Biddeford officials talk about the housing struggle

On Tuesday the City of Biddeford had a workshop on housing, an issue Mayor Marty Grohman described as “one of the defining challenges” leaders in the city and state-wide are currently facing.

“We have a beautiful, dynamic, growing city. We’re in our 12^th straight year of enrollment grown in the schools,” said Grohman. “It’s immensely positive that we’re growing and seeing this type of pressure on housing but it’s also immensely challenging.”

George Gervais, the city’s director of economic and community development said there were 10,576 housing units in Biddeford. As of the 2020 census, 9,431 units were occupied. Nearly half – about 48 percent- of housing units in the city are owner occupied, he said.

Gervais said that the average rent in the city ranged from $1700 - $3200 a month for apartments ranging in size from studios to two bedrooms.  

He said the average home value in Biddeford is $478,122 – up almost 5 percent from last year. The median income in the city is $63,261 –“ that will afford about a $200,000 home” he said.

More housing is being added to Biddeford’s housing stock. Gervais said there are 2,116 residential units slated for the future, and range in the stages of pre-development talks to in the process of receiving an occupancy permit.

Guy Gagnon, said in 2010, when he became director of  local non-profit Biddeford Housing  it was “a completely different world.”

“When someone was going to rent an apartment, Biddeford was probably their second, third or fourth choice,” he said. “Fast forward to today, this is the place to be, this is the cool place to be. It’s great, (but) it also brings problems.”

He said it’s frustrating to see his adult children and their peers moving out of Biddeford because they can’t afford to live in the city. He said he was worried that Biddeford could lose the community’s generational fabric.

He said there needed to be some more out of the box thinking, like modular home parks.

“We’re in such a situation right now, that we have to think of offering a wider variety of housing to solve this problem. Because it is a crisis right now, there’s no question about it, and it's not just in Biddeford,” he said.

Developer Brian Eng said the cost of creating housing is a huge challenge. “Conventional financing just isn’t enough,” he said, noting that the City of Rockland is proposing a housing bond.

“I really think it just comes down to collaboration and everybody being willing to have an open conversation about what the challenges are and what the tools we have are and try and work on them together,” he said.

The city has a website with links to the workshop materials and space for the community members to give feedback.

Saco Bay News Publisher Liz Gotthelf can be reached at newsdesk@sacobaynews.com.