The Communities for Maine's Future Act

Recent News:

TV news coverage from Don Carrigan of WCSH6/WLBZ2 (video available online): Broadcast March 23, 2009.

Group Seeks Funds to Renew Maine's Downtowns.
Portland Press Herald news story by Matt Wickenheiser: March 24, 2009.

State Bond Issue May Boost Local Downtowns.
Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel news story by Matthew Stone: March 10, 2009.

Putting Main Street Back to Work & Enhancing Maine’s Special ‘Brand’

Maine is fortunate to have a wealth of high-quality town and city centers that support a range of small businesses and an improved sense of community for their residents.

From small villages like Cornish and Milo, to the Main Streets of towns like Bridgton and Rockland, to the downtown areas of larger cities like Bangor, Biddeford, and Portland, our town and city centers are an intrinsic part of the Maine "brand," and incubators for hundreds of Maine businesses.

The Land for Maine’s Future program, designed to protect and enhance our beautiful landscape, is a model for successful preservation of Maine's rural "quality places."

Maine needs a ‘sister’ program to do exactly this for our community centers: a new “Communities for Maine’s Future” program.  Right now, there is a tremendous volume of applications for community investments. The amount of investment requests is four to five times greater than the available funds. We’re simply not getting the job done.

Critical areas of need include:

• Public infrastructure: sidewalks, bike lanes, landscaping, public restrooms, visitor centers, parking, pocket parks, lighting, façade improvements.
• Cultural resources:  libraries, grange halls, municipal and civic buildings, churches.
• Historic preservation: A revolving Emergency Fund would save buildings on the Historic Register in danger of demolition, secure easements, and re-sell them to creative developers.

With the recent expansion of the historic preservation tax credit driving redevelopment of historic buildings statewide, and rising gas and energy prices curtailing our household budgets, now is the perfect time to pay more attention to Maine’s built environment.

We’ll be working in the State House this coming year with the Department of Economic and Community Development, towns & cities from around the state, preservationists, developers, and community revitalization advocates to ensure that Maine is as strategic about protecting our communities as we are about our landscape.

Learn more about the Communities for Maine's Future Act:

Read the bill's proposed text here.

Questions and Answers about the Communities for Maine's Future Act.

Download a printable fact sheet.

Learn more about the Coalition to Revitalize Maine's Towns and Cities, which chose the Communities for Maine's Future Act as its top legislative priority for 2009.