Bangor Livable Communities Committee reviews housing updates and plans community outreach

[1:39] to the new candy store. [1:42] It's pretty fun, isn't it? [1:44] So many candies from my childhood. [1:47] Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of nostalgia in there. [1:50] It was It was fun. [1:52] Yeah. I like it a lot. [1:56] It opens just before Valentine's Day and so I they do the I don't know if you did the little Chinese takeout box you can fill $7. [2:08] Yeah. No, I just did the paper bag. [2:10] Yeah. And I I lined them up and I put one of each thing in there so we have to do testing. [2:18] So nice. [2:21] All right, we can get started. might we might want to go around the room and just reintroduce ourselves so everybody knows who's here and who's on Zoom. I'm Ann Craig. I'm the director of community economic development for the city. [2:37] Edie Smith from Agus King's office. [2:39] Betsy Lundy from downtown Bangor. [2:42] Dominic Rizzo interested resident of Bangor. [2:46] Jamie Commtock Bangor Public Health. and Stan Brund from community development here at the city. [2:53] Great. And on Zoom. [2:57] Hi, I'm Nina. I'm from a nonprofit called A4 TD and we run the senior community service employment program. [3:05] Oh, that's great. Welcome. [3:08] I may put you on the spot to talk more about what you do. [3:12] Absolutely. I'd be happy to. [3:14] Yeah. [3:14] Oh, sure. so yeah so we are a nonprofit that we are located in five states one of which is Maine and the senior and community service employment program is a transitional training program for folks who are in the 55 plus age bracket and then there is a an income eligibility factor as well. [3:39] So, for those folks who wish to become employed but just haven't been able to, we're a transitional training program where, they can come on board with us. We locate and identify a training site. We call them host agencies, basically internship style. So, they go somewhere for 20 hours a week and that they gain relevant exposure to whatever task they're trying to hopefully get employment with later. [4:09] So, they do their 20 hours a week there. We're paying them in the background with our Department of Labor grant to do those 20 hours. The host agency where they're doing those 20 hours is receiving their 20 hours to help them augment whatever services, but they're providing supervisory oversight. [4:31] So, it helps the host agency because it helps them augment their services. it helps the participant because now they're performing tasks that they're hopefully going to be employed with later. and then we're in the background once a month we do like a job hiring skills workshop like resume you know resume updates cover letter help, mock interviews, things like that we're doing in the background. [4:57] And then we also have really cool funding for help in other ways. So maybe they want to go back into healthcare. We can pay for their CNA. we can pay for them to get like a phabbotomy credentiing. if they want to come back into the workforce for administrative support, we have like funds set aside for them to get like a cert certificate track for like administrative assistant or word and excel classes. [5:23] we can help them get their serve safe and we also are able to help once a year with like a challenging expense like heating or like a vehicle repair expense and so it's a it's a really cool program. The durational length is four years but we welcome we welcome like gradu like we welcome turnover. [5:46] So, if they came to a program, we plug them into somewhere, they're gaining experience, we're helping them in the background, and they leave before their four years. That's awesome. That's what we want. but yeah, we started back up. We had like a hiccup last year with some federal funding and but now we're back up and fully funded through 2027. [6:07] So, we're we're looking for enrolles u participants and we're looking for host agencies and we're back up building the program. I'm brand new. I came on board two months ago. So, I just finished my own training and I'm excited to get people on board and get people back in the workforce and get people help. [6:27] So, [6:29] yeah. [6:29] Wow, that's great. [6:32] Yeah. Go ahead, Dominic. [6:33] Well, thank you for being here and explaining all this. I have to say that I was part of that program precoid and into COVID and then I just stepped back from it not because of the program itself but it for whatever reasons for personal reasons but it's an excellent program and they put me in a wonderful job at the I'll call it the employment office on Oak Street where I was like the at the reception desk and helping people and I [7:03] I loved it and they actually [7:06] the folks there love me and wanted me to take a full-time job there, but I wasn't looking for a full-time job to be honest. But, but it's a great program and I think lots of people should take advantage of it. [7:20] Wow. [7:21] Oh, I'm so happy you have [7:24] Oh, no. [7:24] Sorry. I'm so happy you have experience with it. That's amazing that you are a participant. And [7:28] is Michael Carol still part of it? [7:31] I'm I'm the new Mike Carol. so like Michael [7:36] Yeah. Yep. [7:38] And Debbie was in another position. I forget Debbiey's last name, but she that's while when I was there, the two people that were running Yeah. [7:47] the Bangor area program. [7:49] Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what Mike is doing nowadays, but I'm this was a I applied for his job. and the that Debbie has also moved on, so it's it's new staffing. [8:02] Great. Yeah, that's great. Have a seat. [8:05] I was just gonna say I would love to connect with you because we have a program that we're working on that I think would be a great match for