Gray Council Hears Housing Study, Approves Reappointments

[5:21] Council Chair (presiding officer): Hello and welcome this evening to the Town Council meeting. Today is Tuesday, October 6th, and the current time is 630. This meeting is held at 24 Main Street here in the gray Town Council chambers. It will be held in person or online. You can go to the link on the website. Residents wishing to participate in the public comment or public hearing portion of the agenda may do so by clicking in to participate or call in using the phone number provided in the detailed agenda. agenda. I would like to do roll call. Councilor Gass. Present. Councilor Johnson. I guess he's not here. Councilor Edson. Here. Councilor Palange is not here tonight and I am Councilor Seminole and we also have interim town manager Lauren Aslan and it is her birthday today. Happy birthday. So we would like to do the Pledge of Allegiance. So if we could all stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So we'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes for the September 15th, 2026 meeting as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. Moved by Anne Gass and seconded by Councilor Edson. Any requests to make any amendments to the minutes? [6:56] Councilor Edson: Yeah, under the school board section, I believe Mike Johnson was not present. He wasn't, and it wasn't that he actively abstained. Okay, can you [7:13] Council Chair (presiding officer): make a note of that? Okay, were there any other adjustments to the minutes? Okay, so all in favor of making amendments and not changing the amendments to the minutes, all in favor, aye. So all in favor, that everybody is in favor, is there, are no zits, nays. Okay, so we'd like to move on to council communications, council correspondence, and committee reports, and we can start out with Councillor Gas. [7:45] Councilor Edson: Okay, I only had resiliency since the last meeting and was scheduled to meet on last Monday but didn't have a quorum, and the open space of planning board had no meeting scheduled, but planning board meets Thursday of this week. I've been working on the subscription pool for ambulance rides and now have examples from eight towns. I'm trying to just get the last few. I need to have some conversations with some of the towns. I've heard some pluses and minuses that I want to incorporate into my final recommendations. I hope we did get it to the council next month. Let's see, the council met in retreat and I just I wanted to confirm that we're going to be voting at our meeting on the priorities list, priorities that we came up with as we talked about at the retreat, but that's not on the agenda tonight so it would be on our next [8:42] Speaker C (unidentified): agenda, is that right? I haven't seen it anywhere posted for an agenda. I knew it wasn't for two weeks. It has to be, I haven't heard from it. [8:49] Councilor Edson: Somebody has to put a form in for it. Okay, I can do that. And then correspondence, I received quite a number of emails asking the council to rethink the appointment of Derek Shirley to the school board and choose a different candidate. I had an email from a resident regarding Stimson Hall and sort of disposition of that. I did forward the draft code of ethics and conduct to the council, but again it's not on the agenda, so I guess every time something is going to be on, you want something on the agenda you have to fill out that form, right? Okay, it's not a standing one. Okay, I thought the one that I'd already completed would be sufficient, but I can redo that one. And I had an email encouraging the council to establish an ad hoc committee to study the sheriff's contract. And I wasn't able, I had a conflict with the Resiliency Committee meeting, so I didn't attend the GPCOGS Northern Cumberland County gathering sub-region last week. But in the materials they circulated following the meeting, I was interested in the proposal that's being put together for a new sales tax that would benefit, it would be statewide, benefit both communities and lower-income households. So this seemed like it would be worth considering, and I guess GPCOG is willing to come out and meet with us, so I want to maybe put that on the agenda for a meeting in November. [10:22] Council Chair (presiding officer): That's it for me. Councilor Edson, do you have? Yeah. [10:27] Speaker D (unidentified): I also attended the GPCOG where we were setting our goals, and I haven't had any meeting with the Blueberry Festival. It's not started back up yet, and I am still struggling to get in contact with the dry mill schoolhouse [10:41] Council Chair (presiding officer): Chair, but I'm working on it. Yeah, okay, I am on the Finance Committee and we did meet earlier today and I just want to report back and say that we are working on some information that we're going to pull together and we're going to be able to present soon if not at the next town council meeting but the following one. So probably in a month from now we're gonna really be able to pull some numbers together and show the public, you know, how we ended the year and where we're at and things like that and maybe some information on how you can save some money on your property taxes as well. So I'm really looking forward to sharing that information with everybody. I think it's gonna be pretty exciting kind of keeping everybody in the loop on the finance department. So I would, I do need to go down to the podium and do I do need to get on the podium and talk [11:26] Councilor Edson: about the cost but maybe when citizens or resident comments, citizens comments on non-agenda items. Well but you're, you're not, you're, yeah, I mean, I don't, you're not there as a representing the council. Okay, we can do that. And so Lauren, do you have anything? I just have [11:47] Speaker C (unidentified): a few things. Absentee ballots are now available for the November 3rd election and you can get them three different ways. You can get them at the town office during our normal business hours. You can call the office at 207-657-3339, extension 108, to request a ballot be mailed to you. Or you can request an absentee ballot online at the Secretary of State's website. So the deadline to request an absentee ballot is Thursday, October 29th. So that's helpful information. Information also, next Tuesday, October 13th, you're all invited to attend a preliminary meeting that Maine Department of Transportation is putting on in reference to the Gray Village transformation project. So we're partnered with them on this project. So next Tuesday from six o'clock to