The Boothbay Regional Development Corporation has dropped the language of “affordable ” housing in describing the massive housing project on the peninsula in this Maine Biz article.
In a previous article in the Boothbay Register, the square footage was quoted as 1200 square feet
Average Home Size, Lincoln County, Maine: AI Overview
The average home size in Lincoln County, Maine, is roughly 2,287 square feet. This number is based on data from Realtor.com, which lists a property with those specs for sale in the area. Raleigh Realty’s analysis also indicates that by the early 2020s, average home sizes had reached between 2,200 and 2,300 square feet.
However, the minutes from the Boothbay Planning Board on 10/16/2024 identify the square footage of the twenty “town houses: as 525 square feet for a unit cost of $287,000,
10/16/2024 Boothbay Planning Board Meeting:
The applicant requests approval to develop a Major Subdivision with five 2100 square feet buildings with four condominiums in each building for a total of twenty units
According to Rocket Mortgage:
The question of how much a modular home costs largely depends on several factors. These include the home’s location, size and design, although $80 – $160 per square foot is the standard range.
That does not include owning the land that the units occupy. According to Schedule D of The Boothbay Regional Development Corporation’s 990 filing, the land cost 207,408. The Lincoln County American Rescue Plan Act $300,000 grant assisted in extending sewer and water lines. The land with utilities connected per 137 units costs roughly 3700 per unit. (It is still being stated as 160 units, but they had to give some land for utilities.)
The prefab buildings at 525 square feet cost $42000,00 to 84000.00.
A better deal, affordable for the residents, would be for the non-profit to buy the land, connect the water utilities, and then sell the land to the residents and let the resident construct their building using pre-fab or whatever type of construction they prefer. This would create a community of unique residential units consistent with historical Maine. While HP1498 permits overcrowding in affordable housing, the residents, to avoid overcrowding, could purchase multiple land lots, and the cost could still be less than $287,000 and more spacious and more consistent with the character of the location than the current plan. Since the water supply is already endangered by development, less crowding is better for the future of the peninsula. Town leaders talk about getting water from Bath, but that is not a certainty.
The justification for the non-profit corporation owning the land is to retain the project as low-income housing, which it is not, but even if it were, a system that intentionally discourages those at the bottom of the economy from rising is consequential for the wealth divide. It would be better to encourage upward mobility at the roots of society. If the tenants could purchase multiple plots of land, it would allow room for growth as well as protect against the overcrowding of the land. The overcrowding of the land is a “density bonus” for whoever is profiting from the development, but it is not a bonus for the inhabitants, nor is it necessary or wise on the Boothbay Peninsula with its endangered water supply.