Harbor's under investment
DEER ISLE - It went from just another quixotic idea to actually breaking ground in less than two years - 10 units of much needed housing for cops, teachers, first responders, caregivers and the like.
It didn’t happen in time to save the town’s only nursing home with 70 beds from closing in October 2021, after workers could not find affordable housing within a reasonable commute.
But that only fueled the loose collective of publicly spirited citizens who had been working on housing for more than a decade without much success. Then in 2018, they formed the Island Workforce Housing, and lit a fire. IWH gave “fast track” a new meaning.
IWH convinced neighboring towns Stonington and Deer Isle to collaborate. (Phase 2 calls for 10 units in Stonington, and Phase 3 calls for 10 more in an yet-to-be-identified location).
By March 2020, the advent of the pandemic, its organizers were on a tear, raising funds, buttonholing stakeholders and negotiating an important land deal.
With help from the Maine Community Foundation, which found $7,500 in grants from the Belvedere General Charitable Grantmaking Fund and the Emily and William Muir Community Fund II, IWH was able to hire Camoin Associates, which has an office in Scarborough, to study the island’s housing needs.
The firm estimated that as many as 85 rental units were needed.
Two key constituencies were identified: Island workers who cannot afford a home on the island and commute from towns off the island — some as far away as Belfast and Bangor. The other group was those who lived on the island but lived with their parents or paid more than they can afford or moved continually each year to find more affordable rentals.
Camoin showed that year-round rentals were the most in-demand housing and the least available. That is the opposite of virtually all such efforts on MDI, with home ownership as the major benchmark.
The IWH also chose to develop new construction instead of rehabing existing housing. “Trying to find 10 houses all of similar quality, and all at a price point we’re looking for, would be nigh impossible.”
That was a letter to the local paper written by Mike Wood, founder and then chair of IWH.
Wood taught school for three decades in the area and “knew everyone,” said his widow, Nancy Wood. He died in April 2021 of a sudden illness.
“My husband taught three generations of people here,” Nancy Wood said. “He knew all the kids and who the kids were being raised by.”
In October 2019, Wood announced a major breakthrough, an anonymous donor who purchased 43 acres to be the site of the first phase of workforce housing development by IWH. Eventually, a third of that was transferred to an abutter but still left 27 acres on Oliver’s Pond here for the project.
With planning board approval IWH pushed ahead on its first project: to develop five duplex buildings, each containing two 900 square-foot, two-bedroom apartments.
IWH stated, “These rentals will serve members of our local workforce who are making 60-120% of Hancock County’s Area Median Income: A two-person household earning up to $69,000; or a three-person household earning up to $77,640.
“Rents will be income-based, and right now we are projecting that they will be between $700-$1,200 per month, depending on household income.”
In an interview in the Ellsworth American in 2019, Wood said, “We’re thinking of people who don’t have the money or the credit rating to buy land or buy a house,” Wood said. “They can’t find year-round rents because there are so many people who use their housing to do Airbnbs — they make more money in three months than they do renting on a yearly basis.”
“The target renter might be a teacher or someone working for a plumber or at the nursing home or the grocery store who’s currently driving 20 miles to work because they can’t find housing they can afford,” Wood said.
“People who want to set down roots on the island and can’t,” Wood said. “The young person who’s trying to get going.”
IWH had some key advantages, board member Linda Campbell said, including an experienced cadre of volunteers.
They included Peter Roth, a MIT-trained developer with a national reputation in industrial redevelopment who focused most recently on urban mixed-income housing and adaptive reuse.
“So he was very, very experienced, and that, quite frankly, helped tremendously,” said Campbell. “We also have an architect on our board and a land surveyor. We have contractors, we have attorneys … we just have a pretty experienced board in terms of development.
“And we put in a lot of time.”
Wood’s death brought about a second important differentiator which made IWH such a successful model. The reins were handed over to Thirty-somethings, the most aggrieved group of the housing crisis. Nancy and Mike’s daughter, Megan Dewey-Wood who runs the local coffee shop, succeeded her father as chair. She was joined by board member Maggie Kirsch, an architect, and others.
For this generation the housing crisis is existential. It is not some abstract fodder for a blogger or some aging do-gooder who belongs to all the right organizations and sends his $20 checks trusting they will be cashed and serve a greater purpose.
It is a roll-up-the-sleeves engagement which expects the most of volunteerism.