eight o'clock p.m. right here at the town office they will be here to discuss the proposed plans and accept resident feedback and we did have one meeting similar to this prior and it was very well received and very helpful. So I would encourage you if you have any questions or would just like to view the proposed plans for the village transformation project that you come join us next Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. here. And that's all I have. Awesome. [13:16] Council Chair (presiding officer): We are going to continue now with a presentation from the Greater Portland Council of Government's Housing Study. And we have Rick here to present for us. So go ahead, Rick. All right. [13:27] Rick Harbison, planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments: Thank you for having me. I'm just writing down next Tuesday for that meeting. That sounds interesting. Phillips Transformation Project. Whoa. Okay great, so I'm Rick Harbison, I'm a planner at the Greater Portland Council of Governments, here to talk about the housing needs assessment that we prepared for the town. I am going to move through this pretty quick. I think it's easy to get bogged down in the details. Probably get through this in about 15 or 20 minutes, so maybe consider this like you're too long didn't read person. So I going to hit on some of the highlights. Have time for questions at the end. If I'm as I'm going you have questions though, feel free to just interrupt. Okay, so just starting out with the background, project team. So this study was prepared by GP cog with support from the town staff. Timeline was July, we started June of last year through October of this year. I would say the bulk of the work that we did was in the new year, so we waited for the census data to update, and that happened like around December, January, so most of the work was in the last six months or so. The projects funded by the housing opportunity program, so this is a grant from the main office of community affairs, so no cost to the town really, the main with the exception of like we did have some meetings with town staff, but aside from that there's no real cost to the town. And the objective is really just to evaluate the town's current demographics, housing trends, and ultimately estimate future housing needs. Just to speak to the broader context, so lack of housing and high cost of housing is an issue everywhere. So nationally, from everything I've looked at, we need anywhere from 4 million to 7 million new homes. In Maine, the state put together a housing study, so the state of Maine production needs study, they estimated that Maine needs eighty four thousand three hundred new homes by 2030. They had targets for each County, so in there they had Cumberland County as needing eighteen thousand eight hundred and thirty new homes by 2030. The state policy context, I'm I think that you guys are aware of this, have discussed it at previous council meetings, but there's a number of bills that were passed in the last year that apply to municipalities throughout the state. So the big one is LD 1829 as amended by LD 2173. A number of provisions in there, but the one that would pertain to Gray's at least three units per lot, other provisions around lot size and density rules, limits for planning board review, and then increased incentives for affordable housing. The other bill, LD 997, is allowing housing in commercial areas. As I understand it, not many changes to be made here in Gray because that's already allowed here. And then LD-427, which limits parking requirements for housing in growth areas. That's kind of what we're working with from the legislature over the past year. And so now I'm just going to kind of go through each section of the report. So we split the report up into demographics and housing characteristics and various sections. The first section is on demographics, just looking at trends and changes in the town's population. So hopefully you can see the graph and it's not too small on the on the screen there, but Gray is growing steadily. So the current 2025 estimate is 8,676 people, and if you kind of look at the last 10 years and average it out, it's an annual average of around 68 residents per year. And then we created our own 2030 projection as well. So and the way we did that is we carried forward that 68 residents per year out to 20, 2030. So the town is already the rationale for doing it, doing that I should say, is carrying that out to creating a projection is that the town's one's current projection in the comprehensive plan has already been surpassed. So I think the 8,676 is the comp plan projection is lower than that. So we created our own projection. And then lastly I would just say that this graph in particular is not quite as dramatic as it appears. The y-axis doesn't start at zero, it starts at 6,000. So just know that I did that to highlight some trends here, but it would actually look a little bit more flat. Looking at age, so Gray is growing but also getting older. So in the last decade, population growth you can see primarily occurred in the 55 plus age groups. Younger ages saw declines. The town's median age, which is also kind of a good barometer for overall age, increased from 37.4 in 2014 to 43.4 in 2024. So from a housing standpoint, aging demographics generally would suggest a need for more Like senior friendly housing, so thinking smaller, more accessible units, looking at school enrollment kind of corroborates the finding on age. So this graph shows total enrollment pre-k through grade 12 for Maysad 15. You can see it's gradually declining. The largest decrease was in the middle school, but most schools showed declines. Here again, just it's not as dramatic as the graph appears. It didn't start at zero, but it is on the general decline. And then I guess another caveat is that it's a combined school district, Gray New Cluster, right, so just bear that in mind. Average household size is another like key indicator, gradually declining. So well I say that, but yeah, from 2014 it kind of held steady between 2019 and 2024, about 2.3 people per household. That's a pretty standard trend across the country is for average household size to decline. Next section looks at housing characteristics. So this is looking at the town's current housing stock and looks like housing is available in Gray. And so starting out just looking at total housing units, so this graph is showing total housing units from 1990 through 2024 and then a projection for 2030. The current estimate is that Gray has 4442 housing units. We did create a projection