MAINE MONITOR • October 12, 2024
Some of Maine’s bucolic landscape might soon be ceded to help meet the state’s desperate demand for housing. A new bi-partisan bill introduced in September by U.S. Senators Angus King (I-ME) would pour an additional $200 million into an existing federal program to incentivize rural property owners to build rental housing on their land. A study commissioned by Gov. Mills and MaineHousing found that Maine will need upwards of an additional 84,000 new housing units by 2030. Maine’s already sparse farmland is under significant threat. According to American Farmland Trust, from 2001 to 2016, 17,000 acres of Maine’s agricultural land were developed or compromised, converted to residential or commercial use. The converted land could have generated $10 million in annual revenues had it stayed as farmland.