this. [8:15] Would love to connect. [8:17] absolutely. Yes, [8:21] that would be good for you. [8:23] Yeah, because we were we were thinking about staffing our visitor center partially with seniors. Yeah. And partially with college interns. [8:31] [8:32] Oh, yeah. I think that would be a really cool blend. [8:35] Yeah, absolutely. [8:37] They're even greeters at the when the cruise ship was on. [8:42] Yeah. Yeah. No, I love this. [8:48] Oh, good. Thank you. Email. [8:51] Yes. [8:52] In fair. [8:54] does anybody have any other questions for our impromptu speaker? You did a great job, too. Thank you. [9:06] She needs to come back again at some point for another [9:08] Yeah, we'll definitely I'm gonna get you on our mailing list for sure. [9:12] Yeah. [9:13] And what's the what's the program called again? A [9:17] senior community service employment program. It's a mouthful. [9:26] No. And A4 TD is the nonprofit that like runs that program. [9:33] A4T. [9:35] Yep. [9:39] Yes. Yep. [9:41] Thank you. [9:44] Absolutely. [9:45] Thank you. [9:46] Right here in Bangor. [9:47] Yeah. I was going to come in person, but I had a meeting that ran late and so I didn't have time. But yeah, I'm I'm like attached to the post office. [9:58] good. [9:58] Oh, okay. [9:59] You're right around the corner from all [10:01] y [10:03] This is great. [10:04] Wow. I love that. [10:05] Yeah. [10:07] All right. Betsy, you were going to do some updates, too. So, I'm going to put you on the spot next. [10:14] Oh, yeah. Sure. so we are rolling into our spring season here in downtown and launching all of our warm weather programs, which we're really excited about. We have our traditional programs that are coming back. Our adopt a garden program. we just I think this week released the unadopted gardens out to the public so folks can adopt a garden. [10:36] It doesn't cost anything to adopt a garden. you just plant the garden and care for the garden over the summer. the city of Bangor's public works departments provides obviously some form of supplemental care with watering and weeding, but very often they do require additional care beyond just what public works is delivering. We have our flower boxes that are going to be going back out on the street corners. [11:01] And new this year, we have a what we're calling the glowup grants where we are providing grant money in partnership with Da Vinci signs for storefronts to upgrade the streetscape of their building is aesthetic adjustments. So, paint and [11:23] awnings and signage and we even cover flower plantings or if you wanted you serve ice cream and you want a gigantic ice cream cone outside of your building, like just those things that will help really enhance the streetscape and make downtown Bangor look more warm and welcoming to pedestrians. beyond that, we have so many events happening in all of our downtown locations. [11:47] If you go on our website, you can see we have the a calendar function there and there is never a day without something going on and you can do karaoke six days a week. Somebody someday will step up and do that seventh day of karaoke just as an example of how much is going on. yeah, so and we have lots of opportunities for volunteers and engagement in our spring cleanup and in our big dig day, which is the day that we invite all the adoptive gardeners to come and start gardening and [12:17] public works brings mulch and compost for people to use in their gardens. yeah, so it's it's a lot of fun. [12:25] Yeah. Lot going on. [12:26] Yeah. [12:27] Yeah. [12:27] We also opened applications for our sidewalk art festival. and those are rolling in. So, that is going to be it's normally the first Saturday in July, but this year it's going to be the second Saturday in July because the first Saturday is actually the 4th of July and with the parade and everything going on, there just is not [12:45] capacity to also host to close the street for a sidewalk art festival. so that will be the second Saturday in July and there's volunteer opportunities there as well. you know, at various times of the day or leading up to the event. all sorts of things for people to do and signups are on our website if you go on that event calendar and click on any of these events. [13:09] there's a volunteer sign up associated with that. [13:12] Cool. [13:14] Yeah, we'll probably do a table again. We do a table in the department to kind of as a way to connect with the community and find out what people think about what's going on in the city. And you know it's a it's a great way to you know get that information from people that don't normally go to meetings [13:35] and you know connect with different groups. Although last summer when I did it everyone I talked to was a visitor was here on vacation which was kind of cool because I got their perspective on the city [13:48] and yeah everybody loved it. Everybody had great things to say. It was fun. Yeah, there's a there was a lot of anecdotal reporting that we had really high kind of tourist [13:57] last year. For sure. [13:59] Last year. [14:00] Yeah, that makes sense because we did a lot of marketing in tourism markets. [14:05] Yeah. [14:05] Paid off. [14:06] Yeah, [14:06] for sure. [14:08] Yeah, that's good. [14:10] I was talking with someone from Winterport and he was like, love,, love that event. I mean, could it be bigger? [14:20] I know, right? [14:21] I know. It could go further down, Harlo. [14:24] Yeah, I know. I But I mean, that's always the thing of like I feel like if it were more often, you know, would it would it be as good, you know, like does it I sometimes think [14:34] I think it's a good scale. I mean, [14:36] yeah, [14:37] I think they probably more often as opposed to bigger. [14:41] Well, yeah. Yeah, but I think sometimes if it's like more often, it's like [14:46] not as special, right? Like cuz like you know like you're only going to come and buy so much art, right? Like each individual. So it's that balance like I aspired to be a place that could host something like that you know monthly and have great turnout. That would be [15:00] an amazing [15:01] Well, and we have the night market now too. [15:03] We do have kind of augments the different time of day in the summer. [15:07] Yes. [15:08] Yeah. [15:09] Yeah. Okay. [15:13] Does anybody else have any other announcements about what's going on? Dominic, you got anything going on? [15:18] Well, there was just something that kind of got my interest. gets to it at the library coming up this week. And it sounds a little more it might be Mormon to some people, but [15:33] they're having a green cemeteries, home funerals, and much more speaker there. I mean, just I think it's just interesting to find out what your options are instead of the traditional [15:44] things. and you know any age, but as you're getting older. [15:48] Yeah. [15:49] I want to know and I don't want to assume that I have to go a certain way. So that's happening on Tuesday, March 17th from 2 to 3:00 at the Norman Minsky Lecture Hall at the library. And again, it's called the Green cemeteries, home funerals, and much more. [16:09] And I think this person or at least there's a book that's attached to it. So, if anyone can't make it, there's a book that probably the library will have if you want to look into that. End of life planning is the book. And [16:23] do you know where there's a green cemetery in Maine? [16:26] I thought I read a little while ago. Wasn't there one? Maybe a partial one in Orington. That's right. [16:32] I heard there. [16:33] Oh, okay. Maybe that's what it's about. Yeah. [16:35] But according to them, and I don't know what the rules are, you could actually buried in your backyard. And I can't imagine downtown Bangor backyards to the next people that buy my house. But [16:48] yeah, because there's a setback requirement at the state from burials to structures. So yeah, it would be hard to do it in the city environment, [16:58] but yeah, but I mean family cemeteries in Maine were [17:03] extremely prevalent for years. So [17:06] anyway, I thought that was interesting. [17:08] Yeah. [17:09] Yeah. No, absolutely. I know Vermont has a few and New Hampshire, I think, has Southern New Hampshire has one. Yeah. So, it's definitely a growing business. So, yeah, it's good. Any other anything else? Anybody's [17:28] I'm going to go over one of the things that I wanted to show people is we have an updated housing information on the city's website that [17:46] should have set this up before we started, but [17:50] do a sh [17:55] and Did Sarah tell you that we located that folder of all the amazing pictures by the way? [18:01] The what? [18:02] All the amazing pictures that the community and I have. [18:04] You found them? [18:05] Yes. [18:06] Well, Sarah found them. I walked her through where they're located. So, that picture that you showed on the website just made me think of it. [18:11] Oh, that is so great because I was I couldn't find them. [18:17] Yeah. [18:19] All right. So, [18:26] I love the photos in our website. [18:30] Yeah. [18:33] So, [18:35] actually Stan, you worked on this to keep this content going for us. we, you know, a couple years ago, the city council had, the year of housing is their priority. actually it was year housing for about four years in a row. [18:57] and so we started a few years ago trying to keep up with our progress and you know what's been happening so that people could so people could keep up with the you know the number of dwelling units completed and any studies that have been done and things like that. [19:19] So, we had sort of taken a hiatus from it for, you know, a few quarters. So, but Stan, led the way to get this back up. [19:32] that's great. [19:33] For us so that Yeah. So that you can [19:38] So, are those apartments, houses, [19:42] mixture? [19:42] Yeah, I believe it's a combo of [19:44] combo. So, a unit could be a single family home if somebody used our first-time home buyer grant program to buy a home or if you know one of the nonprofits we work with built or renovated you know multiple units on one property that were rentals and that would go towards it as well. [20:08] So you can also see like recent projects that are approved by the planning board because a lot of things get approved and may not get built. You know, they're either waiting for in some cases some improvements to sewer in the area before they can build. So we do have some projects that are in a holding pattern right now and some that are under construction right now. [20:34] So, [20:36] but yeah, it's just something that we wanted to kind of get out there to people. the grand project is moving forward. we are working with the developer developers collaborative out of Portland to develop what was the nursery lot on Grand View AB. [20:59] it's about 13 acres and so they have given they've recently given us a new development plan that staff is reviewing right now. And under the development agreement, it has to go to city council before it can go to planning board because basically the city's the applicant because we'll still own the property until the roadway is completed and then we'll turn the property over [21:25] to the developer. But so that's moving ahead. They're hoping to break ground this construction year. So we're busy getting that ready to get to council. [21:36] Do you know how many units will be in there or [21:40] It's gonna Right now we're looking at about 70 units. So it'll be I think about a dozen single family and then along Grand View itself will be an apartment two apartment buildings. Yeah. So, it's a mix and it's for