kind of looking at a business-as-usual scenario, and the way we did that is we looked at the past 20 years, so went from 2000 to 2020 as the decennial census is kind of like the most accurate and the cold standard for data there, and we carried that forward. So we came up with an estimate of, you know, if in the business as usual scenario you'd have about four thousand six hundred and five units by 2030. Looking at housing types, so Gray is predominantly single-family, that's the graph on the left, and the one bar that jumps out at seventy eight percent, that's single-family, mainly stayed the same from 2014 to 2024. Looking at the graph on the right is household size and bedroom mix. So it's kind of an interesting finding how 70% of households in Gray have one to two people, but only one or seven percent of housing units are one bedroom. So there's a little bit of a mismatch there where Gray has relatively few smaller housing options. So thinking about older couples in Gray that are potentially looking to downsize, there's perhaps not very many smaller units in the community for them to do that. Looking at housing ten years, so this is owner or renter occupied, so 82% is owner-occupied, 18% is renter-occupied, and that's stayed pretty consistent over the past 10 years. And then occupancy status is whether a unit is occupied or vacant. So the town's current breakdown or ratio is 82% of housing units are occupied, and then 18% are vacant. So they can't is like the vast majority of vacant homes in Gray are seasonal use. So you have some lakes in town. My guess is a lot of those are camps. Other reasons for home to be vacant, it may be for sale, it may be being renovated, and maybe used for storage. There's a number of different reasons looking at that 18. It is interesting. You guys are kind of in a middle ground there where if you look at your neighboring communities like New Gloucester, what's the other one, Wyndham, those towns have about an 8 or 9 percent vacant, whereas you guys have 18 percent. So I think it has to do with the lakes that you have in town. That said, if you go up to the lakes region, communities like Casco and Naples, those are like 30% to 40% vacant. So you're kind of in a little bit of a middle area there. Okay, so looking at short-term rentals, you can see, so GPCOG, we have a short-term rental enforcement software. And so just looking at plugging Gray into that, you can kind of see the map of where the short-term rentals are, mostly lakefront properties, about 90 to 100 short-term rentals total, which is about 2% of the housing stock, mostly lower than the communities that we selected here as comparisons. Comparisons. There's likely some overlap with the seasonal use homes. So like folks that have camps are probably renting, doing short-term rentals here. Next, we're looking at building permit history. So the town, you all provided us some data around permitting over the last, I think this is 12 years so this is showing permits per year is the total and then the breakdown in colors is the different types of units of single family to family multifamily and accessory apartment over that over the course of this year this data set the town was averaged about 53 units per year it's probably can't see the red bar and in 2023 but that's meadow view 2 so that was 26 multifamily units and then that Really low year was 2022, which I'm guessing was pandemic related. And then this is a map that we put together. So we mapped the building permits for the last five years in gray, just to kind of get a sense of the spatial distribution through town. So where is housing growth happening, and how does that match up with the zoning districts? Again, you probably have tough time seeing that large circle in the center, but that's the meta view to project. And then you can see that a lot of the development in rural residential agricultural zone is kind of spread out. The development in the Lake District is largely predominantly around the waterfront there. And then this is just a graph putting some percentages to the map that you just saw. So rural residential and agricultural accounted for 47% of all permitted units. The village center, village center proper, combined for just about 10% of permitted units. And just noting that the comp plan calls for directing more growth to the village and the growth areas. So this may be something worth watching going forward. This is just to get a sense of how Gray's housing growth compares to other communities. So these are all Chippy COG communities. You can see that Gray added over the last between 2021 and 2025, Gray added 291 units. And I don't know a way, a better way to describe this graph is just it's right in the middle. It's the orange that's Gray. I also kind of looked at it as a per capita, so how many permitted units per 1,000 residents, to kind of do more apples to apples comparison. And when I graphed that out, Gray was also in the middle. So you're doing a good job of being like right in the, in the average there. So the next section is housing affordability. So just looking at trends around affordability and the housing market here in Gray, this graph is kind of a revealing graph that shows what people earn versus the actual cost of housing. So the blue line is showing median incomes, and then the orange line is showing median home prices over time. So since 2000, median incomes have increased about almost two and a half times, from 50,000 to 118,000 in 2025. But median home prices have increased by like four and a half times, from 123,000 to 557,000 in 2025. So the gap between what people earn and home prices has increased considerably starting around 2015. Next is looking at vacancy rate. So this is a little different than the percent vacant that I showed earlier. Vacancy rate is just the amount of homes that are available for sale or rent at any given time, so it's usually a pretty small percentage. A low vacancy rate usually suggests high demand, limited supply, and tends to drive up prices. A high vacancy rate kind of suggests the opposite problem where you have too many homes and not enough interest. So from all the literature around housing, a healthy vacancy rate, homeowner vacancy rate sorry, is around one or two percent, and a healthy rental vacancy rate is around five to seven percent. Currently the census reports that Gray's vacancy rate is 0% for both homeowner vacancy and rental vacancy. So I did well, so the graph here, Gray is an orange and then the blue is Cumberland County, just so you can get a little bit of a benchmark. So the county rate for homeowner