Honestly this was approached far better than Portland and in my opinion is likely to yield a much greater result. It’s a diverse group of voices at the table and the options proposed are all compelling and sound in my opinion.

Why is reviewing the costs of the building and energy codes never a recommendation? Certain things like afci breakers cost huge amounts and their return is questionable.

Democratic Party people on task forces telling us to upzone, wow we haven't seen that before! I wonder when the housing trickles down!

Let's build more parking garages instead of affordable housing.......

1. The article made no mention of party affiliation. Biddeford is generally liberal but the fact that they have corporate / landlord interests serving on the committee goes to show they’re at least attempting to be unbiased.

2. Upzoning will no doubt be an important aspect of the proposal, but it’s on the whole less of an issue than Portland since Biddeford isn’t lacking for space as much as Portland is.

3. As an aside, I’ve seen you post on multiple things and am so confused as to what you stand for. I’m largely conservative and a landlord that catches shit regularly on this sub for these qualities but at least I’m consistent. You just seem to crap on every idea regardless of what it is. On the whole this process in Biddeford has been significantly more conservative-friendly than what they’re doing in Portland. Yes, the council probably means left, but so does Biddeford as a whole. What’s your issue here?

upzoning is a top Dem party priority (easy to research I promise). What do I stand for? Public housing NOW. I stand for real policy's that put roofs over everyones head, I dont want just slogans I want policy's that have public elements that leaves no human behind. Not policy's that mean you must have tech worker pay to live in Maine, a place that was once a broke people area.... Its not Maine governments fault we didn't build a ton of private houses and rentals 20 years ago when nobody could have predicted work from home + covid. Im sick of the lie that we should ding the political class for not knowing 20 years ago Maine would be super popular. I have NOTHING against new Mainers and im not for blocking any new private housing, im against getting rid of local control of zoning and saying have at it real estate! Im sick of all these progressive people thinking blanket upzoning solves anything.

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Upzoning is extremism for Dem party donors , aka real estate.

Pretty uninformed take from one of the committee members to assert that more supply will not help with a housing shortage due to Biddeford’s geography. Housing supply/inventory has been shown to be one of the few, if not only, consistent factors across the country, at the city and county level, impacting unit availability.

Somewhat of a separate issue, but it doesn't help that 95% of Biddeford Pool is owned by out-of-staters that don't live in them. Drive through there in the Summer and look at the license plates on the cars in the driveways, it's Massachusetts, Florida, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York in every driveway. A massive chunk of those houses sits idle all winter and don't even bother renting them out.

Seems like a lose-lose for Biddeford unless I am missing something, outside of the taxes they pay and maybe some expendable income spent downtime in the Summer months.