Joni Mitchell and the Low Income Housing Project in Cape Elizabeth.

I can’t wait to hear about all the benefits my family and small business in the Town Center of Cape Elizabeth will get for subsidizing a gigantic “low income” housing project across the street.

I wonder how many dumpsters I’ll get to look at from my home office or kitchen table and whether we’ll ever get reprieve from incessant sounds of jacked-up landscaping that surely will accompany Dunham Court (the “Project”), a massive compound making its way through town hall. As proposed the Project will substantially exceed height and density restrictions and not offer commercial space on the first floor as required by our town planning law.

To make a privately owned 49-unit rental apartment building “financially and legally feasible” for affluent private developers, the taxpayers of my pretty coastal town are asked to ignore multiple zoning rules and help pay for a behemoth of asphalt and siding and bright lights in order to “diversify the living options available” in our town.

“Diversify?” How and for what purpose is what I look forward to learning.

Because let’s start with our real estate “crisis” and lack of so-called “affordable housing.”

Not only can people apparently afford every inch of housing put on the market, numerous buyers are happy to pay more than the asking price. The real estate market is sizzling and the free market capitalist in me is dying to know why my investment in the Town Center is less worthy than the Project slated to be erected in the same zone.

The Project expects us to pay by way of tax increment financing so it can make a profit and 39 out of 49 “low income” but otherwise wealthy renters can score a deal and I can feel good about what, exactly?

If the Project is about supporting families and good will, let’s contribute to Habitat for Humanity and design a beautiful building for downtown Cape Elizabeth that complies with our town’s comprehensive plan. If the Project is about “workforce” housing, let’s pay the public employees who are the “workforce” more and offer low interest loans so they can afford to live in town. If the Project is about the developers making a profit why not follow the same rules as everyone else in town trying to make a profit?

Take my small businesses a stone’s throw away from the Project’s anticipated location, for example. We have a family office, studio and seasonal rental enterprise when there’s not a pandemic. A variance from the short term rental ordinance and waiver of the new $500 permitting fee on top of a tax break would be great and easy if all it means is limiting our renters to “low income” day traders from New York City.

If serving “low income” clientele like Jeff Bezos is suddenly a community goal shouldn’t all businesses that do so get a tax break?

That’s the type of “low income” tenants the Project will most likely attract, right? People with ample wealth that they play with all day on screens between golfing and board meetings? In Cape Elizabeth there is no public transportation, very few good paying jobs, no bank or social services and the apartments are not big enough for families with kids.

It’s mission to “diversify the living options” can’t mean the Project wants to attract Black people or ethnic minorities because that’s racist and 95% of people in Maine are white so I’m left scratching my head. What will be so different to justify an eyesore right in the middle of town?

Oh, look! Old white people gaining economic advantage by skirting the rules. Neat.

The Project proposes to literally take our public skating rink and put up a parking lot. Instead of the sounds of skaters on cold nights while out walking our dogs we will hear generators and rowdy plow boys .

The Project takes the carefully crafted vision of a charming New England village set forth in the comprehensive plan and shreds it — and who knows what the management will look like? Remember the grandiose plans of the developer who bought and abandoned the lot next to town hall? It sits vacant still 20 or so years later.

What if the private company contracted to “manage” the Project is the same one used to “manage” near-bye Scarborough Beach? You know, the guys who collect cash only to run one of Maine’s most beautiful beaches like a militarized zone with electric iron gates, cement barriers, security cameras, chain fencing and gas-guzzling motorized equipment while other guys with headphones listening to loud music speed around on dune buggies and bark at people because raking the beach or cleaning the disgusting outhouses or doing anything to make the beach-going experience more pleasant for citizens is not their business.

Of course there won’t be disgusting outhouses at the Project but 49 rental units are sure to generate a lot of sewage that when I close my eyes and think about smells bad already but maybe I’m missing something.