vacancy is 0.5 percent, and then for rental the county is 2.9%. So Gray's data does indicate a pretty tight housing market with limited availability. I did kind of fact check a little bit and went on to Zillow and Redfin just to see like, okay, what is available in Gray. I came up with about 25 to 30 properties for sale and about 10 to 15 properties for rent in Gray. So it's not like there's zero, but what it is, when you look at or when you compare, you know, 25 properties for sale and then there's four hundred or four thousand four hundred forty two homes, that's effectively zero percent. So it's not that there's zero homes for sale or rent, it's more just that the percentage is zero percent, so [31:18] Council Chair (presiding officer): just to clarify that. Yeah, so you're talking on here that it's like a zero percent availability. So did you just say [31:25] Rick Harbison, planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments: that it's good to be at zero, or was it 's not great to be at zero? So like [31:30] Council Chair (presiding officer): healthy cost that houses in this cost more because of that the mix fine demand [31:35] Rick Harbison, planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments: yes, exactly, yeah. And then it's typical to have a homeowner vacancy rate that's between like one and two percent, and then to have a higher rental vacancy rate just because rentals turnover more frequently, so like five to seven percent rental vacancy rate is considered kind of a healthy, maybe like normal market. We also looked at cost burden. So the census considers a household cost burden when they spend 30% or more of their income on housing costs. So in Gray the most recent estimate is that 20% 27% of homeowners are cost burdened and 49% of renters are cost burdened. And then just looking at existing affordable housing, you have Meadowview and Meadowview II, which is a really great facility. 46 one and two bedroom apartments, primarily for older adults and adults with disabilities. Also, the estimate for housing vouchers. So Section 8 housing vouchers is approximately 207 households in gray receive housing vouchers okay so then this is gonna get into a little bit of math looking at housing needs so how many new homes are needed in gray to meet this the current demand and future demand so to create an estimate for how much housing is needed we kind of use the same methodology that the state used in their reports where they came up with 84,000 new units by 2030 talking with town staff we decided to keep it at 2030 even though it's just a couple years away just understanding that shelf life for these reports is pretty short and might as well just look at like you know the next four or five years so the way that the state did their methodologies they looked at two things the availability deficit and future population growth. So the availability deficit is how many homes are needed to address the current demand. And then the future population growth, how many homes are needed to accommodate that projected population. So I'm gonna talk you through it. So the availability deficit. So currently Gray has 4,442 existing occupied in seasonal homes and a 0% vacancy rate so in the state's methodology they consider a healthy vacancy rate is 5% so regardless of homeowner or rental they just call it 5% so to achieve a 5% vacancy rate the town would need to add 234 new homes just to kind of get level presently the next step is the future population growth so we use that 2030 population projection that we prepared so it was nine thousand and eighteen people and when you subtract that from how many people there are now that's 341 new people if you divide that by the average household size which is 2.3 you'd get a hundred and forty eight new homes needed to accommodate that 2030 population and then you would need to ADD ANOTHER 26 HOMES TO MAINTAIN THE SEASONAL USE RATIO, AND THEN ANOTHER 9% TO MAKE UP THE 5% VACANCY RATE. So to meet the current needs is 234 homes, the future population growth is 183 homes. That all adds up to 417 homes by 2030, or about 83 units per year. So for reference, the last 10, 12 years was you guys were averaging 53 units per year. So it's not like way, you know, it's not astronauts, not like you're doubling, but you know, it would be a push. I also wouldn't want you guys to get super attached to that 417 number. This is, I would consider it a planning benchmark. Like 417 sounds like falsely accurate, I'd say. You know, I would say that would be a great like knock it out of the park number for you guys if you were to like really add a lot of housing. But really anything, keeping the current rate of housing or more would be awesome too. Okay, so this is the true too long didn't read, the key takeaways here. Demographics, gray is growing, aging, becoming a community of smaller households. Housing characteristics, predominantly single-family, smaller households have fewer options. Affordability, the housing prices have increased much faster than incomes. Very little housing is available for sale or rent presently. Just looking at the development pattern at least over the last five years, a lot of the growth has occurred, more of the growth district outside the village than within it. And then just looking at housing needs, approximately 417 is the number that we came up with by 2030, or about 83 units per year, obviously understanding that the town cannot control the market, but you can influence where and what type of housing is practical to build. And then we also prepared some recommendations just based on some of those key findings. So these aren't all things that the town has to do or needs to do, they're just some options that you can consider over time. The first is making the village and surrounding growth areas easier places to build housing, so completing the ordinance changes that are basically required under the new state legislation. I didn't really talk about this, but we also prepared a zoning audit last year for the town. There's some specific recommendations in there. One was around kind of treating the medium density zone and the Commercial districts almost the same as the village center, so like increasing flexibility in those areas, so that might be something to consider. Also looking at parking standards in the village, the comp plan specifically mentions that as a barrier, and then opportunities for mixed-use housing as well. I think there is a natural overlap between the village partnership, I'm calling it the village partnership initiative, but it's really like the village transformation