Speakers at a Planning Board hearing said Bar Harbor has reached its tourism capacity and backed a proposed 12-unit cap for new downtown lodging.
Jul 02, 2026
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BAR HARBOR—Cap hotels in the two main downtown corridors in Bar Harbor, a coastal tourist town, to 12 guest units or less?
Nine residents out of ten who spoke at a Planning Board meeting the July Fourth week said to go for it.
However, the town’s Planning Board Chair Ruth Eveland had concerns about an ordinance amendment that would create new limits in different development zones.
Any final change, if the amendments to the town’s Land Use Ordinance goes forward, would have to be approved by town voters in November.
One of two proposed ordinance changes that might go before Bar Harbor voters elicited no public comment, during a July 1 meeting meant expressly for just that.
However, the afternoon meeting brought nine local citizens out to publicly speak in support of the cap which had been reduced from 30 to 12 guest units at the last Planning Board meeting. Another expressed concerns about another aspect of the proposed plan. One of the nine said the change was a “no-brainer” but didn’t know if it had true practical impact.
That graduated lodging scale proposal, which includes the caps, had a split 4-2 June vote to go forward to the public meeting, with one Planning Board member, Kathy St. Germain, who voted in favor, saying afterward that her vote had been a mistake.
J. Clark Stivers had voted against moving the proposal forward—a proposal that speaks to multiple lodging definition changes and placement changes—is no longer on the board, which now has two vacancies. He’s been elected to another position.
Former Chair Millard Dority had resigned earlier in his term. His seat is vacant. St. Germain is up for reappointment this year.
In a series of daytime workshops this spring, the board has been tweaking, creating, and discussing a graduated lodging scale meant to be presented to town voters in November.
If this cap moves forward, it would be one of those changes and would primarily impact the area of Main Street and Cottage Street in Bar Harbor.
Throughout the spring, the Planning Board discussed the proposed potential cap for Downtown Village I and Downtown Village II as 30 guest units.
The further reduction to a 12-room cap came during the Planning Board’s June meeting, as a result of a motion of Planning Board member John Seavitt.
Planning Director Michele Gagnon said at that same June meeting that a 30-room cap in those zones (rather than 12) was optimal. She spoke of recent, future, and ongoing plans throughout the town and the park meant to decrease congestion.
The changes would create new rules and definitions about lodgings throughout the town as well.
The work comes as a lodging moratorium, which has been occurring since November 2024, expires this month. The Town Council will determine to extend that moratorium or not.
PUBLIC COMMENT ON LODGING SCALE CHANGES
Though the 12-unit cap in downtown areas has generated the most comment, one man began the discussion about his worries about how the changes will impact his family’s cottage colony and the legacy he hopes for his own son.
Edgewater Hotel owner, David Bowden, came with his father, who is 99; their family owns Edgewater Cottages in the town’s Shoreland Development IV zone out in Salsbury Cove.
According to the Edgewater’s website, “David, Jayne, and Brody are the third and fourth generation to run the business that David’s grandmother opened in the late 1930s.”
The previous family members had actually settled the same land more than two centuries ago.
The proposed changes would keep lodging units in their district to 20 guest units or less in their zone.
That worried Bowden, a former town councilor.
“Bar Harbor zoning is like insurance,” he said. “You don’t know what you’ve got until you go to court.”
He’s concerned since he and his father both have homes on the property where the cottage colony and motel is located.
“There’s not much I can do with that house. It needs considerable amount of work,” Bowden said of one of the homes, a home which is close to 240 years old.
He doesn’t currently have plans for it, but he’s going to be paying a great deal of property tax on a house he can’t really use if the changes go through.
Cottage colonies, Bowden said, quoting from a letter from Maine’s State Historian Earle Grey Shettleworth, Jr., are a part of Bar Harbor’s culture and its heritage.
It’s a heritage that needs a secure place for the community in the future, Bowden said Shettleworth argued in the letter.
“I could have developed more in the last ten years,” Bowdoin said of his property, but it hasn’t been an economic necessity.
However, he said, his son might need to to deal with the town’s increased property taxes, electric costs, and other increasing costs for necessities.
Areas like his are not really residential zones, he said. He talked about how his home abuts the MDI Bio Lab and hears trucks, generators, and other business-style noise.
Cottage colonies like his, which is mostly not visible from the main road, he said, “we’re not disturbing the residential neighborhood.”
He also has long-term rentals within the site and has many guests who stay for over two weeks. One customer has returned for 47 years. Some have returned for 30.
“I’m not $400, $500, $600 a night,” Bowden said speaking to assertions that have been made in the past that lodging owners are from-away and gouging visitors.
There isn’t that sort of homogeneity of lodging or lodging ownership throughout, or even within, the town’s villages.
“The only one it effects is me in that district,” he said of the proposal. The other similar businesses, he said, look like they are maxed in terms of lot coverage and can’t build more.
