Housing Inventory and Usage Analysis of Bar Harbor, ME

We all have heard about it the Bar Harbor Housing crisis. At least at College of the Atlantic it has been a topic of big discussion. While housing situations are difficult in many places certain factors make it specifically hard in Bar Harbor. High number of tourist every summer and the popularity of Bar Harbor are raising the prices of housing on Bar Harbor making it difficult to find affordable houses; especially for people who want to live in Bar Harbor year round, as the incentives to rent out housing to tourists are high. To understand better how to tackle this housing crisis it is important to understand the housing situation in Bar Harbor better, to later be able to find the right locations for future housing development.

In the following I want to provide precisely that, a perspective about the housing situation in Bar Harbor and a tool for exploration. How is the town of Bar Harbor situated? Where do people live? Which areas are where tourists stay? How does that affect future housing development? I am mostly focusing on the use of the different parcels and how that informs the housing situation in Bar Harbor. Following that I will give a recommendation for future housing development in terms of usage. In the end I am also providing more maps which could be useful for a future suitability analysis.

I want to give a disclaimer. During the process of creating these maps I was working with and processing large tables with data. Already in the sighting process, every now and then I found inaccuracies or missing data. I myself was challenged, having to summarize different categories in order to create a better picture about the housing situation. On the small scale (the individual parcels) that might lead to some inaccuracies and mistakes. However, this should not impact the larger trends which are visible in Bar Harbor's housing situation.

I also want to give a big thank you to the town of Bar Harbor who gave me access to most of the data that I used in the process of making my maps.

When first looking at the map of Bar Harbor two things become evident. First, that the town line is much bigger than the historic town of Bar Harbor. The town line actually includes half the Island with the neighborhoods of Hulls Cove, Indian Point, Salsbury Cove and Town Hill. Second one can see that actually half of the town is Acadia National Park.

For the purpose of clarity, one can divide the Town of Bar Harbor into three different sections.

Most importantly there is the Bar Harbor center where all the essential services are located(supermarkets, recreational spaces, town office, fire department, etc.). Differently to other towns the growth or development potential is limited by Acadia National Park on the one side and the sea on the other. This limitation is adding to higher density in the town which is surrounded by big properties along the shore and in the south. These spatial limitations are one of the reasons for ever rising property prices especially in the center of Bar Harbor. Further they separate the Bar Harbor center from the rest of the town, being only accessible via 3 main roads.

The surrounding areas of Bar Harbor are located on the north west side of the island with large areas of protect land as well as, farm land undeveloped land and several neighborhoods mostly located along the major roads. As the area is less dense in contrast to Bar Harbor center this area would be interesting to look at in terms of more housing development. One should however keep in mind the lack of accessibility to the essential services and infrastructure for people who do not have a car.

Then there are two small parts of Bar Harbor which are located south of the center and are also fully isolated from the other parts. As these are relatively small I am largely not focusing on these areas. focusingfocusing

After having situated Bar Harbor geographically bordering Acadia and looked by the sea, it is important to look at how Bar Harbor is fragmented between properties which are owned by locals and properties which are owned by other people. I used the city of the mail address of the individual properties to see where the owners might comes from. I then divided it into two categories: On-Island-Owners and Of-Island-Owners. I later used this method to create an estimate of properties which are likely to be summer housing. It becomes evident that especially large properties along the shore are often owned by people who live off-Mount Desert Island. On the other hand most properties in the Bar Harbor Center are seem to be owned by people on the island.

Another aspect of fragmentation in Bar Harbor is visible when we look at the use of the properties. Looking at the use of the properties can for example help us to understand the complex dynamics between summer- and winter season, tourist-housing and year-round housing. This is important as it informs us about potential sights for new housing development. One can prevent to build new housing projects in areas which are empty during winter months and rather try to connect to existing neighborhoods.

The following map estimates the year-round housing of bar harbor versus housing which is mostly used in the summer-season by tourists.

The following two maps further break down the usage of the year-round versus vacation housing. The first map identifies housing units which are for several families or for one to three families. The second map breaks down the different kinds of vacation housing into several categories. One note to the second map: The Short Term Rentals should be evaluated slightly different as they originate from a different data set which was given to me from the town of Bar Harbor. That means that in some cases some houses are in the category Short Term Rental and another category. Also short term rentals are less likely to be empty in winter, one example are the COA off-campus housings which are lived in year-round but are still short term rentals. This stands in contrast to most Hotels, Motels, Inns and Bed and Breakfasts which are empty during Winter.

Based on the previous maps I identified some key conclusions in regards to the Bar Harbor Housing situation:

• Bar Harbor (especially the center of Bar Harbor) is spatially limited for development due to its situation around Acadia and the sea.
• The town of Bar Harbor is fragmented between Local- and Non-Local-Owners as well as Vacation- and Year-Round Housing. This is especially visible in the contrast of summer and winter.
• Looking at vacation housing the hubs are situated in Bar Harbor center and along the shore. Especially vacation homes seem to be located all along the shore of Bar Harbor.
• There are only a few multi-apartment houses in Bar Harbor (which are oftentimes more affordable)
• Looking at the surrounding areas of Bar Harbor there are several Neighborhoods and areas with less tourism, which are also partially developed (especially in Town Hill as well as east and south of Town Hill).

The conclusion I pull out of this is that there is not an easy answer to the housing crisis in Bar Harbor. Any future developments must be multi-sided. On the one side one can continuously promote small scale housing developments (especially affordable) in the Bar Harbor center(easy accessibility). However it might be worth considering medium scale housing developments in the surrounding areas of Bar Harbor, which is likely connected to for example the expansion of the sewer system and other aspects.

The following two maps emphasize the building density of the different sections of Bar Harbor. The second map marks areas which might be interesting for future medium-scale development in the surrounding areas.

In the following I collected further maps which might be useful for a suitability analysis for housing development in Bar Harbor.