Will other towns copy vacation rental caps? Housing not just a Bar Harbor problem
Tremont citizens go to court; covid at record surge; high season for deer accidents
BAR HARBOR, Nov. 7, 2021 - If you want a clear indicator of the decline of year-round residents on the island, look no further than the drop of enrollment at the high school over the past decade.
Ben Sprague, a vice president at First National Bank who pens the blog The Sunday Morning Post, referenced this decline today.
“According to sources I found online in researching this article, the number of students at MDI High School in 2011 was 571, but today it is 527, a decrease of 7.7% in ten years,” Sprague wrote.
The biggest culprit?
“I have to think the sharp growth in properties that have converted to vacation rentals during that time period is directly linked to the reduction in the number of students at the local high school not to mention the fact that property values on Mount Desert Island have soared in the last ten years, effectively squeezing out a good number of potential young families who would otherwise want to live there.”
Last Tuesday, By a huge margin, 1260-840, voters here created a category of vacation rentals not occupied by owners as primary residences and to disallow the transfer of their registration upon sale of the dwellings, until they decline to 9 percent of the housing stock. They are now double that.
“These new local regulations are significant and will fundamentally impact the Bar Harbor real estate market, “ wrote Sprague. “How did they come up? Well, I spoke to several residents of Bar Harbor this past week and their collective feeling was that people who call Mount Desert Island home have become tired of their neighborhoods turning into a haphazard mix of permanent residents, long-term rentals, and nightly AirBNB’s. In the words of one person I spoke with, ‘People are tired of having a different neighbor every night of the summer.’ ”
So what comes next?
Even if legal action ensues, there is no going back on the fact that nearly two thirds of the citizens who voted Tuesday want vacation rentals to be curbed.
That is a powerful current to beat against, even in the courts.
The town council has been given a huge mandate to cap short-term rentals which most believe comes at the expense of affordable year-round residences. So even if opponents win a round or two in the appeals process, town officials now have a strong hand to play to equalize the playing field for working families against the interest of the tourist industry.
A bigger challenge is in actually making this happen.
Complicating the math is the unexpected surge of applications recently from property owners who have no intention of renting out their units. With 142 applications still pending, this bloc of owners could make it difficult for the town to ever achieve the 9 percent goal. As of Friday there were 655 vacation rentals in town, including about 175 units occupied by owners as their primary residence. Those units (VR1) will now be able to rent for a minimum of two nights, as opposed to four nights for non owner-occupied units (VR2).
As QSJ reported two weeks ago, there is a growing gap of registrations and actual rentals. Airdna.com, which monitors rentals, showed 560 in Bar Harbor on Friday. That 95-unit gap from the 655 total is likely to grow by Dec. 2, when the town stops taking applications. It is doubtful all 142 pending will all be approved by then.
Using the town assessor’s latest number of dwellings - 2,795 - as the denominator, 9 percent would be 252 units. That would be the goal of VR2 units acceptable to the town council.
But if, let’s say, 150 VR2 registrations are held by owners with no intention of ever selling their units - like Ocean Properties, which put up 74 employee housing units to apply for VR registrations. Then the task of achieving 9 percent is daunting because 150 is already 5.3 percent of the housing stock. That would make the actual cap 3.7 percent.
Town planner Michele Gagnon is hoping a new count of the housing stock will put the number above 3,000 dwellings. Jackson Labs alone is adding 24 units.
Furthermore, VR2 owners may find that renting for 30 days, which does not require registration and has less cleaning cost, may be more attractive.
Not just a Bar Harbor problem
MDi towns have a shared economy, despite their tribal tendencies. Affordable housing is an island-wide problem, as is in trash disposal (more on that later).
“The more far-reaching impacts, however, could be felt as other communities look to the restrictions that were just passed in Bar Harbor and perhaps try to emulate them,” Sprague wrote. “Here in Maine alone there has already been discussion about limiting vacation rentals in communities like Portland and in other touristy hot-spots along the coast.”
The lack of any concern from the other MDi towns, which have as many short-term vacation rentals as Bar Harbor, undercuts any effort by the island’s largest town.
Mount Desert, for example, made some noises about the problem a few months ago and assigned it to some faceless committee. According to airdna.com, Mount Desert and its villages have 273 vacation rentals on airbnb.com, vrbo.com and other platforms. Southwest Harbor has 287. Tremont has 137.
