2025 Local Candidate Platform
Local elections in Portland are approaching in November! For the past few years the Urbanist Coalition has sent candidates questionnaires and published some analysis on their responses. This is part of our mission to educate voters about where local candidates stand on the issues we care about.
We want to continue doing questionnaires but we also wanted to start publishing our ideal platform for a local candidate before sending out our questions. We often get asked what policies we would like to see adopted in Portland and we have done a lot of advocacy for policies but until now we haven’t had them all in one place that we can easily share. Everything in here is something we’ve already talked about in some form. We plan to do this every year so there is an up to date record of what policies we would like to see.
Housing
Housing is the most important issue to the Urbanist Coalition and we believe it is the most important issue for cities, especially as we face a housing affordability crisis. A city is made up of its people and without room for us to live we will lose the people that make Portland what it is. We believe that in order to make housing more affordable Portland needs to build enough housing for everyone. Our region has grown significantly and continues to grow, but Portland has not grown at the same rate. Portland should grow along with the region so that the Greater Portland Area can grow with dense, complete neighborhoods, served by transit instead of car-dependent suburban sprawl. We think Portland growing is a good thing and it is critical for us to remain the cultural and economic center of our region.
Zoning
Portland has made a lot of great progress on zoning recently. LD2003 and ReCode have been important steps in the right direction. However, we don’t think they do enough to address our housing crisis and allow for dense walkable neighborhoods that can support great transit. In particular, ReCode focused a lot on upzoning transit nodes and corridors. This is great, but many residential areas are easily walkable to these corridors and still don’t allow for middle density housing that will make these corridors succeed.
Our platform:
Multifamily housing should be allowed on all lots that currently allow housing.
The building length limit added to Portland’s only multifamily residential zone during ReCode is a barrier to multifamily housing and should be removed.
Small scale neighborhood businesses should be allowed in residential zones to foster complete neighborhoods.
More projects should go through the simpler minor site plan review rather than major site plan review.
Building Codes
Building codes are important but there are cases where they make it more difficult to build the housing we need. In Maine, building codes are mostly set by the state. The Urbanist Coalition has some state-level building code priorities like allowing more single stair buildings, but our local platform focuses on removing or tweaking a few areas where Portland’s building codes go beyond the rest of the state.
Our platform:
Portland is unusual in its requirement of sprinklers in a single family home or ADU. This can add well over $10,000 to the cost of a project and it can make building an ADU unaffordable. Portland should not have sprinkler requirements in excess of the State building code.
Often ADUs require a separate sewer line from the street, even if it might be possible to share a line with the house that is already on the lot. This can also add to the cost of an ADU and make building one unaffordable. We should make sure we are requiring sewer lines based on capacity and not an inflexible rule.
Inclusionary Zoning
We are still working out a specific policy recommendation but based on our preliminary analysis of the housing data in Portland we feel that the requirement to build 25% of units affordable to 80% of Area Median Income is too high for projects to be viable and it is leading to higher housing costs and fewer affordable units.
Our platform:
Portland's inclusionary zoning policy should be updated to ensure it has no adverse impacts on the overall housing supply.
Social Housing
Though we emphasize the importance of housing supply, the market will not be enough to provide housing to everyone who needs it. Portland recently convened a Social Housing Task force and we support their mission of identifying non-market alternatives to address housing affordability. Robust investment in social housing keeps housing affordable and ensures that no one is left behind. Social housing and market rate housing are not mutually exclusive, in fact they support each other. Market rate development provides the economic growth and tax base we need to invest in public programs, and social housing puts downward pressure on market rents by providing a lower cost alternative.
Our platform:
Portland should make robust public investment in building new social housing.
There are a lot of social housing models, but we feel that social housing is best set up for success when:
Social housing is mixed-income where possible to get the most housing out of our investment and help foster diverse communities.
Social housing remains permanently affordable.
The City or agency investing in social housing retains at least some ownership to keep it affordable and leverage the investment to fund future projects rather than providing public subsidies for projects that end up under private ownership.
Prioritizing social housing should not include restrictions on other forms of housing development.
Transportation
Transit
Public transportation is critical infrastructure that people rely on every day. Investing in transit helps people who use it but it also benefits our whole region; even people who never set foot on a bus. As Portland continues to grow the only way to keep traffic under control is to give people an alternative to driving that they choose to use. Public transit is also one of the biggest things we can do at the local level to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Portland should prioritize and invest in a great public transportation system.
Our platform:
Portland should continue to invest in and prioritize Greater Portland Metro.