project, the work you guys are doing with me and do T. I think there's a natural overlap with that and housing needs and the work that you're doing to revise the ordinances, so just kind of continue to look for some synergies there as you consider are infrastructure improvements. Maybe there's sites that rise to the top of like, hey, this could be a really a great housing project, or this could really help with promoting housing development. I know you guys have had commissioned a public sewer study, and that the price for that is like very high, so understand that. So this is recommendation just to identify practical wastewater options, and maybe just keep the conversation going. Maybe there are smaller scale wastewater approaches, or maybe in just like targeted areas that could be effective but not prohibitively expensive, expanding the range of housing types and sizes. So some of this is outside the town's control, but back to that zoning audit, one of the options there is was very specific about simplifying the open space subdivision standards to allow a broader mix of housing within those developments, but really the broader goal is just to create more options beyond the conventional single family home, increasing rental workforce and affordable housing. So you know recently added the 26 affordable units at Meadowview 2, which is great, it looks like an amazing project. Those units do serve primarily older adults, so if there are opportunities to work with developers, main housing on affordable units for all age groups, then I think just being open-minded about that as well going forward, and then just using the housing needs estimate as a benchmark and tracking housing production. So you know we came up with 83 homes per year, you could just kind of track the number of housing units that you're permitting, what types they are, where they're being built. At least that gives you the town a way to see what's happening, is it meeting our needs, and is it consistent with what is in your comp plan for where you would like growth to occur. All right, so I don't know if that was 20 minutes or not, but hopefully got there pretty close. That's all I have. And happy to answer questions or hear your thoughts or perspectives. [41:42] Council Chair (presiding officer): Anybody have any questions? Councilor Edson, do you have any questions? No? 30 seconds. I do. [41:50] Councilor Edson: So, have you tried looking at the trend of the number of housing vouchers in active use in Gray or other towns over, you know, a 10-year period? My sense is that increasingly voucher holders are having difficulty, especially new voucher holders are having difficulty finding landlords who will work with them, and that's part of what happens when a rental vacancy rates get really low because they're you know landlords have other options and they 're not mandated to work with section 8 applicants and or tenants and so they just don't and so I'm just it just seems like that could be a useful factoid for that population yep [42:37] Rick Harbison, planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments: Yeah I can't say that I have but I think the data is there so we could good take [42:44] Councilor Edson: a look might be interesting to look at that i mean i not just for gray but for other towns as well i mean the vtp is the village transformation project is definitely intended to support greater housing density in the village it 's you know it's a disappointment that you know that the cost of doing some sort of public sewer system is prohibitive because i that would allow for the greater density and i was interested in the map that you showed where development has occurred in gray and it's it's Definitely in more you know in the outskirts which is an interesting conundrum for us I mean I understand that's probably where land is maybe a little less expensive for the buyers and but at the same time to the extent there are school kids who live out there it increases the bus routes you know and adds more burden to the school district that way so I mean I would and it also sort of gobbles up open space that could be you know that is the reason that a lot of people move to Gray in the first Place is because they like the sort of rural feel of it and yet as we continue to sprawl out into our more rural sections it's you know it's going to gobble up that open land and that we're already seeing that happen. I guess I have a couple other thoughts. One is, you mentioned wastewater options that are sort of smaller, that might serve a subdivision or something, or some multi-family project. Are you aware of any in use now or that are sort of... No. It's a problem for all of Maine. [44:32] Rick Harbison, planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments: I know they exist. I did a little research into it just because I didn't want to put a recommendation in there that exists, but I think that would be a worthwhile thing to pursue. I could check in too and see if that's something that like GP Codd could look into, because I'm sure other towns would have the same question. I mean, it's really tough to grow in your village area. Honestly, it's it's so much easier to just, you know, have a field and put some houses up there, whereas your village, it's already built out a lot. It's harder to find the spots. It's challenging, and so, you know, I know I said that figure of like 47% in the rural areas, you know, their village center is very small too, so it doesn't take up as much of the town, and so yeah, without wastewater or two, it's it's challenging, but so I think it really takes some big swings and some innovative approaches, and so yeah, I think that's a worthwhile thing to look. [45:32] Councilor Edson: Into. Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering too if the state is thinking it may step up and help towns come up with these, because I mean, it's great to have these housing goals, but it's it's challenging to reach them without adding, you know, significant cost to the town through sprawl, because it's not just a school district, right? I mean, it to the extent that we're adding new roads or taking over winter maintenance of roads, that's adding cost, you know, to our town budget, and so I, but at the same time, the. Limited supply of housing is driving up the cost of housing for new buyers and renters, and that's a huge problem. I guess I guess I just would finish by asking how are you seeing other towns use these housing studies? I mean, I'm sure you've done them for other towns, and it's just like, how are people ending up finding their youth? I mean, I will point out to that Gray recently approved a growth cap, which is, you know, closer to the 53 units per year, so we're we're gonna continue to fall short as long. As. [46:41] Rick Harbison, planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments: We have that growth cap in place. Yeah, well, you guys are the second, so okay, so you have what we did last day work in progress was for Wyndham, and I know that they kind of, they're doing a lot of housing work in the North Windham area, and they were kind of curious about what a projection would look like for them, and they were pleasantly surprised at the amount of housing that they'd they done or was in development was like kind of matching up pretty closely with what the estimated needs were. Yeah. I know it's a window, it's not a surprise. Yeah, there's been a lot of growth over there. So for these reports, I mean, I think some of it's just informative, and I don't, I forget when you guys finished your comp plan, but 2020. Yeah, so there's been some time with the past, and so in some ways this is like a little bit of an update on the housing chapter of your comp, right, like here's some latest information, here's what's going on in town with respect to housing, and then also it's just such a hot topic. Issue, there's clearly an issue, not just in Gray, by the way, like, yeah, this is every, everywhere. The vacancy rates are not just zero and Gray, they're in a lot of other towns too. So I think to the extent that this can inform your discussions and kind of get everybody on the same page around, okay, like this is the data that you know where there's a vacancy rate of zero or the cost burden is 49% for renters, like just sort of everyone kind of seen the information, hopefully has some benefits too, but. Ultimately, it's up to you all kind of what you want to do with a report like this. It's definitely not a mandate from GPCOG or anything, and I guess last thing I'll ramble on about is it's just how sometimes it's helpful to have somebody from out of town just, like, here's our neutral third party's perspective on, like, here's the data. This is, like, a typical housing study that we would prepare, and this is what it looks like in Gray. But up to you what you decide to do with it. [48:55] Councilor Edson: I guess before I finish, I'm sorry, just a couple other things. I mean, I, you know, when I first moved to Maine 38 years ago or so, I did a lot of this housing, affordable housing stuff, and looked at a lot of these data. I mean, the trend of the increasing gap between housing supply and demand and afford and, you know, what housing prices and median income has, that's, you know, those trends have been present throughout those four decades, and I think, so I mean, I think one important conclusion from your study is that as long as we, not just we in Gray, but everywhere. In Maine, continue to restrict the supply of housing, demand will continue to be there, and it will continue to drive housing prices up. Yep. [49:46] Council Chair (presiding officer): Okay. Rick, did you include this stuff with the ADUs that we have now? [49:53] Speaker D (unidentified): Go on. Well, accessory billing units. Well, I mean, he has, like, short-term rentals and accessory and dwelling. [50:03] Rick Harbison, planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments: Yeah, so in the building permit history graph, there's a line for accessory apartments. [50:11] Council Chair (presiding officer): Okay, all right. Because I think that's going to help us as far as getting to those numbers, because that's what everybody's looking for is the one-bedroom, small unit thing. So, I mean, we could definitely probably help that rise on that. I mean, the other concern is, of course, our infrastructure with the septic thing, but also is the traffic. I mean, traffic is a major issue for us where I really wouldn't want us to grow at a faster rate than we can handle our traffic flow. [50:34] Speaker D (unidentified): Because your town is not designed for it. No, we are kind of a stock, yeah, and so. [50:39] Council Chair (presiding officer): We're kind of like, I would hate to think that we're gonna overload our town with traffic like Wyndham has done, and they've overgrown, and so that their traffic can't flow correctly. I wouldn't want to be behind it like they are, not to accuse them of being behind it, but I mean, they definitely have some traffic issues in that town, and I think that we have to address our traffic issues before we can, you know, really push to get more housing in here, and I think Gray wants to stay rural. I don't think. We want, yeah, so anybody else have any. [51:10] Speaker D (unidentified): Other, well, I would be interested in some type of development that was like for 55 and older, not 600 units I might add, but you know, I think that's a really good avenue to, like you said, the older people now are, I'm getting to be one, you don't need to be in the size house that I'm in, you know, I would, I would like the idea of being in a smaller house, yeah, and have that option, yeah. I actually saw. [51:39] Council Chair (presiding officer): Like something that when they had a bunch of my tiny houses around on the road, all of them my tiny houses, a little community center in the middle, was like. [51:48] Speaker D (unidentified): Like, wow, that was a great idea, but anyway, thank you. Okay, but it is amazing to me, I'm going to be honest, how many people can afford to buy big houses, and even with your study, I walk down Wood Park almost daily, and the houses down there run from 675 to 750, they're three-story homes, some of them, I cannot believe it, they're filled with young couples with little children, and it just amazes me, it amazes me, yeah, okay, that they can afford it, awesome, okay, well. [52:21] Council Chair (presiding officer): Thank you very much, appreciate it, yeah, it's been a pleasure, you guys have a. [52:24] Rick Harbison, planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments: Lovely town, I really, yeah, we love you, thank you so much. [52:30] Council Chair (presiding officer): Working on the project, so thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's good information. Now we're going to be opening it up for public comment. So if anybody from the public, you know, we, you are invited to address the council on anything not listed on the agenda tonight. Comments are limited to three minutes each. Person may speak once regardless, unless recognized by the chair to clarify or provide new information. Public comment is