Once Bowden was done, the conversation focused on the proposed L-12 cap in the downtown corridors.
DOWNTOWN LODGING CAP DISCUSSION BEGINS
Rep. Gary Friedmann thanked Planning Board members for their work. One of the last things he did as a councilor, he said, was to help pass the current lodging moratorium.
“People realized we had a challenge here in this town,” Rep. Friedmann said, saying that the quality of life was threatened by the potential increase of lodging in the downtown area.
Limiting the lodging in downtown proper’s two main zones would protect the quality of life, he said.
He reasoned that proposed 12-room limit would send a message to citizens supporting the moratorium that they were heard. He believed the moratorium had widespread approval and support.
“Our (quality of) life was threatened by any development of lodging in the downtown area,” Rep. Friedmann said.
At the time, moratorium supporters worried there weren’t appropriate town ordinances to limit the size and location of lodgings.
The island, Rep. Friedmann said, is at carrying capacity, which he defines as how many people are absorbed where all who live and visit can still enjoy a quality of life.
“We don’t need more, larger lodging in the downtown area,” he said.
Bar Harbor’s hospitality industry, he said, is the largest generating sales tax revenues in the state.
According to the State of Maine’s annual taxable sales by town report (which combines lodging and restaurants as a single category) last year, Bar Harbor reported $295,304,192 while Portland reported $674,950,272.
Rep. Friedmann later refined his statement via email to just Bar Harbor’s lodging industry being the largest in the state.
Bar Harbor does come out ahead of Portland in lodging in 2025. Bar Harbor brought in approximately $1.36 million more than Portland lodging tax.
“I would be cautious about treating that as proof of more than it shows,” Nate Cloutier, government affairs director for Hospitality Maine said via an email, July 2.
The MRS (Maine Revenue Service) lodging category is not a hotel-only figure.
“It includes hotels, inns, B&Bs, cottages, vacation homes, campgrounds, short-term rentals, and platform-facilitated rentals,” Cloutier said. “So, that figure doesn’t necessarily show that larger hotels are driving Bar Harbor’s lodging tax position. It also doesn’t show what the properties affected by the ordinance generate.”
Historically, Portland has led Bar Harbor in lodging taxable sales every year from 2007 through 2019. Bar Harbor moved ahead after 2020, and as recently as 2023, the gap was about $65k in lodging tax between the two municipalities, Cloutier explained.
“That is probably the fairest way to view the stat. It shows lodging matters to Bar Harbor. It doesn’t show that larger hotels are the problem, and is a thin case for restricting future lodging investment,” Cloutier said.
For Rep. Friedmann it’s about how much the town and island can support.
“We have a very small town, a very small downtown. We have a small island and we draw so many people here,” Rep. Friedmann said during the meeting.
And that rate, type, and placement of growth should continue to be discussed and growth should be slowed, he reasoned.
The cap, would be to “take that control back into our own hands,” he said.
OTHER PUBLIC COMMENT SUPPORTING THE 12-UNIT CAP
Dennis Bracale seconded Friedmann’s comments.
Bracale believes the town needs to do major planning focused on making downtown pedestrian friendly, focusing also on transportation and the park.
“It makes no sense to allow major development in our downtown,” he said.
The 12-guest-room cap limitation downtown doesn’t have to remain and could be voted out in a future land use amendment, which would likely require a similar process as this one, he reasoned.
He said he’s studied 46 tourism hotspots in the world and in many of the places, the major positive step is getting cars out of the central area.
“A bigger solution is needed” for Bar Harbor, he said.
Bracale also commended the board members for their hard work.
“I don’t think it’s done. I think we should limit development” until the citizens have been more involved, Bracale said.
“We’re kind of in crisis,” Brad O’Neil said, speaking next.
O’Neil was worried that developers might destroy houses to create parking for lodging.
Because of that, he supports the 12-room cap downtown.
Sharon Knopp also thanked the board members. She also adamantly supported the cap.
“This area is extremely congested in season,” which she defined as five months long and not just summer.
Cottage and Main streets should not be the location for new hotels, period, Knopp said.
Knopp advocated for the requirement of onsite parking being the next step for all new lodging.
Ellen Grover said the conversation occurring during the public comment during this meeting has been missing in the process.
Planning Board members are not allowed to respond during public comment.
“We were not included in all this planning,” Grover said though she said that the board members have done a good job.
Bill Shaw said the town needs to be proactive in limiting the number of people visiting. He was in favor of limiting the number of beds throughout the island.
“I think it’s a good compromise. Twelve units? It’s good,” he said.
That would make it more likely not to be purchased by foreign investors and would be nicer for tourists, he surmised.
Enoch Albert said recent hotels built were not within the character of the town.
“No more right now. Extend the moratorium until we really find out what our carrying capacity is for this town,” he said.