There is no effort that QSJ can detect in those towns to tackle the housing challenge posed by non owner-occupied, short-term vacation rentals.
But economics may cure the problem without municipal intervention.
A prescient reader of QSJ pointed out that Ellsworth employers are paying record wages for low-skilled jobs. Walmart is paying $16.50 an hour for many positions. Freshies in Somesville advertised earlier this year for jobs paying $17 an hour.
How long will it take for someone to figure out that they can make the same amount in Ellsworth as on MDi without having to make that 30-minute drive, pay for parking and face a gasoline bill of $50 a week?
How long will it take for a boat mechanic to figure out that he can make the same hourly wage in Winterport, or Stonington, or Hancock, or Sorrento, without the grueling commute to MDi, which can’t even give him reasonable housing.
The crisis upon us
MDi is at a huge disadvantage. This year was not an anomaly.
“While on the surface this could smack of NIMBYism, government regulations are necessary when there is a market failure, and the failure represented by the rise of vacation rentals is that there is not enough housing for residents, workers, and others who make up the year-round lifeblood of a community,” Sprague wrote.
Brace yourself. The worst is yet to come: poor service at restaurants, hardware stores, grocers is just the beginning.
MDi Hospital cannot hire enough clinical staff because they can’t afford to live here.
Police and other core public services are begging for help. Bar Harbor police has had a job posting for a patrolman since May.
The park service cannot staff Acadia to handle the surge of visitors. Its deferred maintenance schedule is not a mirage.
Even core working folks like lobstermen who rise at 4 a.m. and are out by 5. Why would a stern man want to drive an hour to get here, without housing?
“Amid roaring demand for visiting Maine’s coast over the last ten years, which was only heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic as Maine has been correctly perceived as a particularly safe place, the steady trend of properties converting from permanent residences and long-term rentals to nightly stays is not sustainable for the culture and lifeblood of the communities themselves, which is what a majority of Bar Harbor voters seemed to conclude last week,” Sprague stated.
“The legal challenges and copycat ordinances in other communities around Maine and perhaps beyond will be worth monitoring in the months and years ahead to see if policymakers and voters at the ballot box follow Bar Harbor’s lead.”
Third school board member quits in protest of teachers union tactics
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - The most contentious teacher contract negotiation in more than a decade has claimed another seasoned school board member, and it may back fire against the teachers union.
Ingrid Wilbur Kachmar, a key member of the negotiating team who served 13 years on the SWH school board, resigned recently, saying the union’s tactics and misinformation are beyond what is acceptable.
She joined Todd Graham of Mount Desert and board chair and lead negotiator Kristi Losquadro of Bar Harbor who resigned in mid-September.
Graham had served on the Mount Desert School Committee for five and a half years and as chair for the past three years. He said in his Oct. 22 resignation letter that he joined the school board to help “maintain and further elevate our schools’ resources, student achievement, pay scales and work culture for the teachers and staff.”
“In recent months, the mischaracterization and the mistrust of the school board [by the teachers union] have left me frustrated and feeling unwelcomed in the schools that I work to support,” Graham stated. “It saddens me that the process to a better CBA (collective bargaining agreement) and higher wages has created this type of climate. For those reasons, I see the best approach for me to continue serving our schools is to do so as a non-elected official. “
The SWH select board is scheduled Tuesday to discuss replacing Kachmar with resident Michael Sawyer, a former high school trustee who stirred controversy in 2017 when Superintendent Marc Gousse sought to remove him after he missed three consecutive meetings.
Sawyer’s absences resulted in meetings being cancelled due to a lack of a quorum. Selectman George Jellison told the Islander in 2017 that Sawyer may have deliberately sought to scuttle a quorum. Sawyer is fiscally conservative, and when there is no quorum, no expenditures can be approved, the Islander reported Jellison as saying.
Is that what the teachers union intended, to purge experienced school board members and replace them with tight-fisted ideologues?
The line in the sand for the three former members was the filing of a complaint by the union in mid September. Losquadro said the Prohibited Practice Complaint that the teachers association filed with the Maine Labor Relations Board, “which accuses me and my fellow school board volunteers of multiple labor violations, is malicious and misrepresents the facts.”
