Bangor Daily News: they helped create a Maine island's housing shortage. Now they're easing it.
The BDN visited North Haven as the first South Shore Road homes neared completion: summer residents donating land and money, a lottery for year-round buyers, and a boatyard renting tiny homes to keep its crew.
The Bangor Daily News feature is the clearest outside account of how NHSH works. A few things it captured:
- The typical North Haven home is valued around $700,000, and homes on the market start at about $1.5 million.
- The five South Shore Road homes are being built without state or federal construction subsidy, funded by donated land and private gifts.
- Buyers are qualified year-round residents earning up to 200% of the Knox County median (about $183,000 for a family of four), chosen by lottery, with a covenant that keeps the home in the year-round community when it is resold.
- Employers are improvising in the meantime: the boatyard rents three tiny homes to seasonal crew, and the town had trouble hiring a part-time clerk.
Read the full story at the link below.
Source: Bangor Daily News
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