Mount Desert select board unwavering in its support for Heel Way project

This satirical editorial graphic was created by the QSJ using AI

NORTHEAST HARBOR - The select board last night sent a strong message to the seven summer residents suing the town and to the developer of the proposed workforce housing on Heel Way that it will not wane from its 20-year commitment to restore year-round housing for workers.

Every member of the board supported a motion to direct Town Manager Durlin Lunt to tell Mount Desert 365’s new board not to compromise on plans to build six units of affordable housing in the village in the face of opposition from the seven wealthy summer residents.

The vote was in reaction to published comments by MD 365’s president that the new board was putting the project “on the back burner” in a Maine Monitor article entitled, “The hornet’s nest’: How seven wealthy summer residents halted workforce housing on Mount Desert Island.”

Lunt told the select board he was told recently told by an MD 365 board member that changes were being contemplated.

“But I did not get any indication, or at least I didn't pick up, that there was going to be some sort of an adjustment to the project itself by board members.

“What I was most concerned about is that there was also talk about an exchange, that the plaintiffs would be willing to drop the lawsuit.”

“Why would we want that lawsuit dropped at this point?” Lunt asked.

The town already has spent the bulk of the legal fees - $56,000 as reported by the QSJ yesterday - and the chances of defeating the appeal by the plaintiffs in Maine’s Supreme Court “are very high,” Lunt said.

(The QSJ also reported yesterday that the plaintiffs offered $400,000 in cash as well as dropping the lawsuit in exchange to cutting the project to only two units.)

To safeguard the town’s long-term interest, Lunt would very much like a legal precedent.

“We have not only sweat equity in that by changing the ordinances to accommodate that project, but we've also invested a good deal of money defending the Planning Board's decision.

“I think we would want that on the record, that this project is viable, this project is legal. If the case was dropped, we will never know. I think that's a horrible thing.”

In 2004, Mount Desert became among the first towns in Maine to relax density requirements to allow for workforce housing to be built.

MD 365 was created in 2017 to take advantage of that amendment to the land-use ordinance which made it legal for a single dwelling unit to be built on a 5,000-square-foot lot in districts with town sewer service.

Board Chair John B. Macauley reiterated that the town may go after the plaintiffs to recover its legal cost.

“We can’t cave,” member Geoff Wood said.

Lunt said when he grew up in the village the addition of 12 apartments and eight houses would be barely felt in a village of 1,000 residents.

“But now that we're down to, some people say, well under 300, a project that adds 20 units is significant.”

Lunt is scheduled to meet with MD 365’s board this afternoon.