Winter Updates

The Musson Group is pleased to announce that the MDI Housing Solutions Initiative was selected for another Maine Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) Housing Opportunity Program (HOP) grant. Thank you to all of the housing solutions partners out there that provided letters of support for this work! The awarding of this grant helps us continue building off of the great energy and ideas participants brought to the 2023 and 2024 MDI Housing Summits.

Projects proposed in this grant support the three "Action Areas" that frame the MDI Housing Solutions Initiative:

1.      Identification of new and creative funding mechanisms that support housing development;

2.      Improving communication and collaboration between policy-makers and partners; and

3.      Creating a common understanding of housing needs and shared solutions through engagement and education.

Since the MDI Housing Solutions Summit in March 2024, many new housing solutions projects have launched and existing projects continue to make great progress, including but not limited to:

• Creation and delivery of a “Community Conversations” speaker series with town libraries and the MDI Historical Society to discuss historic precedent for island-wide decision-making around challenging topics;

• Development of an MDI Housing Opportunities Map analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that will become a reference tool for regional municipalities;

• Production of a Mount Desert Island and Acadia Region Housing Study to identify housing production goals at regional and town-level scale;

• Facilitation of League of Towns and Elected Leaders meetings to identify shared challenges, priorities, and opportunities to work collaboratively at a regional scale;

• Ordinance amendments to help increase opportunities for housing development;

• Progress on new housing development, such as the Mount Desert 365 Summit Road project, the Island Housing Trust’s Ripples Hill Phase 3, and the YWCA of Mount Desert Island’s Hamilton Station;

• Production of a 2024 MDI Housing Solutions Summit summary report; and

• Planning of a 2025 Mount Desert Island and Acadia Region Housing Solutions event.

Future housing solutions work planned and underway includes:

• Community Education: Continued collaborative work with area non-profits to facilitate community discussions about coalition-building around housing, economic development, and regenerative tourism; a regional housing summit meeting in the fall of 2025; and the implementation of the MDI Housing Opportunities GIS Analysis through the creation of new policy tools for housing.

• Municipal Planning and Policy: Continued facilitation of League of Towns and Elected Leaders meetings, along with a regional strategic planning effort around transportation, housing, and economic development; continued Municipal land use ordinance reviews to identify barriers to housing production and strategies for overcoming those barriers.

• Pre-Development Support: Coordination of pre-development technical assistance to identify opportunities for future housing development on select parcels in our region.

If you are eager to be more involved or have a great housing solution idea to share, please reach out. As we said last year, this is an experiment: If we come together to address this interconnected issue, we will come up with locally responsive solutions; and if we create a collective understanding about the complexities and nuances of housing in this region, we can create a more constructive narrative about how we make progress.

Thanks for your participation in this effort!