Camden Planning Board to hold public hearing on bold ordinance changes to accommodate denser housing
CAMDEN — The Camden Planning Board is to convene this evening, July 20, and hold a public hearing on ordinance amendments that comply with Maine’s 2021 law mandating municipalities to encourage affordable housing.
The meeting begins at 5 p.m. in the French Conference Room on Washington Street. It is a hybrid meeting, with a Zoom link.
It will also be streamed live to watch at YouTube.
The entire meeting packet, with proposed ordinance changes, including reducing minimum lot per dwelling unit density, is available to read here.
A premeeting memo from Camden Planning Shenley Neely reads:
Public Hearings for State-Mandated Housing Rules
To alleviate housing affordability issues in Maine, the State of Maine is now requiring towns and cities to increase the housing density allowed by their zoning ordinance. The Board has held several workshops on these new requirements, most recently on May 4th, May 18th, and July 6, 2023.
Per the new law, there are three approaches to implementing the required changes of allowing increased housing densities in all towns and municipalities. These are:
#1. Require municipalities to allow additional units on lots zoned for single-family homes;
#2. Require municipalities to allow at least one accessory dwelling unit on lots with existing single-family homes; and
#3. Require municipalities to allow 2 1⁄2 times the base density of currently allowed housing units for developments, in certain identified “growth areas”, if the development meets the definition of “affordability”.
The proposed ordinance changes before you tonight implement #1 and #3 of the above-required approaches. As discussed at our workshops, a consensus was reached that the best way to implement approach #3 was to create an Affordable Housing Overlay Zone (AHOZ). Implementation of #1 included changes to the Space and Bulk Standards Table for each applicable zoning district, to allow for the increased densities if other existing requirements (except for increased parking) are met (such as setbacks, lot coverage, shoreland zoning, subdivision ordinances, etc.).