we're targeting [22:01] 80 to 120% median income. So, it's sort of like the like 70 somebody making 70,000 a household at 70. So, [22:15] I'm trying to picture where on Grand View. [22:18] It's right I can near Hannerford. It's on the same side of this [22:22] to the across from [22:25] housing apartment buildings on [22:27] Y [22:27] right next to that [22:30] is the new childcare center is going on the other side. [22:33] It's the perfect storm for a location because there's a daycare center and the high school's there and woods and [22:40] the grocery store. [22:41] A grocery store. [22:42] TJ Maxx [22:43] and a TJ Maxx. [22:45] On a bus route [22:47] and on the bus route. [22:48] Yeah. All the things. [22:49] Yeah. It's been [22:51] I just wish that they would increase the number of housing on that like instead of the single family houses. Last plan I saw it looked like semiattached. I wish they were town houses. [23:01] That's what condos where there were maybe two units like two sto you know two three stories but maybe two units and just increase it because we need the housing but I'm sure there's a lot more involved than me just saying we need the housing, [23:14] right? I mean, that was the original plan was we were gonna they were going to do 50% rental and 50% town home ownership, you know, condo and and they have to give us the proforma to show us this, but they indicated that they couldn't make the numbers work for a town home. I don't know why, but I'll be interested [23:38] to see what their numbers were like for that. Yeah. Yeah, I also just like looked at the market in general to know that 's a really under represented the condo market in Bangor is really [23:49] represented. We need more. [23:50] Definitely. I mean, I hear that all the time from people that want to sell their house, but they don't want to rent, right? [23:57] They want to get out of the fourbedroom house and into like a two-bedroom. And, you know, it's it's really hard. [24:03] Some of us are chomping at the bits at this moment to downsize. So, [24:08] yeah, [24:08] we'd like to stay in Bangor, but you know, they don't have the housing, then you go elsewhere. [24:13] Right. Right. [24:15] Why 70,000? [24:18] What's that? [24:19] Why 70,000? [24:20] Well, I mean, in that range, I'm like 80 to 120% of median income. So, Stan, do you remember like what that range would be? So for a like fourerson family, so if you had like, you know, a couple and two kids, the median income is about 13,000. [24:39] Oh, okay. [24:40] but then all of these percentages are sort of based off of that number and there's a bunch of calculations that HUD puts out to do those calculations. But I think yeah what Ann is saying is for some of the programs that we offer we have grants for example that are for people who are below 80% AMI [25:03] and in that same scenario like a fourperson family I believe it's like 72 or 73,000 is the limit for that 80%. So people that are above that $7ome,000 [25:18] but then up to 120 and I'm not sure what that upper limit would be. but it's sort of the sometimes people say it's the missing middle when they talk about housing because there's a lot of programs for low to moderate income folks. but this is sort of geared towards, I think, you know, young professionals, [25:38] people who are in their 30s and 40s that still want to buy a home for the first time, but, you know, or have some housing for the first time that they own, but they can't quite get there. [25:51] I think there really is not much housing for older adults. [25:57] Yeah. [25:59] and there are an awful lot of older adults. [26:01] Yeah. the waiting list that Banganger Housing, they had to shut off their waiting list because it was so long [26:08] for senior housing. They're building more over by over behind you. Yeah. Main Augusta. [26:16] Is that Sunset AB or Sunset? [26:18] Yeah. Yeah. Over there. [26:19] That's I think how many units is that? [26:22] I think one is going to be 40 units and then they want to do another 30 that they haven't started permitting yet. And isn't there another project by the Mary Snow School? [26:35] Yeah, that's Penquest. [26:38] But that's also, I believe, 55. [26:40] Yeah. Yeah. [26:42] And there's a large project in Glenburn happening. I live in Glenburn on the corner of Ohio Street in Mccardi and it's there's only like one building up there right now. Been going for like two years as far as I can remember, but they had to clear a whole lot. like they said it's 55 plus and it's going to be a combination of single homes or and townhouse. [27:04] but then you have to drive and as you get older, [27:09] right? But it isn't easy, you know, go right down Ohio Street and you're into to Bangor. But that's what we've been told. But it's been going on and going. I live very I live just down the road. [27:21] and but they're saying it's 55. That's good to hear. I didn't realize that was going on. So that's very pro. [27:30] The whole town was a buzz because we thought it was a solar farm because they just it was all wood. They cleared this huge area. So everybody was and then they made the announcement that no, it's a 55 plus housing development. [27:46] Wow. That's great for the area. Sure. [27:49] Yeah. Yeah. What we're we're hearing though is a lot of seniors want condo. they don't necessarily want to rent. Yeah. If they're selling their home. [28:01] Yeah. So, we're trying to find a developer for that to do that. But the other thing we put up here is just how much we give in our different quarters for the rehab program and the energy efficiency program. so people can see how that's going. [28:26] last year we had spent a significant amount because we were still working with ARPA funds and we had excess funds in block grant from previous years. So