Another lesson from IWH effort was that municipal governments will not solve this problem. But they need to get out of the way.
Deer Isle Town Manager James Fisher said he was originally a member of the workforce housing task force but stepped down because the select board had misgivings about supporting a non-profit which does not pay property taxes.
“They are a 503c3, and the select board is pretty conservative. They like to think the market will solve all the problems,” said Fisher.
That dynamic is being played out on MDI.
Southwest Harbor is holding a select board meeting next week. It continues to argue over one housing unit near Chris’s Pond acquired by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust to help place one deserving family in a workforce friendly house. The argument has gone on for two years, as select member George Jellison, who opposes such housing, is continuing his filibuster.
Tremont’s reactionary select board, reacting to a group of citizens seeking workforce housing remedies, shunted the entire matter to a local land use consultant who had a disastrous engagement in Mount Desert, which shunted its responsibility to a committee filled with commercial and self interested parties.
The Quietside does not have a Mike Wood, or Maggie Kirsch, Linda Campbell or Megan Dewey-Wood stepping up. It certainly does not have a Peter Roth.
Other housing news:
BAR HARBOR - Maine Coast Heritage Trust has donated three acres of land to Island Housing Trust (IHT) to create year-round workforce housing.
It also transferred an acre of land to Acadia National Park with 234 feet of frontage on Northeast Creek and is visible from the canoe launch and overlook on Route 3.
“Northeast Creek and surrounding Fresh Meadow are treasured ecological resources in our community and although this parcel is small, it’s an important piece of the puzzle,” says MCHT senior project manager Misha Mytar. “Most all of our marsh related projects involve numerous stakeholders and yield both ecological and economic benefits for our communities, this project is no different.
The National Park Service is authorized to acquire land by donation, exchange, or purchase for addition to Acadia National Park within the boundary established by law in 1986. MCHT works to acquire privately held land inside Acadia’s legislated boundary as it becomes available from willing sellers.
FOA buys inn to house seasonal park workers
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - Friends of Acadia announced it plans to purchase the Kingsleigh Inn in Southwest Harbor for use as seasonal housing for park employees, according to Piper Curtin of the Islander.
FOA does not foresee any major renovations beyond the addition of appliances to accommodate 10 residents rather than guests, said FOA Executive Director Eric Stiles. The structure currently has eight bedrooms with adjoining bathrooms and a two-bedroom “owners” apartment.
The sale is scheduled to close in mid-March. Once purchased, the building will be managed and operated by the park while FOA remains its owner. Rent, which Stiles predicts will be in the range of $500 to $600 a month, will be paid to the park. And the building will remain on the tax roll.
“This is the first time in the whole history of the National Park Service that a friend’s organization is buying a home that will be used as rental accommodations for seasonal employees,” said Stiles, who has been receiving calls from other national parks asking about FOA’s plans.
The park last year could only hire 116 of 165 seasonal staff positions, including trail workers, lifeguards, interpretive specialists, rangers, janitors, research biologists and visitor use assistants.
To make matters worse, the Island Explorer bus service needs 120 drivers, but could only hire 92 and had to combine routes and end the summer season early due to the lack of drivers. The inn was used the last two years to house seasonal workers at Claremont Hotel.
Amendment to use parking funds gains ground
BAR HARBOR - State Rep Lynne Williams reported that her bill, LD 166, to allow for parking meter funds to be used for “infrastructure cost” and not just for road maintenance has narrowly made it out of committee and is headed to the House and Senate for a vote. This would give Bar Harbor more flexibility to use its $2 million a year revenue from parking meter funds enacted two years ago for more general purposes.
Williams credited Town Council member Jill Goldthwait’s leadership for spearheading this initiative.
Town banker’s presentation shows cost of long-term neglect by Town Council
BAR HARBOR - At first glance, the above slide shows the town to be an excellent investment in the municipal debt market.
While the comic-book speech balloons in yellow may impart a light-hearted way to look at the town’s current debt status, it has ominous signals for those on fixed incomes or those who are squeaking by on rent and other costs.
This is a slide from Joe Cuetara of Moots and Cabot, the town’s banker for debt, who canceled his appearance Thursday night because of travel problems from Boston.
But he did forward his presentation.
It’s snapshot of the town’s marketability from a bond salesman.
But it also exposed a dark side: That the town achieved its high ratings by under borrowing, while allowing infrastructure problems to fester for decades. The town squandered 10 years of the lowest borrowing cost in a generation.
