How to Build More Housing Social or Otherwise
By Nancy English
On March 17th of this year, the Portland City Council established a group of residents to figure out how to use public resources to get housing built. Maybe there could be a way to build permanently affordable housing. Perhaps with a bond that the City issued, or by using city land, or by any number of different approaches. Thirteen generous souls have volunteered to figure it out, and they comprise the Social Housing Task Force.
‘Forging our own path.’
Councilor Kate Sykes, who represents District 5, is co-chair. She was the driving force behind the creation of the task force. She points to Montgomery County’s program of Social Housing as a prototype. That large and wealthy county around Bethesda, MD, she said, was run by wives of NASA engineers back in the 1980s. They decided to figure out how to affordably house people with county funding.
“There are a lot of small municipalities looking into this,” she said. “My mind has opened to different models.”
Sykes, who calls herself a socialist, said socialists really care about the bottom line. She is pleased that several developers have volunteered to participate, as well as others who struggle to find housing.
City Councilor Sarah Michniewicz, a task force member, said, “If it is possible, it may look different from other examples. We have to be open to forging our own path.”
Co-chair Jon Fetherston, who was a housing commissioner in Massachusetts for fifteen years under succeeding governors, works with veterans’ homelessness initiatives. He is also a reporter for the MaineWire. “I have always been in public service,” he said.
He proposes focusing the task force’s efforts on a specific project of middle-income housing units. “Having a plan and a goal,” he said, can help focus the task force’s work devising a financing model. At the October 22nd, 2025 meeting, he suggested starting with a simple model to make progress in the specifics.
AMI – What is affordable
Discussion at that meeting revolved around devising a mixed income, mixed-unit size rental project. Possibly for persons making between 80 percent to 120 percent of the area median income (AMI).
Many of Portland’s approximately 19,000 rental units are subsidized in various ways. The AMI of almost $78,000 (per HUD) for a single person is used to calculate affordability, with no more than one third of income paid to a landlord. At 100 percent of the AMI, a rent of $2,166 is affordable. Half of the residents of the city make less than the AMI.
According to Zillow, the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment in Portland is $2,075.
Jonathan Culley, who is on the task force, is the developer of the Nightingale and The Casco and owner of Redfern Properties. He said he hopes that the group’s work “leads to real, specific, and actionable recommendations to the City Council that ultimately result in the City using its resources to take a lead role in producing new housing for people who are struggling to find a place they can afford.”
At the October 22nd, 2025 meeting, Culley said cheaper debt, city-owned land, no property taxes if owned by the City, and perhaps funding from the Jill C. Duson Housing Trust Fund would make a huge difference in financing.
Wendy Cherubini, a member of the Portland Urbanist Coalition who sits on the task force, said, “We have an ambitious workplan given the one-year timeline established in the Council Resolution. But of course, that can be amended and task force members are enthusiastic and committed.”
Inclusionary Zoning & Affordability
In 2020, Portland voters approved the Green New Deal. The ballot measure included inclusionary zoning (IZ) requirements to keep some portion of units affordable. In 2022, the IZ portion rose to 25% of units in developments with 10 or more units. The affordability requirement tightened to 80 percent of the AMI from 100 percent.
In a report presented at the September 30th, 2025 meeting from the Portland Planning and Urban Development and Housing and Economic Development Departments, projects with IZ requirements decreased sharply after 2022. Most of the units approved in 2024 were market rate rentals. Many were for renters making 50 and 60 percent of the AMI, financed with Low Income Tax Credit (LITC) loans.
Councilor Sykes called LITC funding expensive and inefficient. She is investigating funding from the issuance of municipal bonds. But is also adamant that Portland’s AAA bond rating, which reduces the interest paid on its bond debt, should not be affected.
A steady stream of funding, possibly a fee on mortgages processed at the Registry of Deeds, is an idea Sykes spoke about at the October 22nd, 2025 meeting.
Task Force member Cullen Ryan, Executive Director of Community Housing of Maine, said, “I am thrilled with the potential to create new and innovative kinds of housing. It is a wonderful group with a wide range of expertise.”
Their next meeting is on November 12th.