we were able to do a lot of assistance [28:47] in the last fiscal year. [28:54] present this P& council in this way. [29:01] We put it in their we put it in their packet, but no, we should [29:05] I think it would be super cool to walk them through this page on it like if only [29:10] to for the public viewing and possibly picking up some stories [29:14] from the papers. It's very [29:18] right [29:18] compelling collection of information. [29:23] Yeah, I don't think a lot of people know it's there. You're right. But they can get this all done here. pre-approved building plans are up and the housing study that was done last year is here as well. so yeah, we try to [29:45] get as much information out there as possible. So, [29:50] and I thought that was a good audible [29:54] pre-approved. [29:55] Yeah. But I thought that you really [29:58] handled it well. [30:00] Well, I mean, and that's the thing like we haven't had people use them yet because a lot of people don't know about it. So, so when Kathleen had called to ask me about it, I said, "Yeah, I would love to get some something out there so people know they're there." So, but I wasn't expecting the headline, but [30:20] Right. [30:20] It is what it is. [30:21] Nobody was. Nobody's used. [30:25] Yeah. It's been You spent like 180 something thousand in a year. No one's used for a year. [30:31] Oh, the preapproved. [30:34] Yeah. The pre-approved Yeah. plans. Yeah. Yeah, [30:36] but we haven't done a lot of outreach on it because we were still, you know, reviewing the our code office was still reviewing them to make sure they were code compliant. So, [30:48] and we did have to make a few tweaks because the code changed last year. So, we had to update the plans a little bit. So, [30:56] and it's, you know, people will use them at some point. It's just something that you need to have in your arsenal, whatever you want to call it. If you follow any of the like strongtowns.org, you have these nonprofit organization, bipartisan groups that tell you what cities should be doing. [31:17] This is definitely what you should be doing. Having pre-approved plans, right? [31:21] The parking situ, you know, as far as minimum parking or no park. I mean, [31:26] we're doing all the [31:28] all the things that we're supposed to be doing mostly. [31:31] Yeah. I mean, you're working on it. I know we're in good hands and I know you're working on all these things. So, [31:36] yeah. [31:38] Okay. So, they haven't been used in within a year's time and you just heard one explanation because it had to be tweaked and got run through the system [31:45] and now at some point people will [31:47] and now they're ready. Right. And now people, [31:50] right? People will know go bad, right? The only thing I'll just add is I wish there was a a duplex plan and I know there was there was a budget of how many you could actually do. I mean I would even look into if a lot came on the market within downtown putting a duplex so my partner and I could move into that and have a rental to help pay that or help pay utilities. [32:14] So I'm I'm sorry that you know we have the ATUs. We have two options which are very cute, but I can't see us moving from a, you know, 1,800 square foot house into an ADU. but and then there's three units and four units and that's [32:32] and I know they're important because they're providing rental units or more rental units, but it I think it would be nice to have a duplex. [32:41] Oh, yeah. That's right. We did the three and the four. And the reason why we picked the three and the four was the state had changed the density requirements where the state statute has changed where you really can't have just a single family zone anymore. You have to allow you can you can require greater land [33:04] to house more units, but so we had to go up to four dwelling units per lot as an allowance. And so that was why we had picked the three-unit and the four unit as something, you know, to pull together for the pre-approval. [33:24] And then accessory dwelling units as well because we we've had accessory dwelling unit as an allowance since 2019. And it has we've had some use of it, but not as much as we thought. more and more because the state statute changed again where you can have an accessory dwelling unit on a property that already has multiple units because at first it was an accessory dwelling unit was allowed with like a single family home [33:54] and then the statute changed to say no you can add it no matter how many units are way to get another unit on that property and it's just smaller than the other units. So that's why we thought, well, you know, we'll do [34:11] you guys need a marketing campaign for it. [34:14] Yeah, [34:15] I definitely, you know, this is one that's sort of freestanding. and then we have [34:26] you know, the full set of plans. [34:30] It took a while to do this, but [34:33] I think that's a good point about a marketing plan and also like I follow towns so I don't know everyone here does that but that's how they talk about you know increasing wealth in the community is by what's your next [34:54] next most intense use of a piece you know of property and that would use a way to do that. [35:03] Yeah. [35:04] Yeah. [35:05] This one is a garage. [35:07] Yeah. [35:11] See, we have a garage, but we'd have to knock it down in order to we're not within We're within probably 5 ft of the property line. [35:20] So, we couldn't do anything like that. And our lot is under 5,000 a little bit under 5,000 square feet. So, it makes it hard to do stuff like that because we thought about that. And I have to say when you the cost of even building the singlestory one is not going to be cheap. [35:40] So, when you have a house that you're supposed to maintain that you're having not that you're