“How long have we known about the woeful condition of the school and our sewers?” asked one elected official.
For most of this millennium, Bar Harbor has been on a short list of municipalities told by the state to repair its broken system dumping storm water into Frenchman Bay.
Finally, in 2022, it put a $43 million bond in front of voters. Now the ratepayer are about to face off with that bond as sewer rates are increasing by 18 percent. (the new rates were not published on the town website. They were sent to the QSJ only after I requested them.)
The $43 million was only a down payment for multiple infrastructure needs - a $60 million tab to build a new school, $26 million for a new high school addition and still-to-come estimates for a new police station.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the market for municipal bonds is extremely volatile:
“After more than a year of investors and traders trying to predict what the Fed will do, heads are spinning even in the muni market. Like other investors, muni bondholders are trying to interpret a barrage of conflicting signals.
“Some managers worry that muni prices don’t fully reflect the possibility of a prolonged recession.”
In short order, the median household in town could be looking at an increase of more than $1,500 in taxes and sewer rates for FY24 and beyond.
“Theoretically, we can keep ratcheting up the amount of income that we squeeze out of that out of that tax base,” said the elected official. “The real concern here is that yeah, we can build the school, yeah, we can fund a new police station. Yeah, we can do all sorts of things. But we are going to gut the town of its middle class, to say nothing of those people who are on the margins, living in what few apartments exist, to fill the jobs that people desperately need, people to take care of your parents in the hospital, people to shovel your sidewalk, so on and so forth. I don't think that's really set in on the council.”
Why does Bar Harbor’s municipal expenses dwarf other towns of similar size?
BAR HARBOR - Pick a town, any town, of similar size in Maine. Every one spends far less than this town.
Using the number cited by the town’s banker, Moors and Cabot, Bar Harbor’s population is slightly more than 5,000 for which it spends $17.5 million annually on municipal services, not including the cost of education which is managed in a separate budget.
A similarly sized coastal tourist town, Camden, spends $10.5 million. An inland town, Poland, with 5,500 residents, spends $8.3 million. And Hampden, a much bigger town outside of Bangor with 7,250 people, spends $13.1 million.
Of course, we all know the difference - Acadia National Park, which has 4 million visits every year.
This has been bugging Council member Joe Minutolo for some time.
“It's really because we have to provide the services for so many people that come and visit us … look at the size of the police department.
“We are so up against the wall financially because we keep dinging the same five thousand people for all the services. It's got to come from the tourist population. We got to spread this over a larger population. So the costs aren't so prohibitive and we just keep driving people out of this town because they can no longer afford to live there.
“Like I've always said the 36-inch sewer main that we're going to be putting in all over this town. That isn't for the guy on Ledgelawn or Spring Street … that's for the tourist population and the hotels.”
In the $43 million storm water and sewer project cited above where all ratepayers are being assessed the same rate increase of 18 percent, there is no surcharge added to hotels and restaurants which require a more robust infrastructure.
Similarly, hauling trash in Bar Harbor is a $1 million cost, and everyone pays the same, no matter how much you produce.
“The guy that's on Ledgelawn is paying the same rate as the restaurant that does 500 covers a night,” Minutolo said.
“I think we need to look at how these fee structures work and make sure that the appropriate people are getting charged the appropriate rates.
Minutolo said he did a comparison with other towns last year.
“I was shocked. A lot of these communities that are not tourist related work on a budget about 50 percent of what we do.
“I looked directly at Camden. When you look at where Camden puts their money; they put it into stuff that the town really appreciates, like their waterfront and their Opera House.
“They really dedicate resources to community things where we're always like putting band aids on our community stuff and throwing all this money at just to make sure our tourist population is safe.
“We have to have more common folks be able to live here. To help fill those jobs. And to bring that portion of the community that gets you balance.”
Minutolo cited the lack of investment in infrastructure.
“It was always trying to keep those tax rates down, like a 3 percent growth.
“That all works for a while, but then it sets you up for this big grenade at the end of the tunnel …
“Look at our school. It’s sad when I hear people say this is a 50-year-old structure up there.
“It's like yeah, so?
“If it was maintained, we wouldn't have these issues. Over time, maybe we could build it into this really nice structure, but now we're caught up against the wall.”
