BANGOR, Maine — Soon-to-be renters and homeowners know it's tough to find housing in Maine. However, Bangor area real estate developer Louie Morrison is getting closer to finding a fairly quick solution: tiny homes.
Almost a year ago, Morrison and his business partner, Luke McCannell, purchased the Martel Mobile Home Park on Hammond Street with hopes to turn it into the city's first tiny home community.
"It was a way to build a lot of roofs in the shortest amount of time," Morrison said.
Morrison is going to build 34 tiny homes on the two-acre property. Five homes are nearly completed, and by the end of the summer, he said he hopes to have more than a dozen ready for move-in.
The tiny home community already has about 200 applicants wanting to call one of these minimalist homes their own, according to Morrison.
Rent could cost anywhere from $700-$1,200 per month, depending on the project's final price tag, which Morrison estimates will cost more than $3 million.
"I'm really looking forward to it coming together. I mean, every time I come out, every day that I'm up here, you see more progress," Morrison said. "To the naked eye, it might look like a complete bomb went off every time that I come up here, but this is what it takes for a project like this to come together."
When the pair purchased the property in July 2022, only a quarter of the lots were being utilized properly, Morrison said. A number of lots were either empty or had abandoned mobile homes. Crews are still working to remove some of the unused mobile homes to make space for new construction.
"This is what it takes to make a project like this come together. It isn't simply just getting these 34 homes in here and plopping them down. There's so much more to it than that," Morrison said.
This past October, city councilors approved a new ordinance, allowing tiny home developments to be built in the city. Earlier this year, Bangor's planning board unanimously approved the project.
The city's director of development, Anne Krieg, said this tiny home community will add more diversity to the city's housing stock.
"The reason why we like a diverse housing stock in terms of pricing is that the people that can afford that might vacate a unit that goes for less per month, which would open up that unit for somebody else," Krieg said.