having trouble, but it's tight. You have to think about putting new roof on it, whatever. am I going to be spending $150,000 to put an ADU on my property? And that's a question that you know I mean I'm not saying not to but [35:59] right [35:59] and I if I want to go in the direction I think and it's good and bad but I think real estate prices will support it at some point [36:08] in Bangor. I hate to say it but I think our prices will be going up in the next [36:15] time real estate is rising. So, I think it would support that investment, but do we want to have that and then have to worry about the other property? So, I think that's also maybe a concern. And I'll say for older adults, [36:31] yeah, [36:31] is maybe younger people or if you're coming with a little bit more income, disposable income, then it will work, you know, it could work out great because I think they're really cute plans. [36:43] I would love to have one of those. [36:56] Now there's still [37:00] Yeah, it's awesome. [37:02] Yeah, good. [37:06] I think it's a matter of time [37:09] people going to start using [37:14] Yeah. Yeah, I mean the city has been, you know, lauded at the in Augusta for, you know, doing this from a lot of the state legislators because I mean, the whole reason why we did it was the state a few years ago had a pending legislation to do this at a state level [37:34] and then it didn't I think it made it out of committee but it was unfunded so you know basically died. So we decided let's not wait for the state. Let's just use some of our ARPA funds to pay for you know working with an architect. So we did a request for qualifications [37:55] to work with an architect and we ended up with Garin Dylan down in Scarboro and yeah. [38:06] Do you know like to Dominic's point, do you know of any like [38:13] duplex plans that are pre-approved by other municipalities that would be able to easily be adapted to meet our requirements and then you could put another [38:28] I don't I mean if you Google you know two family there's a lot of that you can purchase you know plans [38:38] [38:38] and there are a lot of cities like Southbend Indiana was one of the first cities to do plans like this. But when you go to the website, [38:47] you see rows and rows and rows of options from small like starter homes. That's also we need starter homes for families or for older adults to start out with where construction will be [38:59] less than building a bigger house. Maybe there might be space to grow into. But I guess my point is they have a real good mix of and I don't know if any of those plans they go from starter to like quad, you know, and they come in different architectural styles, too, which is neat. Like the same plan, the same design plan [39:21] you could get in different styles. So, [39:24] I went on that yesterday just to double check. And so, I don't know if any of those plans I guess that's my point and you're right. And there are a lot of websites that you could go to these plans, get any type of plan that you want and just run it by the city. I would [39:41] Yeah. The challenge right now for trying to build this up is the cost of construction material, [39:46] right? And that was a point I was making with the Banger Daily is that there's some things we can't control and that's construction pricing. I mean, even market rate developers that have wanted to do significant projects in Bangor have walked away from it because of they the amount of rent they can get you know doesn't match up with what the cost of construction is. [40:10] We get a lot of calls about the cost of construction materials at the office. [40:16] Yeah. Out of our control. [40:18] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I had one developer from Boston say, you know, your construction prices are Boston pricing. It's what we would spend down here, but I can't get a Boston rent even at market rate. So, [40:32] but even like land cost doesn't make up for your other types of incentives. [40:37] Well, I mean that's the whole thing like with Grand View, I mean that is for that's priced for 80 to 120%. and that they still needed money from mainstate housing, the land, and we're giving them ARPA funds [40:54] to close it. So, yeah, I'm interested to look at that. [40:58] I think also is that like with Grand View, [41:01] it's site work, too. [41:04] Yeah. Like if you were to do one of these homes in a place that's in town on city services already, it's a whole lot less expensive project. [41:12] Yeah. like 30% of your construction cost is you haven't put anything on the ground. It's it's the site work, it's the sewer, it's the water, it's the utilities. So that's why I'm always encouraging people to like think in town in town density, right? [41:29] Because 30% of your cost is gone because you already have sewer, you already have water, you have electricity like right in the spot, right? [41:37] That's why suburbanism is way more expensive than urbanism. [41:41] Yeah. [41:45] Well, that's all I had for my update. Does anybody else have anything else? [41:50] Like to mention that idea that Rob and I brought to you if that's okay. so I work in community development and a lot of that is using the community development block grant or CDBG or the block grant as we call it many different things but every year there's a community development week and the intention behind that week is to raise awareness about the program get people excited about it make sure that you know it stays [42:20] program that Congress continues to fund it there's a lot of good that we can do and it the programs that we run it doesn't cost the city anything so it doesn't add tax burden to the municipality at all. so one of the things that we that we thought about doing this year was some community building