TRIBUTE: Justine Macpherson "Tina" Morris
1944 - 2023
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - Justine “Tina” Ward Macpherson Morris, a loving wife, mother, and grandmother left this earth on Friday February 17th, 2023, at the Mt Desert Island Hospital, surrounded by a deeply caring staff, her dear and true friend Margy Vose and her devoted daughter Helen Tirone and her husband Bradley Tirone.
Tina was born in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan on Friday October 13,1944 to Mr. James G. and Julia E. (LeDoux) Macpherson. Tina grew up in Grosse Point, Michigan and spent her childhood summers at the idyllic Cottage Grove Association on Higgins Lake in central Michigan with her parents and her two sisters. It was here that she founded a love of nature, walking woodland lakeside paths, canoeing on the Au Sable River, and boating on the lake itself.
In 1954 Tina attended the Knox School, a private preparatory school on Long Island, NY and graduated as president of her class. She went on to attend Bennet College in Millbrook, New York, briefly, before she attended secretarial school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was in Boston, in the spring of 1965 that Tina met Thomas D.C. Morris, her future husband. Tom courted Tina in a canoe on the Charles River and they married soon after, on October 16, 1965, in Grosse Point, Michigan.
Tina and Tom resided outside of Philadelphia until 1972 when they moved to Maine with their two eldest children. In this same year, Tina would help Tom found Morris Yachts where she managed the bookkeeping in the early years of the business. In 1974 their third and final child was born. While assisting with the business and raising three children, Tina created a loving home, grew flowers in the backyard and was an avid cook.
In the early eighties Tina completed an interior design course and started her business, Interior Revelations. She had a beautiful sense of design and her creative spirit showed in her detail to aesthetics. She decorated the iconic Historical Registry property, the Claremont Hotel in Southwest Harbor, and the Maine Sea Coast Mission in Bar Harbor during her career. She also traveled by lobster boat out of Bass Harbor to decorate a home on Frenchboro, a job she always spoke of with great fondness and a sense of adventure.
Tina’s decade long tenure at the Southwest Harbor Public Library, included board member and Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Tina was devoted to ensuring access to literature for all. She was an avid reader with floor to ceiling bookcases throughout her home. Poetry was a dear friend to her. Tina was also on the Board of the Maine Sea Coast Mission, an island outreach organization in Bar Harbor, Maine.
While attending to career, board duties and meeting the needs of a growing family Tina was famous for whipping up beautiful gourmet meals for her family and friends. If Tom called from the boat yard at 3:00 P.M. and suddenly had customers needing dinner by 6:00, she never failed to accommodate with perfection. Her hospitality was genuine and never to be forgotten. She made the best blueberry pie ever - known as “spoon pie” for its soft filling.
In Tom’s later years he and Tina had many days of beautiful sailing and cruising along the coast of Maine, as well as, memorable travels to the Bahamas to be with dear friends or to Cascais, Portugal to visit Tom’s family, before he predeceased her at the young age of 68 in 2008. Tina was a caretaker by nature and not only cared for her father, in hospice, in her home but also cared with infinite attention to Tom on his 18-month journey with cancer. Tina’s mother Julia would live next door to Tina, very independently, until her death in 2009 when Tina was at her side at the Mt Desert Island Hospital.
Lastly, Tina loved many canine companions over the years, her last being a Boston Terrier named Sweetie, who she spoiled beyond words and who offered her great comfort in return.
Tina was a warm and generous human being and loved by all who knew her. She will be deeply missed. May she find Tom in heaven and find peace. She is survived by her son Dewitt Cuyler Morris and his wife Cynthia Morris of Aspen, CO., daughters Helen Tirone and her husband Bradley Tirone of Freedom, Maine and Lia Morris and her husband Daniel Siff of Oakland, Maine, as well as eight beautiful grandchildren: Samuel Morris, August Tirone, Sophia Morris, Stella Tirone, Thomas Morris, Owen Siff, Abigail Siff and Charlie Morris. She is also survived by her dear sister and consummate friend Julia Hancock of Naples, Florida, and her children Michelle Hancock and Scott Hancock, sister-in-law Gerd Grace of NY, NY. and her four children Ingrid Grace, Charles Grace, Melissa Grace and Gerd Grace and brother-in-law William Morris of Stonington, CT. She was predeceased by her parents James and Julia Macpherson, sister Pamela Monroe and her husband Thomas D. C. Morris.
Services will be held at a later date.
Those who desire may make contributions in Tina’s memory to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, 2361 Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island, NY 10306 or the Southwest Harbor Library, P.O. Box 157, Southwest Harbor, 04679.
