Forty-eight units of workforce housing are officially going to be built in Falmouth, a notable increase in housing stock for a town where over 91% of homes sold last year were not affordable for the town’s median income of $141,443.

The Falmouth Planning Board unanimously granted Scittery Woods Partners LLC the final approval of the Marshall Drive project on Tuesday. The development, located next to the police station, includes 13 townhouse structures consisting of 48 two-bedroom units. Each unit will be listed for $425,000, less than half of the median listing price in Falmouth last year.

The project was initiated by the town, with the Town Council voting to seek proposals to develop the town-owned 25-acre plot into workforce housing in February 2024 and approving a development agreement with Scittery Woods Partners that June. The town agreed to sell the 25-acre plot to the developers for $500,000.

“We’re in need of a diverse housing stock in this town,” said Council Chair Bryce Hach when the council first voted to proceed with the project in 2024. “As our housing prices go up, it really does limit the range of people who can afford to live in Falmouth.”

The median house price in Falmouth was $900,000 in 2024, according to MaineHousing. The income needed in Falmouth to afford annual housing expenses in Falmouth is $266,076, though many households make less than this.

To make an offer on a Marshall Drive unit with a price tag of $425,000, applicants must make no more than 120% of the household median income for the Portland metro area, or $137,700 annually for a three-person household as of 2024.

The Marshall Drive project reaches approval as other workforce and affordable housing projects in the surrounding area face significant huddles and local opposition. In March of last year, Cumberland voters shot down the proposed development for a 107-unit affordable apartment complex, and just last month a 50-unit low-income senior housing project in Scarborough faced a potentially fatal setback from the Scarborough Town Council.  

At its earlier stages, the Falmouth development faced concerns from Falmouth residents, with a focus primarily on the resulting increase to traffic in the area and not on growth or location overall, as were common concerns for other development proposals in towns surrounding Portland.

A third-party traffic reviewer said the project is expected to generate 32 or less trips during peak traffic hours during the week, and is not expected to lessen mobility or safety of the surrounding roads.

Throughout the approval process, the feedback from the public and local officials on the project was largely positive, calling the development as necessary and urgent to the economic and social prosperity of the town. In an opinion piece submitted to The Forecaster in May 2024 urging the approval of the project, OceanView retirement community owner John Wasileski wrote that the typical commute for his over 200 employees who work at the retirement community was between 45 and 90 minutes due to the lack of affordable housing options in the area.

“If businesses, nonprofits and service providers can’t find people who can afford to live close to work, or commute a reasonable distance, they start to cut hours and shut down, or move out of town,” wrote Wasileski.

Director of Development at MaineHousing Mark Wiesendanger said for projects such as this, residents should keep in mind how workforce and affordable housing allows people with vital occupations — such as nurses, emergency responders and teachers — to live as well as work in the town.

“The people that need to buy these homes are the people who really need to be in these communities,” said Wiesendanger.

Currently, out of Falmouth’s 37 full-time firefighting/EMS staff, only two live in the town, with many commuting over an hour for their 24-hour shifts and citing high housing costs in the area as to why.

In addition to municipal and public support, subsidies helped make the Marshall Drive project possible. MaineHousing granted the project an Affordable Homeownership Program zero-interest loan of $1,564,200, which will go toward the funding of 20 units, the maximum number of units that qualify for the program.

Scittery Woods Partners LLC is owned by John Finegan of real estate company The Boulos Company, Port City Architecture owner and principal architect Andrew Hyland, and Mike Manning, founder and general contractor of MGM Builders. Finegan said that all three partners got involved in the project with the desire to address the extreme lack of housing in the area.

“I see that more housing getting built is extremely helpful for solving this housing crisis,” said Finegan.

Additionally, they wanted to build units to be for sale, not for rent, as many affordable and workforce housing projects are to appreciate value for the developers.

“We wanted to build a product that would help give particularly younger people … a path into homeownership and a path into equity,” he said.

Before receiving the Planning Board’s final sign-off on the project, Peter Beagle, of Land Design Solutions, shared updates to the plan since it was first presented to the board in March and addressed minor concerns, such as parking signage and the addition of curbs.

With the final plan approval, the developers still have to secure financing, purchase the land and meet the conditions of approval. Scittery Woods Partners estimated the construction would begin later this fall and anticipate that the units will be completed toward the end of 2027.

“It can’t be understated how big of a hurdle or how big of a milestone that is,” said Finegan of the approval.