By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — By July 2024, Maine towns better have a citizen-approved ordinance in place that is in line with the state’s affordable housing law.

Most municipalities have committees and/or town planners that are working under deadline to be prepared for when LD 2003 becomes law.

The Naples Ordinance Review Committee (ORC) has been rolling up its sleeves and crafting the language for a land use ordinance that will address the requirements of LD 2003. To simplify things, whenever it applied, the proposed ordinance references state law. 

At the core of LD 2003 is finding a method to make housing more affordable. That could be done by building more houses and more multi-units. But in order to do that, towns would have to change laws (ordinances) that prevent more being built in a small space. Municipalities are trying to balance adhering to LD 2003 while protecting groundwater and protecting open space.

ORC Spokesperson Martina Witts spoke at the Naples Board of Selectmen meeting on Monday.

“We need to make these changes now because LD 2003 will be law as of July 1, by state statute, whether or not we make these amendments to our land-use ordinance. It just behooves us to make the changes so that everything is in the right place,” she said.

The board had been given copies of the proposed land-use draft. The document was developed by North Star Planning with the ORC editing it as the process went along. The ORC has met three times to work on the ordinance: Sept. 27, Oct. 18 and in Nov. 14. The next meeting will be held Dec. 20.

“At that meeting, barring any unforeseen circumstances, we will be done with that and we should be ready for public hearing after that meeting,” Witts said, adding, “I’d be surprised if it is not.”

She talked about what had been done to create the document.

“A lot of it is — a large chunk of it was swapping out or adding a definition that is more inline with the state,” she said. 

For example, “we took out what we used to refer to an accessory apartment, and replaced it with accessory dwelling unit so it is parallel with what the state statute uses,” she said.

“We referenced the actual state statute in a few places. For definition and criteria, primarily around the affordable housing density designation, if that is something they are going to do, they have to check state law because it isn’t applicable, you cannot do that density everywhere in town,” Witts said.

“Referencing state statute is not unlike what we do in the ordinance in other places when we talk about stormwater, we reference chapter 500. It is not unusual to reference that state statute, that way you don’t have to write entire verbiage. We don’t have to change our entire land-use ordinance, we just reference the statute.”

The proposed ordinance makes allowances for building more structures in less space — the essence of

“The minimum lot size, we addressed density there. If you want to put two dwellings on a lot, you would need 40,000 SF for each dwelling,” she said. 

“We exercised control of accessory dwelling units. The maximum square footage is 600. Accessory dwelling units can be anywhere in town, except the Shoreland Zone,” she said.

Fortunately, the Shoreland Zone Ordinance limits the numbers of dwelling to protect bodies of water, Witts said. 

“The only place we have control over this kind of mandated law is under accessory dwelling units. We exercised a little bit of control there. We limited the number of days that one of these accessory dwelling units could be rented,” she said.

The ORC debated this detail for a while, starting at 90 days and winding up with 30 days, she said.

“It cannot be used to rent for less than 30 days. Because that is keeping in the spirit of the law, which is up increase housing for Mainer. You have to rent it for at least 30 days,” she said.

She shared some good news. Naples had been forward-thinking about protecting its water bodies.

“We don’t have to change anything in the Shoreland Zone, because our ordinance is more strict. So, we don’t have to make any changes, which is load off,” she said.