Additional homes are becoming available under Cape Elizabeth’s affordable housing program.

Another nine affordable homes have been built or are being planned under a town rule that requires developers to include them in subdivisions with five or more lots. Those homes will join nine that have been built since the program began in the 1990s. The homes have deed restrictions to keep them in the program.

Six homes for moderate-income buyers will be part of Eastman Meadows off Eastman Road, near the Purpoodock Club, and three homes for low-income buyers will be in Cottage Brook, near the northern end of Spurwink Avenue.

It may seem like a small number, but the homes are helping to meet a need, officials say. Town Planner Maureen O’Meara said the number of inquiries about affordable housing far surpasses the town’s inventory.

“I’ve had people who live in these homes … contact me, and they’re extremely happy,” she said. The homeowners include a longtime renter, a Gulf War veteran and a municipal employee.

The median sale price for single-family homes in Cape Elizabeth was $385,000 last year, according to the Maine Real Estate Information System.

Under the town’s program, developers can designate 10 percent of their units as moderate income or 5 percent as low income.

To qualify for low-income homes, whose prices are capped at $168,323, buyers cannot have annual household income over $54,550.

The moderate-income homes, with a maximum price of $315,605, are for buyers with household income of $102,281 or less.

The low-income category is the equivalent of 50 to 80 percent of the median household income for the Portland area; the moderate-income is 80 to 150 percent. Assets are not taken into consideration.

The maximum prices of the homes were calculated so that the housing costs would not exceed 30 percent of a household’s gross income.

There are no regulations regarding the number of people in a household or the size of the home, although the town requires the affordable units to have the same number of bedrooms as the average for the project.

In the Eastman Meadows condominium project, two of the five units sold so far were for moderate-income buyers. Those units — the middle ones in a four-plex — sold for less than $300,000, about $70,000 less than a comparable market-rate unit.

The developer, Joel FitzPatrick, said the buyers came from Cape Elizabeth: a widowed retiree who has already moved in and empty-nesters who will likely move in a couple of months.

“I think it’s great. Let’s have some lower-priced homes. But what it does is ups the cost of the others. That’s where I have a little bit of a problem with it,” FitzPatrick said of the town’s affordable housing program. “If you’re selling a unit for $70,000 less, you’ve got to make it up somewhere else.”

At Cottage Brook, one of the five homes sold so far qualifies as low-income. Jim McFarlane, a partner in the development, said it’s hard to keep within the $168,323 cap for the homes, given the cost of development.

“As a developer, it’s almost like a donation for the cost of doing business, for the right to do business in a town,” he said.

Joseph Frustaci has satisfied the affordable housing requirements for his Blueberry Ridge subdivision, off Mitchell Road. He said it’s a slow process finding buyers within the prescribed income levels who can afford the maximum home prices.

The units sold to a single parent who moved from a condominium, and a family, originally from Cape Elizabeth, that returned to town.

Frustaci said he didn’t make any money from those homes, but the program did what was intended.

“It provided new housing for families, so I’m pleased,” he said.

Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at:

akim@pressherald.com