Saco City Council Meeting - September 22, 2025: Housing Updates, Legislative Reports, and Public Comment on Mobile Home Rent Increases
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Saco City Council Meeting - September 22, 2025
The Saco City Council met on Monday, September 22, 2025, at 6:38 PM. The meeting began with a joint session with the Planning Board for a housing state statute update, followed by legislative updates from state representatives, public comment on a proposed rent increase at Blue Haven Mobile Home Park, and action on several agenda items. Key outcomes included tabling a street acceptance request, approving a special entertainment permit, acknowledging updates to the Planning Board's Standard Operating Procedures, and directing staff to explore options regarding a potential moratorium on lot rent increases.
Consent Calendar
- None presented.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Blue Haven Mobile Home Park Residents (Kathy, Brian LaRoche, Rodney Champagne, Linda Babbitt, Ray Halzek): Residents requested a temporary moratorium on lot rent increases scheduled for December 1, 2025. They reported a proposed increase of up to $145 per month (a 28% increase), which they described as a crisis for seniors, veterans, disabled individuals, and families on fixed incomes. They noted that they have over 75% of homeowners signed on for mediation but were told they are not eligible. They cited similar actions in Sanford, Waterville, and Old Orchard Beach. Specific speakers highlighted personal financial struggles: Rodney Champagne stated his rent would increase by $145/month, exceeding his Social Security benefit adjustment; Linda Babbitt said the increase would be more than half her monthly retirement income of $1,239; Ray Halzek, a disabled veteran, reported being charged $750/month upon moving in four months ago.
Discussion Items
- Housing State Statute Update (Joint with Planning Board): Emily Cole Prescott presented a recap of 12+ workshops since June 2024 on housing ordinances. Key tracked bills: LD 1829 (impacts lot sizes, units per lot, subdivision definition, ADUs, sprinkler systems) and LD 1498 (impact fee encumbrance timeline). Current work focuses on site plan review ordinance redlines, with subdivision and zoning amendments to follow. A subcommittee on design review standards has met. Upcoming: Portland Road Master Plan draft (fall 2025) and Housing Action Plan draft (winter 2025/early 2026).
- Legislative Updates (State Senator Donna Bailey, Rep. Marshall Archer, Rep. Copeland):
- Housing/Zoning (Sen. Bailey): The overarching themes were increasing affordable housing stock and preserving existing affordable housing. Key bills include $3 million for Mobile Home Park Preservation Fund, right of first refusal for residents to purchase parks, exemption from real estate transfer tax for sales to resident-owned communities, and extension of rent-to-own protections to mobile home purchasers. LD 1829 is the most comprehensive bill cutting red tape and amending zoning. Other updates include an affordable housing TIF update, increased historic property rehab tax credit, a real estate property tax relief task force, and a pilot program for rehabilitating aging stock. Carryover bills: residential renter unit registry (LD 1806), statewide housing resolution board (LD 1921), and workforce housing density requirements (LD 1926).
- Education (Rep. Archer): Over 20 education-related laws passed, covering school temperature standards (LD 11), air quality in new schools (LD 1887), student homelessness prevention (LD 384), local seafood in schools (LD 1858), school funding formula study (LD 318), charter school commission independence, loan forgiveness for school counselors, teacher compensation study, and workforce credential pathways. He emphasized downstream effects on municipal budgets and capital planning. Councilor Hatch expressed concerns that housing initiatives may not lower consumer costs and could increase property values, straining taxpayers and local authority. Councilor Hewitt asked about state initiatives to improve Maine's last-ranked education system; Rep. Archer noted no specific quality-improvement bills passed but that the funding formula is under review.
- Shoreline (Rep. Copeland): LD 228 (allows seawalls to be raised up to 2 feet) and LD 65 (updated coastal wetlands definition) were enacted. LD 560 (bond for coastal climate resiliency, led by Sen. Bailey) was carried over. Councilor Berman asked about eligibility for counties; Sen. Bailey confirmed counties would be eligible and emphasized the need for two-thirds legislative support. Rep. Archer noted the importance of messaging to inland legislators about fiscal impacts.
- Committee Correspondence:
- Age-Friendly Saco (Councillor Edwards): Announced appointment of Rebecca Hadiaris as new executive director effective October 21, 2025. Upcoming events: Wellness Fair at Thornton Academy on November 8 (9:30 AM, registration required), a meal on October 9 at the Elks Club, and Sand Buckets for Seniors on November 15.
- Traffic Safety Committee (Councillor Johnson): Reported a joint workshop with B-Ped to rank infrastructure needs for the Transportation Master Plan, and a three-hour Traffic Safety Committee meeting with numerous requests for improvements across the city. Anticipates budget for such requests may be used quickly.
- Ethics Complaint Form (New Business): HR Director Hunter Cox presented a draft form for submitting code of ethics concerns, as recommended by the Citizen Grievance Review Committee. The form is designed to be accessible, with disclaimers about public record status. Councilors Berman and Hatch raised concerns about frivolous complaints and the need for complainants to specify the ethics code section and provide evidence. Councilor Gunn suggested clarifying legal protections for good-faith complainants. Staff will refine the form and bring it back for council feedback before finalizing.
