Portland’s LD2003 Changes Deliver Their First Housing Approval
Urbanist Coalition members outside of City Hall after the approval vote
When the Urbanist Coalition was urging Portland’s City Council to adopt a version of State Housing Law LD2003 that made real change, we said that there would be real people who would get to live in homes that would not exist without this policy. The City Council adopted this version of LD2003 by an overwhelming majority and on Tuesday, (July 23rd, 2025) the first project enabled by these changes received Planning Board approval.
Stroudwater Commons will include 156 units of housing on 4 acres. 78 of these units will be income-restricted workforce units without requiring any subsidy. Affordable housing subsidies are great and we should have more of them, but every year there are more projects requiring funding than we have funding to give. To solve the housing crisis, we need to use every tool in our toolbox to get more housing and especially more affordable housing.
The tool that made Stroudwater Commons happen is zoning reform. The State Law LD2003 created a 2.5x density bonus for projects that are 50% or more affordable workforce housing that would apply to all areas zoned for multifamily housing. The Urbanist Coalition advocated to apply LD2003 everywhere on Portland’s mainland by permitting up to four units on all lots. Stroudwater Commons is in the RN-1 zone, and without this stronger version of LD2003 the density bonus would not have applied. The project also adds Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to each building in the development, creating an additional 26 units. The Urbanist Coalition specifically advocated for allowing projects to construct two ADUs even if they use other bonuses provided by LD2003.
Updating our zoning doesn’t just give us projects with more units. It makes projects happen that otherwise could not, and it can make projects more affordable. Every construction project has fixed costs that it has to pay: permits, design, land, and more. By dividing these fixed costs among more units, we can make projects work that otherwise couldn’t break even. This piece of zoning reform allows the Stroudwater Commons project to deliver affordable units without competing for existing affordable housing funds.
The developer of this project, GreenMars, has been innovative in using the new zoning to its full potential with some creative solutions (like ADUs) to do it. This suggests that we could see even more housing, and different types of housing, with further zoning changes.
The changes we have now are a huge step in the right direction and we are only just starting to see the benefits. Across the river, there is an example of a large parcel of land that was developed recently, but before these changes went into effect. Stroudwater Preserve subdivided the 55 acre Camelot Farm into 95 single family homes and 25 townhouses[2]. They start at $800,000[3] and some are estimated to be worth over $1 million[4]. This can give us some insight into what might have been developed without these zoning changes. If GreenMars’ new Stroudwater Commons project were built to the same level of density, it would have just 8 units instead of 156. Meanwhile, the most expensive workforce units are estimated to sell for $319,000[1].
The Planning Board and City Staff were cautious about these zoning changes. They represented a real shift in Portland’s City Code and this decision was left to the City Council. Faced with that decision, the City Council took the bold step of adopting these amendments. During the ReCode process, the Planning Board and City Staff respected the vote, preserved the changes, and even simplified and improved the language without changing their impact. As a direct result, we are getting more housing and more affordable housing.
Getting housing built, especially affordable housing, is hard work that requires collaboration at every level. The road to enabling this project began in the State House with a study, and then a bill sponsored by Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford). Once this was passed, Portland’s Planning Staff and Planning Board proposed updates to Portland’s zoning to comply with the new law. Collaborating with the Urbanist Coalition, Councilor Roberto Rodriguez put forward several amendments to this proposal to implement a stronger version of LD2003 in Portland that was more in line with the original recommendations of the state study. The Portland City Council, with support from members of the public and groups as ideologically far apart as the DSA and the Chamber of Commerce passed these amendments with a large majority. Finally, the developer, GreenMars, put together a creative project that uses these policies to build more housing more affordably. This one project will not solve the housing crisis; no one thing will. But we hope that this will be the first of many projects and that Portland and Maine will continue to enact policies that will provide housing for all.
Learn more about the LD2003 amendments on our policy page.
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