not intended for debate and will close when no new information is presented. So is there anybody from the public that would like to come up? Hi. [53:09] Fran Monroe, citizen and taxpayer: Fran Monroe, citizen and taxpayer. Great, just make sure my role and so I'm here to make a couple of comments. First of all, as you know, I attended the council workshop that was held a couple weeks ago, and I gotta say I was very amazed at how well it was run, how cooperative the counselors were with their vision goals for the town of Gray, what they want to work on. I have all the confidence in the world. [53:41] Speaker D (unidentified): Let's let Fran start over, please, because I no one is seeing this. There we go, you're on now. Let me, okay, I. [53:56] Fran Monroe, citizen and taxpayer: Said all over again, I said I, as you all know, I attended the workshop, the council workshop, and it was, it was very well run, and as I was saying, it was, I was very pleased and how well the town councils all worked together with the visions that they have for the town of Gray and things that they saw that needs to be addressed, and I have every confidence in this council that they're going to be able to reach their goals and accomplish at least some, you know, the really traffic is not going to be. Accomplished in a year, but be worked on. I have confidence they'll be worked on and more and more steps will be taken so that one of the, that's one of the major problems in this home. But anyway, I just wanted to get up and say, you know, I've come before the council millions of times, I think, and I finally realized that, you know, it's always all of us who do come before the council always fighting against maybe us becoming a Falmouth or a Yarmouth or something like that, and so we try to address our. Concerns and I always felt that the council was always, you know, right there and, you know, you know, now I feel that this council is very engaging and there, you know, I just can't say enough. I'm really pleased and, you know, that we the taxpayers were able to elect this council. So saying that, I got one other issue. I noticed that we're missing two councillors. I assume once one of the councillors has not been to a meeting publicly for four meetings and the one prior to that left the meeting early when he was present and is if there's not a medical condition that's preventing him to be able to go because of course, you know, to stream this and it I don't think that's part, that's not in the thing for the merit of the why you have televised, you can do it at, you know, whatever that's called. I forgot anyway. I didn't even, I took advantage of it but I wasn't able to go on the screen. I would have been able to if I was in the hospital so that's what that's for, something major and I don't I think the council has to address this issue and then when he does come on TV he leaves without making any notification to the council. So it's wrong for the chair to stop the council meetings to find out where a councillor is. That isn't how it operates. So I hate to bring that up but I noticed this absent again. So I really hope the council addresses this. That position needs to be replaced if it's necessary and I think the council should be looking at taking steps. Anyway, that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. [56:56] Council Chair (presiding officer): Fran, I did not break this. Anybody else from the public? [57:09] Speaker D (unidentified): There's so many options first. [57:17] Speaker G (unidentified): I would say that was very interesting. Thank you. That was a great presentation. That's like a really good thing to see at the council meeting. So and I'm always trying to start with something positive but we have a new business. Can you just, oh I'm sorry, Maureen Gilbert on Denton Home. There's new business opening, Gray Main Street Thrift Shop and it's opening October 17th at 10 a.m. They're having a grand opening. They said that they will be selling thrifted items such as vintage finds and home goods and they're located at 19 Main Street number three. So I always like to give a shout out when we have new businesses and great. I wanted to talk about the price of oil. It's 569 today, it's been 589 and I'm just wondering if there's been any discussion about what can be done for the citizens of Gray because it's going to be really hard for us to hit our homes this winter. I'd suggest maybe if you talk to the legislatures that represent Gray to be able to take it to Augusta. I don't know, but I'm worried about myself, I'm worried about my neighbors, worried about everything. It's going to be a tough winter and I don't know how as a council you can help with that. Just kind of wanted to put that out there and lastly I just wanted to mention the sheriff's contract again. It doesn't seem to be there's been any movement on an ad hoc committee. I just feel at this point we keep talking about you know or at least I keep talking about it and I feel like the council owes the citizens the decision and I know that all of you have said you would support that committee so I'm hoping that doesn't forward Judy [59:29] Council Chair (presiding officer): Simino for Arlington Court. I'm just getting up to speak as a citizen today and I'm also on the committee for the cost-sharing for the Gray New Gloucester school and the reason why I'm up here tonight is we've had some changes with the cost-sharing committee. What has happened is as our facilitator Jennifer Pooler has resigned so we do not have a facilitator. That was our third meeting so we are actually the superintendent is now on a search again for another facilitator. There are four currently on the list so hopefully when she searched for it last time there was only one and that one didn't work out so hopefully out of the four we can get somebody out of that and we're hoping that she moves forward quickly. I mean if you can please reach out to Shanda Turner and ask her to please to do this as quickly as possible. We have missed the November ballot so we'll be probably doing this in June hopefully. I would hate to think that we can't get this accomplished by June election so that's all I have thank you as [1:00:37] Councilor Edson: a citizen yeah okay you have to go down there though you can yeah go ahead. Go. I [1:00:56] Speaker D (unidentified): just wanted to like reiterate that I know that right now would be a really good time. I think it is around October that LIHEAP starts taking applications. That's low income heating energy assistance program. So anybody in our community that feels that you, even if