The Democratic and Republican candidates vying for the Blaine House have — perhaps unsurprisingly — offered different takes on Maine’s housing challenges.
However, almost everyone seems to acknowledge the problem, and agrees that Maine is grappling with high demand and limited housing supply. A state-commissioned analysis finds that Maine needs about 80,000 homes by the end of the decade to meet current and future needs.
For most of the Republican field, cutting regulatory red tape and bureaucracy is a focal point in tackling Maine’s housing shortage. The ideas range from creating a permitting tool powered by artificial intelligence to establishing a state version of the “Department of Government Efficiency” to weed out unnecessary regulations that slow down housing development.
Democrats running for governor have identified burdensome regulations as a priority as well, but many said they see state-backed programs or bonds as part of the housing solution.
Addressing the property tax burden on Mainers is another priority for many of the Republican gubernatorial candidates. Like a few of the Democrats, some have suggested they would expand the homestead exemption. Others in the Republican field have said they would work to eliminate property taxes altogether.
The following summaries come from various Maine Public interviews, written responses to our candidate questionnaires or specific housing policy questions, the candidates’ websites and a gubernatorial forum on housing, which was held by the Rental Alliance of Southern Maine in April.
You can read our coverage of what the Democratic gubernatorial candidates are proposing on housing here.
Jonathan Bush
On his campaign website, Bush said he will make Maine the “easiest place in America to build more homes.” He suggests creating a master plan for every town to adopt that will make it easier for families and builders to develop more housing.
And he pledged to cut red tape and address permitting delays.
“Housing seems to be almost a greatest hits list of failed Democratic policies,” Bush said during an April 28 gubernatorial forum held by the Rental Housing Alliance of Southern Maine. “With environmentalism posing as a reason to keep people out of housing [and] social justice posing as a reason to keep people out of housing, instead of focusing on, I don’t know, housing. I believe that I’m the candidate that can wake up Maine’s economy by cutting back the absurd bloat on landlords and every other business that is no longer in Maine.”
Bush, who started a health technology company, has also vowed to make Maine the easiest state in the nation to start and run a business.
“Property taxes are going through the roof because the businesses that would have paid into the pool aren’t there anymore, so more and more go onto the homes and rental properties,” he said during the RHA housing forum.
Bobby Charles
Charles sees over regulation and red tape, inflation and a shortage of talent in the building trades as driving challenges facing Maine and its housing market.
“For too long, state and local regulations have artificially inflated development costs and slowed down new construction, making it nearly impossible for supply to keep pace with demand,” he said in a series of written responses provided to Maine Public.
He said he looks to other states for successful “free-market solutions” that have been implemented by conservative governors as a model for what Maine could accomplish. Specifically, he mentions Montana and the work done under Gov. Greg Gianforte to cut regulatory red tape, streamline local subdivision reviews and promote flexible zoning policies.
“As governor, I will push for comprehensive regulatory relief, reducing unnecessary building code bottlenecks and fast-tracking permitting processes,” Charles said in a written statement.
On his campaign website, Charles said he would expand the state’s homestead exemption for property owners. The program currently allows homeowners to claim up to a $25,000 reduction in the value of their residence. Older Mainers, veterans and first-time homebuyers would receive the biggest increases, he said.
To pay for it, Charles said the state will cut spending.
“Specifically, by aggressively auditing state programs and tackling systemic corruption, waste and non-compete contracting within our Medicaid and state welfare systems, we will save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that can be redirected right back into the pockets of Maine homeowners,” he said in a statement.
Charles also wants to reform Maine’s revenue sharing formula and suggested that he would incentivize towns to lower their property tax rates and “manage their budgets responsibly.”
David Jones
Jones, who touts his experience as a contractor, broker and owner of F.O. Bailey Real Estate, joins his fellow Republican candidates in calling for regulatory reforms to speed up housing construction and eliminate unnecessary barriers to development.
“I’ve built thousands of homes, and I stopped building. Why? Because I got tired of the bureaucratic red tape. I got tired of the nonsense,” Jones said during the RHA gubernatorial forum. “What we need in Maine is a commonsense approach… a CEO. You know what a CEO does? He takes good ideas and he implements them, and he takes bad ideas and he gets rid of them.”
