The Land Cost Ten Dollars. The Housing Still Isn't Built.
Last November, a nonprofit in western Maine bought 19.6 acres off Route 27, about a mile north of the Sugarloaf access road. The seller was Weyerhaeuser. The price was $10. In August, the Carrabassett Valley Planning Board gave final approval for 54 workforce housing units on that land. The first building is not expected to break ground until spring 2027.
I keep coming back to this project because it removes the variable everyone blames first. In most ski towns, the story is that land is simply too expensive to build housing for the people who work there. Here the land was essentially free. It still took a failed vote in the next town over, a zoning amendment, and a long list of grant applications to get to a permit.
The need is not in question. A 2020 study commissioned by the Carrabassett Valley Select Board found a need for 100 to 300 year round units and another 200 to 300 seasonal units, according to the Sun Journal. A 2022 report cited by the Bangor Daily News put regional need as high as 650 homes and found only 17 percent of homes sold in 2021 were affordable to a median household. Sugarloaf general manager Karl Strand has said 36 percent of the regional workforce commutes more than 25 miles.
The path to a permit tells you where the real friction is. Western Maine Mountain Housing first tried Kingfield, the town just down the valley, with a 45 unit proposal. In March 2024, Kingfield voters rejected the zoning change 263 to 129. The group then worked with Sugarloaf on resort area options, and by late 2025 the project had landed on the Weyerhaeuser parcel. This March, Carrabassett Valley town meeting approved a density increase and a $140,000 appropriation. Final approval followed in August.
Now look at the capital stack. The Sun Journal puts the full build at roughly $15 million. The Northern Border Regional Commission awarded $1 million in June for road and sewer work estimated at $2 million. Total grants stood at about $2.5 million as of July, with the rest expected to come from philanthropy, tax increment financing, public private financing, and endowments. Phase one rentals will be capped at 120 percent of Franklin County median income, which is $77,196 for an individual and $110,280 for a family of four this year. Full buildout is expected to take three to five years, phased as money comes in.
That is the real constraint. Not land, and not demand. Nobody in the stack is underwriting the rent. Grants pay for roads and pipes. Philanthropy fills gaps. But permanent debt needs a predictable tenant, and the most predictable tenant in that valley is the mountain itself.
Mark Green, the nonprofit's executive director, told the Sun Journal the housing is not just for Sugarloaf employees and is a regional effort. For a community nonprofit, that is the right framing. Bank tellers, nurses, and teachers need homes too. But the single biggest beneficiary of 54 units a mile from the access road is the operator that has to staff lifts, kitchens, rental shops, and patrol every winter. Sugarloaf has done real work on the seasonal side, buying a local hotel for employee housing in 2022. Year round, family scale housing is a different problem, and it is the one that decides whether a ski town keeps its middle.
This is the gap employer anchored housing is built to close. When the largest employer commits to a long term master lease on a share of the units, the lender is underwriting a contract instead of a hope. The employer gets housing without having to run a real estate business. The town gets units that are deed restricted and cannot drift into short term rentals. And the project moves on the employer's hiring timeline, not on the grant calendar. That is the model we are building at Oldivai, and Carrabassett Valley is a good case study of why it matters.
If $10 land still takes years to become housing, cheaper land is not the fix. The fix is earlier, firmer commitments from the people who need the workers most.
If you run a mountain or a major employer in a resort town and want to compare notes on anchoring workforce housing, reach out. And if you want to see where similar land and permitting fights are starting to surface, LandBriefing's free Mountain Watch tool at landbriefing.com/mountain-watch is a good place to start.
About the Author
My focus is workforce housing and employer-anchored development in mountain resort communities, including through Oldivai.
Reach me at Daniel@kaufmanredev.com or find more at danskiandbuild.com.