you're not sure if you fall in that category, you'll be surprised and it would be worth checking into. I mean you probably just Google the acronym LIHEAP and you're gonna get a number but the application is really simple and we also do have general assistance here at the town that does help with heating fuel in certain situations and anybody can come in and fill out an application so I just want to say I [1:01:45] Council Chair (presiding officer): Also wanted to say that the Finance Committee has been working with Lauren about some ways that you can help as far as low your property tax bill and some other things that we can do. So we're looking to do that probably at the next meeting. So we are working on things that we can help, especially the senior citizens and low-income folks. So stay posted for us. Okay, so now we're going to move on to resolve. We're going to resolve. Have we, have a resolve of 26 27-19, a reappointment of Dan McGuire to the board of assessment review. Was I supposed to have like public counsel comment? Does anybody want to speak to any of these? Right, I guess we're ready. No? Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, I don't think we usually don't comment on. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, so we want to resolve 26 27-19, a reappointment of a DM Aguirre to the Board of Assessment Review. Please be resolved the town of Grey Council reappoint damn Aguirre to the Board of Assessment Review for a three-year term ending in October 6 20,000 29. So, Councilor Edson is to first, and anyone, do we have a second? I'll second. And Councilor Gass will second. Would anybody from the public like to comment on this? Okay, any Councilors would like to comment? Okay, we'd like to move forward to a motion to vote. We want to vote to this, so all in favor of Dan McGuire? So that is all in favor. Now we're going to move on to resolve 2627-20, a reappointment of valerie raza of the open space committee be resolved that the graytown council reappoint valerie raza to the open space committee for a three-year term ending in october 6 2029 so i move it you move it okay edson to move it i'll second and counselor gassed a second and we just move it to a vote anybody else have any comments okay let's move to a vote all in favor okay that's three a's and the next one we are gonna do resolve the this is for, sorry, resolve 2627-21, reappointment of Becky Gother to Library Trustee. Hopefully I spelled her name correctly. Be resolved at the Grey Town Council reappoint Becky Gothier to the Library Trustee for a three-year term ending October 6 2029. Anybody from the public want to speak? Anybody on the council? I'll move that we approve. Let's not get it all both proven, please vote. Yeah, all in favor. So all three names yes. Okay, so we are going to do this is an order to 2627-17, amendments to general Assistance Ordinance. Be it ordained the Gray Town Council amends the Municipal General Assistance Ordinance by repealing and replacing placing Appendices A through H of the existing ordinance, which will be effective October 1st, 2026 through September 30th, 2027. Do I have a motion? Move. I move. A second? Pardon me, I'll second. Council absent. Motion in a counselor gas to second. Any comments from the public? [1:05:03] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay, anybody like just like to move the question? It's, it's okay, mandated, okay, no choice, I did have [1:05:10] Council Chair (presiding officer): a question. I don't know if anybody's going to be able to answer it, perhaps you Lauren, but we have, I have seen that general assistance, the same person gets this, gets money every month and it's been going on for years. Is that normal? It is, it is normal. Okay, all right, just a question. So okay, so I'd like to move this order, this motion forward to vote. So all in favor? So that's all three. Okay, so now we're going to move on to referrals, another business. Does anybody have any referrals? Are there any other business they want to speak of? [1:05:42] Speaker C (unidentified): No? No. Under current council referrals, I just have a question. Okay. Yeah. If we're there yet. [1:05:49] Council Chair (presiding officer): That's what we got. Oh, yeah. No, we're not there yet. Okay. Okay. So referrals and other business, we'll close that out. The next one will go to current council referrals. [1:05:56] Speaker C (unidentified): So I wanted to verify that the referral that says create water quality shoreland ordinance is the same ordinance as the ordinance that we discussed at the last council [1:06:08] Councilor Edson: meeting. Was that the same ordinance? Right, that was. Okay, I wanted to make [1:06:15] Council Chair (presiding officer): sure before we, okay, thank you very much. Anybody else? Okay, cuz current council referrals right now we have the conference ever play it, the comprehensive plan rezoning, the village transformation project, and the self-insured program risk pool. So those are the three current ones we have, and anybody have any others they want to add to that? No? Okay, our upcoming meeting is the town council workshop on October 20th, 2026 at six o'clock, and we also have the town council meeting on the same day on the 20th at 6 30. I don't know what the workshop is, if they're even, yeah, it's the growth ordinance [Speaker C (unidentified): amendments. Oh, okay.] We also have a growth current board and committee vacancies right now. There are 13 vacancies, and I'm not sure if the ones that we have, three that we had just appointed, brings that down to ten or not. It does. Okay, so right now we have a Board of Assessment Review, Community Events Committee, I didn't even know there was that, Dry Mill Schoolhouse Museum, Library Trustees, Open Space Committee, Ordinary Advisory Committee, Planning Board, Recreation, yeah, what? Ordinance Advisory Committee. Okay, and Zoning Board of Appeals. So anybody interested in those, please step forward. You know, it's really great to have people on these committees. I know I have really enjoyed the Finance Committee, and I know that people that do get on these, it is very helpful for people to give back to the community. So that would be very helpful if anybody could step forward and get on to these committees, would be great. So there is no executive session tonight, so I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. Okay, we got that, go. Okay, we are [1:08:03] Speaker D (unidentified): adjourned thank you all right yes thank you everybody for [1:08:08] Council Chair (presiding officer): coming. Thank you for making it