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Progressive Portland
4.8K posts
Progressive Portland
@ProgPortME
We mobilize grassroots action for progressive policies backed by the majority of #portlandme residents, voters and taxpayers. @[email protected]
Portland, ME Katılım Aralık 2016
492 Takip Edilen681 Takipçiler
@davidvatz Dearth of affordable housing in Portland was known in 2002. gpcog.org/DocumentCenter…
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@davidvatz Unfortunately Portland has a long history of underbuilding, and what was being produced was acknowledged to be out-of-reach of most Portlanders. This pre-dates and it was an impetus for the city's first 2015 IZ law.
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As Pittsburgh gears up for a hearing about citywide IZ, this seems particularly relevant. Just legalize building housing, or else people will move to the places that do (Texas, for example)
M. Nolan Gray 🥑@mnolangray
While blue states keep scuttling pro-housing legislation, or ruining it with "everything bagel" provisions, more and more red states are passing clean legislation to legalize and encourage infill. My latest:
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@davidvatz Yes, affordable home prices are a good thing.
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@ProgPortME Home prices going down is a good thing, isn't it? I guess I'm not sure what point you're making here
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@davidvatz Portland's zoning changes are based on 2022 state law and the city's version was approved in 2023. Don't know Austin's zoning bias towards single-family homes on larger than necessary lots or how it was promoting/prohibiting multi-units. These are recent, welcome changes here.
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@davidvatz Correction, perhaps? newsweek.com/austin-housing…
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@davidvatz IZ in Portland, Maine along with zoning changes permitting ADUs and 4 unit building on any lot size are allowing market rate development as well as the direct production of affordable housing the city needs both of.
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@davidvatz # units approved for 2025 as of 6/30 are 3rd highest in 15 years during which the city's had 2 versions of IZ. # affordable units approved for 2025 are 3rd highest for the same period. portlandmaine.gov/1462/Housing-D…
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🏘️A full-time worker in Maine must earn $28.42 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. The median hourly wage of workers in Maine is $24.19. newscentermaine.com/article/money/…
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🏘️If you reside in public housing and start having trouble paying your rent, there are options available to you before you face eviction. mainemorningstar.com/2025/08/06/are…
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@HydratedTripod @mnolangray Two things: IZ isn't a charge. It's a requirement that a small % of units be affordable to people making a % of AMI. Whether IZ applies to only new developments depends on local code. IZ can apply to new developments, renovations and adaptive reuse projects. As it does here.
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@mnolangray If IZ charges are for improving affordability to benefit an area, then why do only new developments get charged? Shouldn't all the owners in the area pay for it since they'll all benefit? If union labor requirements benefit the area, why are existing owners exempted?
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To the extent there's a nexus between "housing construction" and "housing costs," it's a negative. In addition to being facially absurd policy, there is no constitutional basis for charging new development hundreds of thousands of dollars in "affordability" exactions.
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When fares are free agencies lose the incentive to attract riders and become solely dependent on politicians. High ridership transit will be neglected in favor of whatever wins votes in the legislature.
Ed Markey@SenMarkey
Public transit is a public good—and it should be free. That’s why @RepPressley and I are reintroducing the Freedom to Move Act to make fare-free transit a reality and close the transit equity gap.
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@maxdubler In Portland, Maine, prior to 2015 when City Council enacted Inclusionary Zoning, affordable housing was not being built. #content=query:inclusionary,pageNum:20,indexOnPage:0,bestMatch:false" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">scribd.com/doc/253193656/…
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@JeffEngelberti1 @crazycopvideos In the United States, you are not obligated to provide an ID to, or answer questions from, law enforcement officers. See the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.
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@crazycopvideos I feel like many Americans need to be educated on how to deal with police. It's not so hard. You should be able to produce an ID whenever they ask for it, or you're getting yourself in a lot of trouble.
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@atlanticesque We had IZ beginning in 2015. City Council and the then-Mayor created it. As the chart from @geomathMEW shows, the free market without affordability requirements was not delivering needed housing.
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Portland, Maine disproves all left-yimby copes. That city combined significant upzoning from urbanist groups with strict rent control and IZ from the DSA. The left-yimby dream, right?
Except it turns out that upzoning doesn’t matter when you make building financially impossible.
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@maxdubler You are aware the POTUS and House GOP budget cuts Section 8 and federal renter assistance funding by 43%, right?
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I would be fine with requiring developers to set aside some homes to be rented to Section 8 voucher holders, or rented at cost; but IZ usually requires they be rented *at a loss,* which makes it effectively a tax on new housing. We should not be taxing new housing!
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So-called “Inclusionary Zoning”—the practice of requiring homebuilders to rent some percentage of new apartments at a loss—is bad policy that lets elected Democrats pretend to care about poor people while NIMBYing new housing and worsening the housing shortage and raising rents.
Eamonn T. Dundon@etdundon
.@CityPortland’s 2024 Housing Report confirms what many feared: raising IZ from 10% to 25% in 2021 didn’t spark affordability — it torched production. From 900+ units in 2021 to barely a trickle since. Inclusionary zoning with exclusionary results.
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🏘️ Trump's budget will slash HUD's budget 43.6% and slash rental assistance 42.8%. 55,400 Maine people (senior citizens, people with disabilities, children) rely on federal rental assistance. Act! nlihc.org/resource/trump…
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🏘️ Perhaps tariffs and construction costs, interest rates and buyer hesitancy in an economic environment with a high level of uncertainty have something to do with it. mainebiz.biz/article/escala…
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🏘️ Perhaps constructions costs are expensive and interests rates are high. bostonglobe.com/2024/07/05/bus…
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🏘️ There used to be a thing called a reasonable return on investment. Perhaps investors are seeking much, much more than what is reasonable. bostonglobe.com/2025/05/05/bus…
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