On his campaign website, he said he supports a statewide audit of existing housing grant programs to “ensure taxpayer dollars are used effectively to increase affordable housing.”
Jones said he wants to eliminate property taxes on Mainers’ primary residences.
“[I’m] traveling all over the state, talking to people every day, and what I see is that we have generational homes, older people. They cannot afford to stay in their homes,” Jones said during a Maine Public interview.
To offset the elimination of property taxes, Jones said he would launch “David’s Office of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE. The office would be responsible for eliminating government waste, with the savings funneled to municipalities to help them cover local school costs, he said.
Garrett Mason
In an interview with Maine Public, Mason described Maine’s housing market and home affordability challenges as one of the larger problems facing the state.
Mason was a state legislator for eight years and served as Maine Senate majority leader. He and his wife own a company that builds small homes.
If elected, Mason said he would meet with banks and credit unions to discuss modeling mortgages after home loan programs sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs. VA home loans, which are only offered to qualified veterans, have competitive interest rates and generally do not require a down payment or private mortgage insurance. They’re also portable.
“I think that we should have options like for people who maybe aren’t veterans,” Mason said. “I think that looking at that end of the housing conversation is really important, together with building new homes.”
Mason is critical of state-backed programs that have grown popular during the Mills administration, which have primarily subsidized developers to construct apartment buildings at rents for people earning certain incomes but carry high per-unit costs. He said he wants to encourage developers to build more mobile home parks in Maine. Mobile homes tend to be one of the more affordable paths to homeownership, but residents have faced pressure in recent years amid growing interest from out-of-state investors.
On the topic of property taxes, Mason said he takes a decidedly different approach than many of the other Republican and Democratic candidates.
“When I think about property taxes, I don’t want to increase the homestead exemption and bring back other programs and whatnot,” he said. “I want to actually reduce the costs of towns to run their governments and their school boards.”
Specifically, Mason said reducing crime would alleviate the financial burdens on county jails. He also believes Maine should have a statewide teachers contract, which Mason said would bring parity across school districts and lower property taxes by having the state take on educator salaries.
Owen McCarthy
McCarthy’s 72-page “Maine 2040” policy plan details several ideas for cutting red tape and shortening the home development timelines.
McCarthy, a health technology entrepreneur, wants to use artificial intelligence to build a statewide permitting tool that can quickly tell developers if their projects meet Maine guidelines and grant approval.
He also suggests allowing developers the option to pay for a third-party to review housing projects, giving them an option to fast-track permitting and “pay for speed.” In addition, McCarthy is proposing a statewide real estate commission, which would be charged with identifying underutilized or vacant public land to be repurposed or divested for housing.
Like other candidates, McCarthy wants to invest in Maine’s construction workforce. And he’s recommending a ban on large institutional investors from buying up single-family homes in Maine, a position that some of his Democratic counterparts running for governor also share.
At the Rental Housing Alliance of Southern Maine’s gubernatorial forum, McCarthy endorsed a statewide ban on rent control.
Ben Midgley
Midgley did not provide answers to a list of housing policy questions by publication time. Details of any housing proposals were not readily available on his campaign website.
Robert Wessels
Wessels said he would streamline building regulations and cut red tape from housing development. And he would establish a Maine “Department of Government Efficiency” to eliminate unnecessary state burdens on builders.
“Our housing crisis is a supply and demand issue,” he said during the RHA’s gubernatorial forum. “Our government is currently really hurting the supply side. One of our biggest solutions is to get our government out of the way.”
Wessels also said he wants to eliminate property taxes for Mainers’ primary residences. In written responses to a Maine Public candidate questionnaire, Wessels said he would work with the Legislature to find a way to fund municipalities without property taxes.
To provide immediate property tax relief, he’s proposing a $2 billion budget cut and an increase in the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $300,000 in his first year if elected governor.
Wessels also said he supports a statewide ban on rent control policies.