Tremont citizens seek court intervention to overturn campground changes
TREMONT - What did they know and when did they know it?
The paraphrase from the Watergate hearings in 1973 has a odd relevance to Acadia Wilderness Lodge’s circuitous path to the Planning Board’s conditional approval Monday night.
What was AWL’s strategy for two abutting campgrounds and when did it decide to consolidate them?
The group Concerned Tremont Residents - fresh from its huge victory Tuesday at the town referendum barring the PB action from taking effect until a moratorium on campground development expires Feb. 2 - wants answers and is going to court to seek them. It also will ask the select board to extend the moratorium another 180 days.
First a recap:
In 2019, James and Kenya Hopkins applied and got approval over the protestation of neighbors to build a 11-cabin campground on 1.6 acres of land in the Kelleytown Road subdivision.
On Aug. 8, 2020, without any public knowledge and without Planning Board approval, AWL successfully got Code Enforcement Officer Jesse Dunbar to approve changing the campground, at 38 Kelleytown Road, from 11 cabins to 11 larger yurts.
On Jan. 26, 2021, AWL applied for approval of a 154-unit campground, including 72 RV sites, 42 cabins and 40 self-tenting sites on a 42.7 acre parcel located at 661 Tremont Road, which abuts its smaller campground property to the west. The proposal received immediate and furious blowback from residents.
In September, AWL, claiming it was responding to community concerns, revised the original campground to a “glamping” resort with 55 yurts.
In early October, Amy Tchao, attorney for CTR, learned of the changes to the smaller campground on Kelleytown Road approved by Dunbar. (see above)
She now alleges the CEO “erroneously” authorized a major change on Aug. 8, 2020 from cabins to yurts. She also challenges the CEO’s July 29, 2021 decision to allow AWL to relocate several yurts, expand yurt size and eliminate an office/recreational building, saying that the smaller campground essentially was merged into one large project.
Tchao wants a “meaningful judicial review” from the state superior court but first the matter must go through the town’s appeal board as part of the appellate process. Tchao is asking the appeals board to act quickly so it may take the matter to court.
These changes were part of AWL’s bigger plan for a glamping resort unbekownst to the residents and abutters, Tchao said.
“In July of 2021, AWL held a community meeting with Tremont residents and interested parties to discuss a concept plan of their new AWL 2 Glampground proposal. AWL never mentioned at this meeting any planned connection between the proposed AWL2 Glampground and the adjoining AWL 1 campground that had received initial approval in 2019.
“Then on July 29, 2021, AWL sought and the CEO approved another amendment to the site plan for AWL 1, again, without consulting or informing the Planning Board of that decision. The 2021 Decision authorized AWL to (1) relocate three yurts within AWL 1 to different locations on the site, (2) replace one 452 sq. ft. yurt with what appears to be a 707 sq. ft. yurt, and (3) altogether eliminate the office and recreation building servicing AWL 1’s operations and guests. As a result, the 2021 Decision authorized 6,757 of total square footage for the yurts within AWL 1, which is more than double the total square footage permitted in the Initial Approval (3,320 sq. ft.).”
In conversations, Tchao stated, “The CEO took the position that the 2020 and 2021 Decisions constituted only minor changes from the Initial Approval because there was no proposed increase in the total square footage of the structures.”
But on Monday, in an email reply to a QSJ question, the size of the yurts still appears to be an open question for Dunbar:
“I will be looking into and reviewing the yurt size issue and will make a determination, unfortunately due to being out with Covid and coming back to multiple Planning Board meetings on the current AWL proposal as well as Town Meeting Election tomorrow it is just currently down a ways on my list, but I will get to the issue.”
Who is Mark Good’s daddy?
The Planning Board was markedly unbothered that someone could potentially change specifications without its knowledge after securing a permit.
Chairman Mark Good took extraordinary steps to deliberate AWL’s application ahead of the town-wide vote Tuesday at the behest of the lawyer for the applicant. The vote was taken a half hour before midnight Monday. Good proceeded with only three members, because Geoff Young was out of state and Beth Gott had recused herself through the application process. Good also cleared the calendar of other applications so that the board could serve AWL exclusively.
Since Oct . 27, Good has held four marathon sessions on only the AWL matter which totaled almost 18 hours. The last meeting Monday night took six hours.