TRIBUTE: Muriel T. Lindquist
1920 - 2023
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - Muriel, 102, passed away peacefully at sunrise on Sunday, February 12, 2023, at her home in Southwest Harbor, with family by her side.
Muriel was born December 16, 1920, in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Aloysius McMahon and Anna (Fitzgerald) McMahon. She had four siblings; Bob, Betty, Natalie, and Jean, all of whom predeceased her.
The McMahons had a vacation home on the Rockaway River in Boonton, New Jersey, where Anna moved the family after the death of Muriel’s father in 1941. Muriel first met “Lindy” (Warren T. Lindquist,) her husband-to-be, there in Boonton as a little girl. The friendship grew throughout their childhood summers together and deepened once Muriel was in Boonton year round.
Muriel was an outstanding student and athlete at both St. Aloysius Academy, class of 1937, in Jersey city, where she was known as “Mac” and Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, class of 1941, where classmates called her “SI” for the stars in her eyes when she spoke about the man she told them would be her husband one day (Yes - Lindy) and where she captained the basketball team, polished her famous dance skills and graduated with honors with a major in biology. Muriel’s intention to follow with medical school was thwarted by her father’s death and the advent of World War II. Little known fact: Muriel was a phlebotomist for a time during “The War.”
World War II necessitated a long-distance romance, but on December 7, 1944, Muriel and Lindy finally married at Fort Benning, Georgia, during Lindy’s brief leave while transferring from the Pacific to Paris, France.
After the War, Muriel and Lindy started their family; living first in Boonton, then briefly in Long Island, New York, before settling in Millwood, New York, where they raised their 10 children. Muriel’s siblings lived nearby for the early years of raising their families, allowing for close friendships among their children,” the cousins,” which continue today. Muriel’s Thanksgiving tables often included 30 or more. All family.
Family vacations in Seal Harbor, Maine, started soon after, in the summer of 1949, and Muriel and Lindy made it their year-round home in 1974. In Seal Harbor, they became members of the Harbor Club and the Seal Harbor Yacht Club and made many lifelong friends.
During her many years in Seal Harbor, Muriel volunteered at the Wild Gardens of Acadia and supported several local organizations, again making friends for life. In her 60s, she joined her good friend and nascent farmer in manually clearing pasture with her own chainsaw, attending “cattle school” together and eventually breeding national award-winning Simmental cattle.
After Lindy’s death in 2003, Muriel moved across the island to Southwest Harbor where she had year-round family and lived until her death. Until late into her 10th decade Muriel traveled the world far and wide, with some of her most exotic trips coming in her 80s and 90s. Her adventures took her canoeing down the Allagash, camping out with friends on St. John, USVI, sailing the St. Lawrence, cruising on the Amazon, exploring city and country in Chile, visiting Morocco, Paris and so many other exciting ports of call.
In 2014, Muriel was joined at her home in Southwest Harbor by her daughter Diana (Dizey) Lindquist, who was her devoted companion and caregiver. The last several years, Connie Tinker came into their lives as a loving friend and invaluable caregiver. Together, they gave Muriel a comfortable and contented ending to her remarkable life. All of Muriel’s children and so many friends and helpers kept life interesting for Muriel in her waning years and she loved and appreciated them all.
Muriel was predeceased by her husband, Warren T. Lindquist, as well as by her parents, Aloysius and Anna McMahon and siblings Robert McMahon (Barbara,) Margaret Elizabeth Corrigan (Edward,) Natalie Tansey (Robert) and Jean. She is survived by son Michael; son John (Kathleen); son David (Alice Kearins); daughter Joanne (Thomas) Bresnahan; son Brian (David Schmidt); daughter Diana; son Peter (Devereux Hopkins); daughter Nancy (Jim) O’Neal; son James (Elizabeth G.); son Eric (Robin); grandchildren Heather, Tana, Marilyn, Erika, Dana, Sarah, Bekka, Jesse, Karin, Daniel, Anna, and Robert; and great grandchildren Danielle, Damien, Lita, Lilly, Patrick, Elise, Meara, Murielle, Quentin and Aidan.
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Friends in Action, PO Box 1446, Ellsworth, ME 04605, The Mt. Desert Land and Garden Preserve, PO Box 208, Seal Harbor, ME 04675; or to the charity of your choice. No services are planned. The family will have a private celebration of Muriel’s life at a later date.
Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com