community outreach events and my wife and I were in Boston recently [42:44] actually for Valentine's Day and someone came up to us on the street and gave us this card. [42:50] and maybe we can pass it around. [42:53] Yeah. [42:53] oh yeah. [42:55] And it basically just a card that says, you know, that you're you're a good person, you're beautiful, you are something. [43:02] and we had this little interaction with this stranger on the street and you know, especially coming into spring, you know, we're all just so caught up in our own lives. Could we do something like this here in Bangor during community development week? And so we kind of wanted to get some ideas and maybe [43:23] potential collaboration. we so maybe I'll share a couple of the ideas that we had and then if anybody has feedback or idea that they like to contribute that would be great. But we thought we could maybe partner with one or multiple local businesses to sort of set up shop [43:45] during part of the day during that week and people could come in and fill out a card. and then we weren't really sure if it would make sense for us to collect the cards and distribute them at a different time or for people to take the card and then go out on the street and find someone and give a card to them if it should be one day or the entire week. [44:09] so we were sort of worried that if we people come in and fill out a card, they'd take it, but are they going to actually give it to someone else or is it just going to, you know, go in their bag and not come out again? There's already the love cards that are going all around the little round [44:30] with pink heart. [44:32] Yeah. [44:33] I'm not familiar with those. [44:35] Yeah, they're I think her storefront is in Belfast now, maybe. [44:42] Maybe. Not sure. [44:44] It's [44:45] Joann [44:49] Yeah. And she just she gives them out on the street. [44:54] And she gives people a bunch of them to give out on the street. [44:58] They're in restaurants and other places just on the counter and [45:02] doctor offices. Oh, [45:04] that's so cool. Nice. [45:05] Yeah. [45:06] Somebody loves you just [45:09] Yeah. [45:10] Yeah. It's not hard to find them. What is her last name? [45:17] Her husband's name is Carson. Yeah. [45:22] Yeah. [45:22] Too bad. When I lived in Jamaica Play, one of my favorite things that spontaneous celebrations did was they would have days where they would go out with name stickers that you know those hello my name is [45:35] and just pass them out to people and everybody would be wearing them and like the idea was like when you knew somebody's name like you treated them and reacted to them differently. and those were always fun because then you'd be like somewhere else in town and like bump into somebody else who had the hello, my name is and you were like, you know, you're from JP2, you know, like so it was kind of fun. [45:56] Well, they're all good ideas and I like that. I know that in a smaller town like Province Town, there was always like a [46:05] a theme something every so often like you could do [46:09] make up a theme of like introduce yourself day, you know, like [46:14] Yeah. Yeah. And that's not the word the wording I would use, but like just do something like on April 15th or whatever the date is, it's going to be get to meet a new a stranger. You introduce yourself to stranger, [46:28] you know. [46:29] Yeah, that's cool. [46:30] Something like that. And yes, things like that. Whenever you could build community or [46:37] compassion and empathy towards each other, [46:41] of course, let's do stuff like that. [46:43] Yeah. who've done stuff like that with our ambassador program like having them on Valentine's Day. We had Bangor High students make Valentine's and like hundreds of Valentine's and then they just passed them out all over the place to anyone and everyone and everybody always reacted well to it. So, I think that was a really [47:04] great way to It's Joanne Steamberg. She also writes a kind of a news letter. [47:17] Nice. [47:17] So this s ng. [47:22] Thank you. [47:23] Yeah. [47:23] So this the community development week this year is April 6th through 10th. so I think what we're kind of looking for is a place, you know, maybe one day that week. to either hand out cards or I really liked the hello my name is idea as well. but to sort of set up shop somewhere and [47:47] downtown and you know advertise it on social media and around city hall that this is going to happen and maybe you know members of this group would be willing to maybe help you know join with city staff and sort of man the table so to speak and talk about what's going on in Bangor with people. [48:09] so I guess that was we were not sure if we wanted to do like five all five days, five different businesses or just do one day and one business or or if we should just do at the library or somewhere that's not a business. But [48:28] yeah, we could go to your space that [48:32] is the is the new space going to be available by that time? [48:35] I mean, it's available. We don't have staffing to like have it open yet, but this would be a thing that we could open up for sure. [48:41] Okay. Nice. [48:42] And I like it [48:43] would be fun right there. [48:44] That might be better than sort of feeling like you're playing favorites with businesses, [48:50] right? Cool idea, too, to like have every like have everybody make a card and take a blank one to. So when they gave one to whomever they were going to give it to, they could also give them a blank card so it would like [49:01] pass on [49:02] pass it on like you know maybe extend so you don't have to man all five days but like [49:07] yeah no I like [49:08] passing forward. [49:10] Yeah. [49:12] This is what did I know? [49:13] Oh yeah. [49:15] I did see a story about that