Town of Southwest Harbor · Sustainability Committee
Housing Workgroup
Collecting data and exploring options to increase the supply of year-round workforce and affordable housing in Southwest Harbor.
Our Work
What the Housing Workgroup is doing
The Housing Workgroup is one of three workgroups of the Town of Southwest Harbor Sustainability Committee, alongside workgroups on solid waste and environmental vulnerability. The Committee is a permanent committee charged with helping the Select Board develop programs and policies that make the town and its residents more resilient in areas related to the environment, health, infrastructure, waterfront, and safety. Each workgroup has three to five members and reports back to the full Committee, which meets monthly.
At the introductory Housing Workgroup meeting, we identified three main goals:
- Revisit the housing recommendations from the 2010 and 2022 Comprehensive Plans
- Collect data and inventory the current SWH housing supply
- Gather information from other towns on what has worked
The top priority from the 2022 Comp Plan revision and the direction from the Select Board was to collect information to support future policy discussions and action. Once we know what we have, we can explore widely for possible action to increase the supply of year-round workforce and affordable housing.
Key Definitions
Two types of housing need
Workforce (Middle Income) Housing
Rental or homeownership opportunities for middle-income households where the rental fee or mortgage cost is not more than 30% of gross monthly household income.
Because the cost of housing on the coast is significantly higher than inland, Workforce Housing here refers to households earning 100–150% of the state household median income.
Affordable Housing
As defined by the Maine State Housing Authority: rentals limited to households earning 80% or less of state median income, and home ownership to those earning 120% or less of state median household income.
Both definitions refer to year-round housing unless specifically designated for seasonal workers. This figure has increased significantly since 2020.
Data Collection
Housing inventory in progress
Year-Round Housing
Zone A near completeWe are documenting year-round housing and determining whether each unit is owner-occupied or rented. Criteria include:
- Owner address in SWH
- Homestead exemption on record
- Voter registration at that address
- Field observation (plowed driveways, shoveled paths in winter)
- Conversations with local rental agents
If a registered voter at an address is not the owner, the property is noted as rented. Zone B is larger, more challenging, and in progress.
Seasonal Housing
Just startingSeasonal housing is complex and includes three distinct categories that should probably be treated differently in any future regulation:
Airbnb and VRBO listings. Hard to quantify: listings may include hotel rooms, purpose-built tourist accommodations, and places listed as “near” SWH. They never include street addresses.
Hotels, inns, cabins, campgrounds, and other purpose-built rooms for summer visitors. These have existed since the Rusticators first came to SWH.
Property owners who pay taxes, use their property mainly for family and friends, and may rent by the week or month when not here. Any future short-term rental regulation would likely not apply to these traditional summer residents, who have been part of this community since the mid-19th century.
Employee Housing
Inventory beginningBoth seasonal and year-round employee housing is another facet of housing availability. We have the beginnings of a list that should grow as we continue the inventory work.
Covenant & Public Housing
DocumentedSWH currently has 4 houses under affordability covenants that restrict purchase cost and/or resale value and include income qualifications for homeowners.
Separately, SWH has 71 public housing apartments with income limits for occupants. These are distinct from covenant-restricted housing.
Housing Supply
Short-term rentals and the year-round supply
Short-term rentals are one of the three seasonal categories above, and they are the one that changes the count of year-round homes. Southwest Harbor has no short-term rental ordinance, so no one registers them and there is no local list. What follows is what the measured data show. The workgroup is collecting the numbers, not drawing the conclusion.
- Stabilized vacancy rate, Mount Desert Island region
- 1.8 percent. A balanced market is generally put at 5 to 7 percent, so this is roughly a third of what a functioning market needs (MDI & Acadia Region Housing Study, March 2025).
- Where Southwest Harbor homes sold in 2022 to 2024 ended up
- Of 59 homes sold, 29 percent became year-round homes. About 15 of the 59 became short-term rentals (housing study).
- Share of Southwest Harbor dwellings that are year-round homes
- Just about half, from the workgroup's own dwelling-use inventory presented in May 2026. Roughly a quarter are in tourist or short-term use (Bar Harbor Story, May 30, 2026).
- Short-term rental listings in Southwest Harbor
- 403 in 2024, from commercial platform data. Because there is no registration requirement, this is an estimate from listings rather than a count of properties, and it may include duplicates and rooms (AirDNA figures reported by The QS Journal).
- Hancock County median rent
- 1,061 dollars, up 34 percent between 2014 and 2024. Fifty-one percent of renters in the county are cost-burdened, meaning housing takes more than 30 percent of income (housing study).
On August 11, 2026 the Select Board asked the town manager to look into whether a rental registration program would require an ordinance or could be adopted as policy, whether penalties for not registering are possible, and to prepare a resident survey. In May 2026 the housing subcommittee had recommended against regulating short-term rentals. Both remain open questions before the town (Bar Harbor Story, August 12, 2026).
Full detail: Short-Term Rentals
What each Mount Desert Island town requires today, how Bar Harbor's registration and nine percent cap work, what Maine law and the nine percent lodging tax already require of every rental, and how the listing counts compare across the island. Open the Short-Term Rentals page.