When investing in improving public transportation, Portland should focus on increasing frequency and reliability. These have been shown to be great ways to increase ridership which helps us get the most benefit from our public transit investment.
Portland should increase transit ridership and funding by encouraging transit-oriented development. This means encouraging denser development along transit corridors.
Portland should leverage funding tools like Transit Oriented Development Districts to capture some of the value of new dense development and use it to fund transit.
Pedestrians and Cycling
Everyone is a pedestrian at some point and walking and cycling are some of the most affordable, pleasant and environmentally friendly ways to get around. Portland is a great walkable city but we should always be prioritizing the needs and safety of pedestrians and cyclists when making transportation decisions. Portland recently passed a Vision Zero resolution, which is a great step and we would like to see more prioritization of pedestrians and cyclists.
Our platform:
Pedestrian comfort and walkability should be prioritized above the speed or throughput of motor vehicles within Portland.
State and High Streets should be returned to two way traffic. This will slow down drivers and make these streets easier and safer to cross.
Exchange St should be closed to vehicular traffic other than deliveries like it was in the summer of 2020 to make for a vibrant pedestrian street.
A complete network of physically separated bike lanes should be built to let cyclists of all levels navigate Portland with minimal conflicts with motor vehicles. Painted “bicycle gutters” are not complete infrastructure.
Parking
Portland could be managing its public parking better to help manage traffic, raise city revenue, and make the parking we already have more available. Downtown parking is expensive but most of that money ends up in the hands of private lots managed by UPP. Portland isn’t charging for public parking at all during some peak times. Aside from leaving some revenue on the table, this can lead cars to circle for a long time looking for parking, increasing traffic and local particulate emissions.
Our platform:
By enforcing parking meters until 9pm instead of 6pm Portland can get more revenue from people coming in from out of town instead of property taxes for Portland residents. This should also improve safety and traffic flow during these hours.
The Temple St. garage is currently closed on Sundays while the nearby One City Center garage is open and charging for parking. People come to downtown Portland on Sundays and opening the garage can give them a place to park and bring in revenue for the city while remaining a fraction of the cost of private parking lots.
Portland should investigate incentives for converting downtown surface parking lots into mixed-use developments, especially housing.
City Projects
Franklin Street
Franklin Arterial is a relic of Urban Renewal. Homes were demolished to make room for a wide road through the heart of our city so drivers could travel at high speeds. It is unsafe, a pedestrian was recently killed there, and it is not the highest and best use of our downtown. The plan to narrow Franklin Arterial and make it a city street instead of a high speed road has been in the works for decades. Recently, Portland was awarded a grant to make a plan to move forward with this project and the planning is already underway. Portland should prioritize this effort and make sure we have a plan that we can actually deliver that emphasizes housing, safety, and transportation connectivity.
Our platform:
Portland should prioritize the Franklin St redesign and focus on creating a realistic plan so we can move forward on the project.
The design should prioritize new housing opportunities as much as possible. Housing was destroyed to create the Franklin Arterial we have today and building some housing back will help to address our housing crisis and it might even help fund the project.
Public transportation, pedestrians, and cyclists should be prioritized as much as practically possible over level of service for single occupancy vehicles.
Lincoln park should be expanded to be close to its former size and street trees should be planted and maintained along the new Franklin St. sidewalks.
Amtrak Station
Portland deserves a great train station that is close to downtown, accessible by transit, and part of a vibrant complete neighborhood. Unfortunately, Portland’s historic Union Station was demolished. Not only did we lose a historic building that was a centerpiece of a neighborhood but the new Amtrak station requires trains to backtrack when stopping in Portland which adds time to trips between Boston and the towns beyond Portland. The Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority (NNEPRA) is working on a project to relocate the station to improve train operations. We support this effort but we are concerned with their current proposal to locate it far down St. John St. instead of closer to the old site of Union Station. The proposal would locate the station in an industrial area that is far from housing and it is much less connected into Portland’s bus network. In some ways it is a step backwards from the transit connectivity, facilities, and housing proximity of the current location at the Portland Transportation Center. We believe that it is possible to build a better station closer to the original site of Union Station and the city has a part to play in getting zoning right and coordinating with NNEPRA to build a station we can be proud of.
Our platform:
Portland’s Amtrak station should be located closer to Congress street around Union Station Plaza, otherwise it should not be relocated from the Portland Transportation Center.
Housing or a mixture of commercial uses should be incorporated into the new Amtrak station project to create a vibrant, complete neighborhood around this key transportation node.