The town’s appeals board, meanwhile, has had only one meeting in five years, the last one in 2019 when it upheld the PB approval of the smaller AWL application when Good was the deciding vote to approve.
On its website Acadia Wilderness Lodge is advertising that its yurts may accommodate eight persons in at least four of the yurts. (See below). It doesn’t indicate whether that is for all 11 yurts which would bring its capacity to 88 persons, more than half of the 160-person capacity approved for the larger 55-site campground.
Attorney Tchao said if that is, in fact, what the plan is for the smaller campground, then ground water usage, waste water management and other threshold matters must re-considered.
Also, Tchiao pointed out in the most recent site plan filed by the applicant that the campground office no longer exists. Instead three large yurts have been moved into its space.
“Where are campers going to get their keys when they check in?” She said it was obvious that this is one contiguous campground and that all those campers will be asked to take all their administrative needs to one central office which encompasses both campgrounds.
Footnote:
In a town of only 1,600 persons, a 428-vote bloc is a considerable percentage of the adult population. The vote for the moratorium passed 428-215. Its is more than the votes garnered by any of the current members of the select board. Is CTR a new political force in town?
QSJ asked Lawson Wulsin, former director of a Climate to Thrive, how he squared voting for the largest carbon emitter in Tremont history with his own environmental sensibilities. He did not reply.
November has highest # of deer/car accidents
SOMESVILLE - The peak mating season for deer is approaching, and one of the unfortunate side effects of that is more collisions with them on local roads.
The peak mating season – called a rut – for white-tailed deer is mid to late November. During this time, deer tend to move about more freely, causing an uptick in collisions with vehicles. Collisions with vehicles is second only to hunting in causes of deer mortality, according to Maine police data.
Deer collisions in the fall are enough of a public safety problem that some states have a "Don't veer for deer" driving strategy to help keep drivers safe.
Officers Caleb Mora and Elias Burne compiled the following car/deer crash data for Bar Harbor and Mount Desert, which share police coverage, for the period from June 1, 2018 to November 2, 2021 when there were 233 “reportable” crashes.
A reportable crash is identified as having more than $1,000 in damage and/or the crash involved personal injuries, according to police chief Jim Willis. Non-reportable are everything under the $1.000 damage amount with no injuries.
Non-Reportable crashes accounted for 50 percent more crashes – about 116 more than the 233 reported crashes. The district has a program to alert persons interested in venison to retrieve the carcass, the Dead Deer List, which has 27 in Bar Harbor and 29 in Mount Desert.
Here is the official data:
Reportable: 233
Year:
2018: 47
2019: 78
2020: 67
2021: 41(so far)
Month:
January: 12
February: 9
March: 2
April: 10
May: 18
June: 28
July: 20
August: 11
September: 29
October: 31
November: 42
December: 20
Covid surge continues; October worst month
BAR HARBOR - October was the worst month for the Covid-19 surge on MDi since the pandemic began.
A total of 35 cases were reported by MDi Hospital. In September there were 30, and August had 23. The 88 cases over this three-month period is by far the worst stretch for the island which was a relatively safe place until last summer. A record number of tourists and unvaccinated persons were the major cause of the surge.
Since the pandemic began, the hospital has reported 217 positive tests, with 17 of folks not from Hancock County (tourists). That latter number has not increased in two weeks no doubt because tourism has slackened.
The Islander’s Dick Broom reported that cases of COVID-19 were identified Wednesday in six of the nine schools in the Mount Desert Island Regional School System, and Tremont Consolidated School has been closed to students until Monday.
The other schools with new positive cases are Conners Emerson in Bar Harbor, Mount Desert Elementary, Pemetic Elementary in Southwest Harbor, Trenton Elementary and MDI High School, he reported.
COVID cases also have been detected recently in the Cranberry Isles and Swan’s Island elementary schools.
Superintendent Marc Gousse announced the discovery of the new cases and the closing of Tremont Consolidated in an email letter to parents Wednesday night.
“Soon, vaccinations will be available to students ages 5-11; we are working closely with MDI Hospital to coordinate clinics this month,” he said.
Gousse urged those who are eligible to receive a vaccine or booster to do so as soon as possible.
