Reading the Room in Cape Elizabeth Housing Politics

You are excused for not knowing what’s at stake Monday night for the good people of my beautiful home town of Cape Elizabeth.

The Town Council is either going to vote to approve town center zoning ordinance amendments requested by a local, reputable developer to construct a market rate housing project on the town green after fumbling the ball for four years, or the Town Council will vote to approve the over-reaching recommendations of an activist Planning Board and kill the project.

Why will voting to enact the Planning Board’s suggested zoning amendments kill the project? Because the minute after the vote, a petition will be circulated to send the Planning Board amendments — that will allow multiple large 5-story apartment buildings in a coastal town of 9000 people with a current height restriction of 35 feet — to a referendum pursuant to the Town Charter.

But if the project is good and the people support it, why will a referendum matter? Isn’t that democracy, and if the vote is in June alongside the school bond referendum, doesn’t that guaranty good turnout?

What will win at the ballot box doesn’t matter. If there is a referendum campaign, Hardy Pond will walk. Wouln’t you? Center Court will go away. The Town Council will have bit off its nose to spite its face.

What’s the answer? How can the development of Center Court happen?

It’s simple. Give the people what they want. Approve the zoning amendments requested by Hardy Pond to create Center Court on the town green, not the amendments to advance a Planning Board agenda.

If the Cape Elizabeth Town Council votes unanimously Monday night to approve the zoning ordinance amendments requested by Hardy Pond dated July 31, 2024 and nothing more, the amended ordinance becomes effective in 30 days and the Center Court will have a green light to proceed.

The art of the deal is agreeing to do what is possible. Getting to yes in this instance is easy. There is common ground in Center Court. There will be no campaign to put the project out to referendum because the local stakeholders in the housing development space support it. That’s how politics works. Nobody will risk being the face of a campaign to kill Center Court.

Plenty of people will work to defeat the Planning Board’s proposed changes because they go too far, and people are fed up being led by the nose by a lawyered-up partisan bureaucracy.

The Cape Elizabeth Town Council is at a fork in the road. Hardy Pond’s “Center Court” project is a bird in hand. The Town Center zoning amendments recommended by the Planning Board are two in the bush.