or something on Facebook or something. Yeah. [49:23] things like that. [49:28] Yeah, that would be great. [49:31] Yeah. And I mean, we could potentially have more than one location. I mean, if we wanted to do this on like Monday or Tuesday, sort of in the beginning of the week, and it's something that could roll on through the week. so like we had a location downtown and then you know if you're if you're talking about having someone at public health or just being part of it. [49:52] Yeah, pro we could probably do both. I think we could do something in our building with folks who come in and then but we honestly have fewer and fewer people coming in so we could come help here. [50:09] Okay. [50:10] Yeah. social isolation and connectedness are two things that are you know huge health drivers. So [50:21] that's priority of our [50:23] I would imagine both hospitals would be very interested in this as well. I mean [50:32] what's the hospital on the east side [50:36] John Bats but no [50:39] main we're going to call east main but it's the go through the whole thing [50:44] but they sponsored the at least the first couple two or three years of the sky which the whole concept behind it was how are you doing right basically [50:55] right connectedness [50:57] that's connected. So, I have a feeling both hospitals would want that. Even if it means that in their lobby there people are coming and going, they're doing stuff like that. Doesn't have to really require them going to a specific location. And I also think obviously West Market Square is a great place. I mean, I know it's weather depends upon the weather, but when they're giving away the free flowers, the free flowers, [51:20] how wonderful it is that people I mean, when I'm giving them, you know, it just makes the rest of your day and they give you two so you could give it to someone else. So there's the card, [51:30] the extra card that you could give to [51:34] and I bet like Fusion Bangor would be interested, you know, like that's another organization that can [51:42] be in enthusiastic in passing things out. [51:46] Yeah. Yeah. I like that. [51:50] Or maybe somebody on Husking campus to [51:53] Oh, yeah. [51:54] getting those students thinking about this concept of economic development. Sure. Lisa would love that with her hospitality group. [52:03] Lisa would eat this up. [52:04] Yeah. [52:04] Yeah, [52:05] that's a good thing. [52:09] Okay. [52:09] I'm thinking too the fourth week starting the 23rd of March to the 28th is the main science festival. There's a lot of activities. [52:19] Yeah. [52:20] Every day. some downtown, some not. But certainly the Discovery Museum, Kate would love to do something like this, but Oh yeah, [52:31] that week is just like that's one of my favorite weeks. [52:34] Me too. [52:35] All the different activities. [52:37] Yeah, I highly recommend going with that. They got a national award this year. [52:44] I know. So that's the thing. [52:48] Yeah. What? 10 I mean there were just 10 places and they're not all museums. nationwide four nationwide. [52:58] Kate's Kate's a genius. She's just [53:01] cool. [53:02] Well, thank you, Stan. [53:03] Thanks. Appreciate. [53:05] All right. So, next [53:07] sort of like action step or like will you just email out to the whole choose or support you need? [53:13] We'll probably chat with Robin and we'll finalize what we want to do and we'll send an email to the group. but I do like the idea of either setting up at West Market Square or at the at your new building. so [53:27] it can be like weather dependent, right? Like if it's good weather go down there, [53:32] but like I said, we've got pop-up tents and tables and all that kind of stuff that [53:38] Yeah, that would be fun. [53:39] Yeah. [53:41] Okay, cool. [53:41] Yeah, I think probably we have to move on it because it's coming right up. So maybe next week we can [53:46] Yeah, finalize your schedule. Really next week would be good. Yeah. then we can get the word out to people. [53:52] Okay, cool. [53:54] Yeah. [53:54] Does anybody know in the No Kings protests where and when that's going to be on the 28th? [54:01] I don't know where. I just know. [54:06] Yeah. Often they're at the library. I notice Pierce Park. Yeah. [54:11] I did bring take away things too if anybody wants them. We've got our visit downtown maps. We've got the Bangor Arts and Culture Collaborative, which has a QR code that takes you to all the different cultural organizations in Bangor and our guide books. And then our important contact card. We do need to update this because it's now Jeremy Brock is now the communications [54:36] person instead of Jason McCambley, but the phone number still works, just not the email. but you can you can get anywhere here including a QR code to get you to see clickfix if you need to report something or how to call the public works 24hour hotline etc. So [54:52] oh I love that. [54:53] Yeah. [54:53] Yeah. And I have to say I went through part of the website again recently about events [55:00] and if anyone wants to know what's happening people should really I mean we keep on we put it out every so often but I don't know and you do get activity but [55:12] have a good weekend [55:15] it's really [55:16] there's so much going on [55:16] there's so much there is so much going on [55:18] whenever people say there's nothing to do I'm like Yeah, [55:23] go here. [55:26] No matter what your thing is, I'm pretty convinced that we've got it covered, right? Like some like out there, you know, elements out there for anybody who wants that. [55:36] Check it out if you haven't. [55:40] All right. So, next month, we're having a speaker on solo aging in Maine. And so, that's going to be our topic next month. yeah. So, we'll see you then. [55:52] Thank you. [55:53] All right.