Biddeford is introducing a moratorium on apartment renovations

The Biddeford City Council voted 6-2 on Oct. 15 in favor of a moratorium on downtown apartment conversions.

Presidium, which owns the Pepperell Mill campus, had planned to convert some existing apartments into condos, but the City Council approved the moratorium, saying it was concerned about the impact on downtown and the city if it left the rental system would be achieved. entirely, especially given the lack of housing in Biddeford.

The order, which was adopted retroactively to Oct. 6 as an emergency measure, suspends Presidium’s plans to convert 154 rental units to ownership units within the next three years.

According to the order, plans for conversions of eight or more units can be submitted, but cannot be approved while the moratorium is in effect.

Before the moratorium was passed, Chris Rhodes, a partner at Presidium, said the firm would offer tenants the opportunity to purchase their unit or any other unit on campus without competition or bidding wars with the general public.

The company would also offer each tenant the previous months’ rent for free and 3.5% of the purchase price for closing costs or down payment, he said.

“We wanted to have a very thoughtful approach to caring for every tenant we have on our campus,” Rhodes said.

Tenants who prefer to continue renting their units would have three years to do so, Rhodes said.

Unit costs would be somewhere between $200,000 and $800,000, with the majority of units landing in the $300,000 to $400,000 range.

“We have been careful to balance tenant support with community benefits,” Rhodes said. “We have worked closely with city leadership for more than five months.”

Derek Schroeder, a current resident of Pepperell Mill, said he plans to purchase his unit as soon as the option becomes available.

In the current housing crisis, homeownership is out of reach for working professionals within the communities they serve, Schroeder said.

“This is the opportunity I’ve been hoping and praying for for years,” he said.

Other Pepperell Mill residents were not in favor of the conversions.

Sam Drummey, a Biddeford student whose family lives in a Pepperell Mill apartment, said her family is not in a position to buy their apartment.

“We are privileged to be reasonably confident that we can find another property downtown,” Drummey said. “Many other tenants, however, do not have that certainty.”

The effect of converting 154 units into downtown apartments could be astronomical on the culture of downtown Biddeford, some residents said.

City Council President Liam LaFountain said the city is currently “ill-equipped” to handle the factory conversion and the ripple effect on downtown and the city as a whole.

There is a future where potentially 150 residents will be displaced, LaFountain said, creating additional market pressure for those already struggling to find housing.

The city is also currently trying to reach goals with the unhoused community and those most vulnerable to housing, and this project would make that more difficult, he said.

“This will not create any new units,” LaFountain said. “What it does is make the current units more exclusive, less available, and less attainable for Biddeford residents.”

Now that the moratorium has expired, condominium renovations are on hold until the city can figure out how to deal with the potential impact on downtown.

A future discussion on this matter has not yet been scheduled.

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