- Executive Session: The council voted 7-0 to enter executive session at 8:09 PM and exited at 9:43 PM; no report was given.
Key Outcomes
- Street Acceptance (Amari Court and Dupey Drive): Motion to table to the October 6, 2025 meeting passed 7-0.
- Special Entertainment Permit (Elks Lodge #1597): Public hearing opened and closed; motion to approve renewal concurrent with liquor license through November 6, 2026 passed 7-0.
- Planning Board Standard Operating Procedures: Council acknowledged receipt of the SOP revised through September 16, 2025, and declared recommendation #2 of the Grievance Review Committee complete. Motion passed 7-0, with a note to correct the appointments/resignation section to align with the city charter (include City Council on resignation). This correction will be brought to the Planning Board.
- Mobile Home Rent Increase (Blue Haven): Councilors Berman, Johnston, Hatch, and Hewitt requested that staff bring a report to a future meeting (before the December 1 increase) outlining the city's options, what neighboring towns have done, and the potential scope of a moratorium. No formal vote was taken, but the consensus was to place it on a future agenda.
- Ethics Complaint Form: Staff will work with IT/Communications to create a web page and share the form with the council for comments by the end of the following week, with finalization to occur after feedback and upon the new city administrator's input.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Sacco City Council meeting for Monday, September twenty-second, twenty twenty-five. Um, before we call the official meeting to order, we do have a joint meeting tonight with the planning board for a couple of updates. Um, and with us tonight, we do have members of the planning board. And the first item up is item A, which is a housing state statute update. Thank you, Mayor. In absence of a city planner while we look to fill the city planner role. Bear with me as I provide the update with the planning board, if you can uh accommodate that this time. So a quick presentation here, and then I'll hand it off to everyone. Just a little recap from June to September. So uh June 2024 to today. I had to go back myself and look at all the good work we've done. So thank you for all the time you spent on these important matters. This is just a recap of uh the twelve workshops we've had. It's a little more than twelve because some of them we did multiple uh workshops on some housing updates. I won't uh seal too much because we have our legislative updates right after this. The two primary bills that we're tracking are LD eighteen twenty-nine and LD fourteen ninety-eight. Eighteen twenty-nine has uh impacts for housing lot sizes, how many units can go on one lot, the definition of subdivision, um, and some other provisions as well, including planning board training and how we look at uh ADUs and sprinkler systems. LD fourteen ninety-eight has to do with the impact fee statute and how impact fees can be encumbered going forward. Uh currently there's a long uh period that you can have impact fees before the improvement has to be made that the impact fee was set aside for. This will change that so that the impact fee has to be encumbered for certain projects within one year of the impact fee being collected. The question that we've had, or the way that we're interpreting that is it's uh going to be impact fee encumbered within one year to the capital fund. And we're working on that and tracking that as staff. Um, other red line ordinance amendments that we were previously drafting as a result of these twelve plus workshops, some of which will be redrafted to reflect these law changes that we've been working on, and as we get a new city planner pulling them into that process as well. We did also share with the planning board as well as the long-range planning committee a list of uh bills that we were tracking that affect housing. Um these are the probably the primary two, but there's a whole list I can show you after this that uh you can we can send the links out and make sure that you have. So we are still working on red line ordinance amendments. I did present to the long range planning committee back in June and then in August about moving forward, focusing first on the site plan review ordinance, and then following up with subdivision and zoning as the subdivision and zoning ordinances will have to be amended a little bit further to accommodate for the state law revisions. We also did some great work with the long range planning committee in the fall time. Counselor Hatch had brought forward some recommended items to look at. Those went through our subcommittee review process of the long range planning committee. Uh, that committee, that subcommittee met a few times and really dove into what design review standards could look like and how some of those updates that councillor Hatch recommended could be put into our ordinance. So we have red lines of those as well for the site plan review ordinance primarily, and some of the subdivision ordinance. Um, the next step of this would be to finish out those red lines um and then bring this to planning board and then to city council. I could pause here so we can allow another board member to join us. So um upcoming uh we will also be having a joint meeting with the long range planning committee to go over some of that subcommittee work from uh fall 2024. Uh we will also be looking to have new business review to be scheduled so you can at least get an eye on the drafts that we have, and we can share the link to the draft that we shared with the long range planning committee. I did share what we had for site plan review and asked for edits. I did receive some minor edits from LRPC members, so appreciate that. And then anticipated drafts just as an FYI. We are still um closing out the Portland Road Master Plan. We did a lot of great public comment. I didn't have that on our list because it was a relative to the to the long range plan, but we did a lot of great public comment and business breakfasts, and so we are anticipating a fall 2025 draft of that plan as well as a winter 2025 early 2026 draft of the housing action plan. So it'll be exciting to see some of this closing out. And then here's just a list of ongoing planning projects that we are excited to either be in the implementation phase of or the drafting phase, or um, some of them require longer periods, but a lot of a lot of interesting work happening and and uh coming to the finish line. So that's great. So um I didn't want to go too far into the legislative updates, uh, but we I'm happy to answer any questions about this presentation, and thank you for listening. Great, thank you. Any questions from counselors? Any qu up counselor hatch? Thank you, Mayor McPhil.
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