Trash, everywhere on MDi, up 20 percent
SOMESVILLE - MDi’s four towns are on pace to generate more than 10,000 tons of trash, a 20 percent increase over last year, almost as much as the entire City of Bangor.
The 2021 total for Bar Harbor, Tremont, Southwest Harbor and Mount Desert, as of the end of September, was 8,035 tons, compared with 6,422 in 2020 for the same period, according to Michael Carroll, executive director of the Municipal Review Committee, the omnibus agency which manages the trash for 115 towns.
Last year’s fourth quarter total was 2,126 tons.
The Islander reported that Rotary Club members have been volunteering to pick up trash and litter in Bar Harbor.
Portland, the largest municipality in Maine with 67,000 residents, is on pace to produce 14,906 tons. The difference is Portland has a well-run municipal solid waste management program with more than 5,000 tons going to Ecomaine’s recycling centers.
Bar Harbor is the only town recycling in an expensive arrangement with Casella Disposal, a Waste Management company. All other MDi trash has been going straight to landfill, or to an incinerator in Orrington when it is able to handle the trash. The Hampden recycling plant which promised to handle the trash from 115 towns in the region with environmentally sound processes has now been closed for almost 19 months since the operator went into receivership.
Mount Desert bears an inordinate responsibility in this fiasco, because its public works director, Tony Smith, is a member of the board of the Municipal Resource Committee which selected the original operator which is now in receivership and the current named operator who has never been to get financing.
Yet the select board praised Smith for his updates Monday. “Tony is on it and good with these reports, I’ll tell ya,” said member Wendy Littlefield. Martha Dudman, who asked Smith for recycling alternatives in July, said she was looking forward to his recommendations at the December select board meeting. DECEMBER!
A spokesman for Ecomaine, the single most successful recycler in Maine, said Ecomaine stands ready to assist any MDi town with interim solutions but that she has never been asked by Smith for any information.
Smith stated in his memo that he’s ruled out several options because of cost and other considerations. Why is Smith the sole arbiter of cost on a such a weighty matter? The public works director in Bar Harbor, Bethany Leavitt, scrupulously told the town council that the interim recycling options were expensive, and the council voted to proceed. Members of the council said no matter what the cost, the cost to the environmental was much higher.
QSJ asked Smith last week for data on trash going to landfills and got no replies.
QSJ also would like to have asked him about his conflicted roles. Does the MRC take in less revenue because towns pay according to tonnage? Would an interim recycling arrangement mean less revenue for the MRC?
There are not a lot of options for an interim recycling solution. Why is Smith taking five months to respond?
QSJ emailed the entire select board for comment. Littlefield wrote, “I’m not sure I’d be the right one to talk to you. Other than what I have in our board packet I don’t really know much.”
QSJ talked to Geoff Wood and Martha Dudman. Both agreed more needs to be done for residents on providing interim solutions.
Select chair John Macauley has never returned any of QSJ’s emails. Matt Hart refused to take questions from QSJ for publication, obviously still smarting from a column criticizing his “cavalier” attitude toward the trash crisis on MDi.
SWH select board mulls closing of public restrooms
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - The interim town manager is recommending closing the restrooms behind the small park on Main Street this winter.
“Ever since their construction in 2015, we have been having trouble with the public restrooms near Veteran’s Park," Dana Reed wrote in a memo to the select board.
“Each winter we have heating system failures, repeated freeze-ups, excessive fuel costs and inordinate maintenance expenses, especially in light of the very limited use they receive in the winter.
“As a result, staff has recommended, and I concur, that it would be best to close them for the winter.”
Lincoln’s Log
QSJ was invited as guest speaker in Acadia Senior College’s Food for Thought program No. 19. Bring your questions and comments. Here is the flyer:
Soup kitchen opens winter hours
SOUTHWEST HARBOR– Common Good Soup Kitchen served its first Sunday Popover breakfast today. Executive Director, Laurie Ward said, “we are looking forward to being open to the community. We have not been open in this way since Thursday March 12, 2020. We are thankful to the dedicated staff and volunteers who have pulled together to make this safe reopening possible. Common Good Soup Kitchen will also be changing our food pantry days and hours to the first and third Sundays from 12:30-2pm. We look forward to returning to our original pantry format. Please direct questions to Laurie Ward 207-479-5313.”