Dive Brief:
- Maine passed three laws in June that aim to make it easier to build multifamily and affordable homes and accessory dwelling units — part of the state’s effort to increase its housing stock.
- The new laws allow residential developments in commercially zoned districts, ban mandatory parking minimums in state and municipal building codes and require cities to allow affordable housing developments to exceed local height restrictions, among other measures.
- The changes are relatively small but could have a big effect on housing affordability in the state over time, said James Siodla, an associate professor of economics at Colby College in Maine.
Dive Insight:
Maine is among a growing number of states and cities that have attempted to address a lack of available units by loosening zoning and land use requirements, making it easier to build multifamily and affordable housing.
Last month, California significantly scaled back restrictive environmental laws that often delayed or stopped multifamily housing projects. Montana passed a law this year that removes multifamily parking mandates and makes it easier to build ADUs and multifamily housing.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order in May that tied the distribution of more than $100 million in state funding to whether cities and towns complied with housing reform laws that passed in 2024 and 2025, which included allowing for denser housing in communities served by public transit.
Massachusetts similarly passed a law in 2021 requiring cities and towns within the state’s transit system service area to amend their zoning laws to allow multifamily housing.
Maine needs to build roughly 84,000 homes by 2030 to catch up with historic underproduction and meet its needs, a 2023 state report projected.
Among the laws passed in Maine last month to help spur new development is a legislative package that allows up to four accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, to be constructed on properties located in “designated growth areas” and up to two dwelling units per lot on properties outside those areas.
ADUs add to the housing stock, reduce competition in the rental market and decrease housing prices, said Siodla.
“ADUs are a promising avenue for increasing the housing stock,” he said. “Anything that reduces the bureaucratic steps associated with planning and building an ADU can only help to incentivize their construction.”
That law also allows affordable housing developments to exceed local height restrictions by up to 14 feet. It also bans municipalities from enacting ordinances that limit residential development in designated growth areas and from enforcing minimum lot size requirements greater than 5,000 square feet per dwelling unit, among other measures.
Another law bans municipalities from prohibiting residential developments on lots zoned for commercial use. And a third law bans the state and municipalities from requiring builders to include a certain number of parking spaces for new developments.
Eliminating parking minimums would allow for more housing density and make more land available for housing development, said Siodla. “Removing these minimums will allow housing developers to decide what is the right amount of parking to allocate,” he said. “If they get it wrong, they lose money, which provides an incentive to know what the demand is.”
While the new laws are helpful, they alone are not enough to meet the state’s housing production needs, said Siodla. “I think these laws are movements in the right direction for making housing more affordable,” he said. “But more needs to be done.
