NORWAY — The Planning Board will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Town Office to consider an application for a 17-unit cooperative housing development at 33-35 Whitman St.

Thea Hart, project coordinator for Norway Equitable Housing Cooperative, welcomed the concerns from neighbors and patiently responded to all questions at a public hearing July 11.

The cooperative was launched in 2021 by Norway’s Center for Ecology-Based Economy with a mission of bringing affordable and sustainable, net-zero, housing to the area. To the co-op, net-zero means low to zero electricity bills within an energy-efficient building with solar panels providing all the necessary power, Hart has said.

“We’ve tried to be really intentional in making green space,” Hart said of the proposed apartment complex.

The Norway Equitable Housing Cooperative building will be owned by the tenants and will operate as a limited equity housing cooperative with governing bylaws. Each household will hold a voting share in the organization.

“In order to move in, residents would purchase a share in our Cooperative corporation, and pay shared monthly utility and maintenance fees,” a page on the Center for Ecology-Based Economy’s website explains.

Eco-villages and housing co-ops can be found in rural and metro communities across the country but are still relatively new to Maine. Raise Up, a Lewiston-based organization that operates three properties, has served as a model and provided support for the Norway group.

Hart said the cooperative has been engaged with the surrounding community throughout the process of buying the late Ashley Everett’s home and demolishing it in February. The dilapidated 19th-century home was unsalvageable and loaded with asbestos, basically making it a brownfield site that had to be remediated. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “a brownfield is a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.”

“We’ve done our best to connect with our neighbors over the last few years,” Hart said.

The group has held information sessions and community dinners  in an effort to keep the neighbors involved and informed, Hart added.

Despite this, one abutter to the project, Allison Gaston, expressed a feeling that the affordable housing was being forced through without people having their say and suggested that the building be constructed in the woods.

Scott Vlaun, executive director of the Center for Ecology-Based Economy, said the woods is the “last place” anyone would want to build affordable housing because there would be no access to services like food and medical care.

“This is literally the best spot to build housing in Norway right now,” Vlaun said of the co-op’s proposed site at the corner of Whitman and Pearl streets.

He noted that Maine has determined it must build 80,000 housing units by 2030 to meet the need for affordable housing in the state.

Other neighbors explained how bad the traffic and speeding problem is already in the area and worried that having more people living there would only compound the problem. 

Penny Leibovitz, another abutter, expressed a concern that the cooperative housing would make the area unaffordable for everyone else, and even asked if “illegals” would be living at the building.

“We have a quiet neighborhood,” Leibovitz said.

“We’re not trying to run you out of the neighborhood and we’re not trying to add noise. I like it quiet,” Hart said. “We’re going to do our best.”

Hart and Vlaun expressed a personal need for affordable and energy-efficient housing and said they would both likely be applying for a spot in the cooperative once it opens. Two other residents said the same.

“We live with you. We are your neighbors,” resident Theo Cornish said.

Gaston asked about the number of parking spaces, which totals 12.

Hart said it meets the minimum requirements set forth in L.D. 2003, a state law passed in 2022 meant to remove barriers to affordable housing in Maine. The law requires two parking spots for every three units and it supersedes Norway’s parking ordinance.

“If it proves not to be good, we hope to rectify it,” Hart said of the parking spaces, stressing that the group wants to continue working with neighbors throughout the process to address any potential issues.

The cooperative hopes to utilize MaineHousing’s Rural Affordable Housing Rental Program to help pay for the project, but must obtain all the necessary permits first, so the project is “shovel-ready,” Hart said.

“The point of cooperative housing is it’s relationship-centered, not profit-centered,” Hart continued. “All the profit goes back into the community and any surplus goes back to the owners, who are the tenants.”

Vlaun defended the idea of cooperative housing and the people who would utilize it.

“When you have resident-owned housing, there’s lower crime rates, there’s more care being taken, there’s more neighbor-to-to-neighbor contact. They’re starting to understand the value of that model,” Vlaun said of MaineHousing.

Hart added that Norway’s Main Street needs younger people to support it and work there, and affordable housing is a prerequisite to attracting people to the area.

“We’d like to be able to serve that need,” Hart said.

The Planning Board will consider the application based on how it conforms to Norway’s ordinances, like site plan review, according to board Chairman Dennis Gray. He said the town has never adopted a zoning code.

“If it fits what the ordinances require, then it’s our obligation to approve it,” he said.