Parking and traffic are good examples for the issues the town faces, he said. He added that local people want locally owned small businesses.
Jane Boynton said the town has no places for seniors. She thought it would be nice if developers would develop senior housing with 12 affordable units rather than just hotels, inns, and motels.
“If they thought outside the box, they could make a real contribution to the community,” Boynton said of developers.
She asked for developers to give the “older people” a place to go that is safe.
Cara Ryan said, “I really believe that if we put this L-12 (lodging with up to 12 rooms) on the ballot, I believe it will pass.”
People she talks to see the downtown cap as an opportunity and she believes the board and town have heard from people in support of this throughout multiple processes over the years.
“Right now the barn door is wide open, so what we’re proposing is to close it a fair amount,” Ryan said.
It’s anybody and everybody who can invest in the town, she said.
“There is so much profit in lodging,” she said.
She said tourism is sustainable, but only if a town gets out in front of it. She asked for data-driven information about how hotels benefit the town.
In 2024, the ten largest taxpayers in Bar Harbor provided 11% of the town’s levy, or just over $3 million in property taxes.
Most of those ten taxpayers were hotels.
The Witham Family LLC provided almost $900,000 to the town’s taxes for fiscal year 2024. That fiscal year ended June 30, 2024.
Golden Anchor, LC, which is involved in a lawsuit against the town’s cruise ship ordinance which limits disembarkations, paid approximately $414,000.
Eden Street Trust, which is the Regency Hotel, paid approximately $355,000.
Almost all of the top ten were hotels or lodging. Jackson Laboratory’s housing, Versant Power, and Northerly LLC (private residence) were the exceptions. The audit for 2025 is not yet on the town’s website.
During public comment, Charles Sidman, speaking last, said the L-12 was almost a no brainer but he was unsure about the practical impact since he wasn’t sure where a large hotel could be built in downtown Bar Harbor. He doesn’t think it can solve the “endless crowding” and overdevelopment issues that he feels.
He spoke to short-term rentals, which compromised the financial planning for local families and retirees. The town approved a cap on non-owner occupied short-term rentals and also required all rentals to pay a fee each year and undergo inspections. It is the only town in the region to do so.
“We took something huge away from lots of little folks,” Sidman said.
How can you argue against doing something comparable for the bigger pockets, he asked.
BOARD COMMENTS
Ruth Eveland said she felt the ordinance amendment was creating policy for the town, which is the council’s job, not the Planning Board’s. The board hasn’t spoken to the Council about the specifics of policy to see if it goes with the Council’s vision.
She worried the board had extended themselves in a way that wasn’t entirely sustainable.
She also worried that there hadn’t been enough conversation with the community at large though there have been “zillions of workshops” but not extended conversations with the public.
That, she said, was because the board felt under pressure to get something done for the November election. That process, detailed in the town’s rules, takes months and specific steps.
“We’ve felt pinched by this,” Eveland said.
She felt like the specifics of the right number of lodging units in different locations has been worked on previously and there could be constrained discussions without going back to square one in the process.
The moratorium was meant, she said, to help create more homes in a variety of living situations in the community.
“We’ve been desperate to get back and have more conversations,” about housing, Eveland said.
Dority had said similar things when he chaired the board last year, prior to his resignation.
There are ways to work together with lodging businesses, such as having a year-round business on the first floor and lodging above, Eveland said, which this cap could potentially prevent.
And when it comes to the proposed changes that are set to go before the Town Council and then the voters?
“I feel it is not fully cooked,” Eveland said, though she also emphasized that Board members are brilliant and hard working. There just wasn’t quite enough time.
Eveland said she would share her thoughts at the next Town Council meeting, which is scheduled for July 9.
St. Germain agreed there needed to be more time spent developing and that some people felt the 4 p.m. or earlier Planning Board workshops and meetings were at a hard time for workers. It has been previously noted that it’s also a hard time for families with school-age children.
Planning Board member Teresa Wagner worried about taking more time without a moratorium, which she said would protect the town from development.
She said that she looked back at previous tools for community input, including the Comprehensive Plan, which speaks to protecting and promoting housing, the environment, and said there were a lot of interesting comments in the index section that spoke to community comments.
“Thirty units is not small in my mind,” Wagner said, adding that tourism is often spoken of being capped, restricted, and managed. “It’s a real pain in the neck when you have to go to Ellsworth to shop.”
DEFINITIONS PUBLIC HEARING
No one moved forward to speak to the definitions.
A member of the public called out and asked to be read the definitions.
Planning Director Michele Gagnon said it’s a first pass at getting definitions into one section and making it consistent with state law, and clarifying them.
No one chose to speak about it.
MORATORIUM MENTION
During the regular public comment time at the beginning of the meeting, Dennis Bracale said there had been a lot of talk around town and letters to the papers about a moratorium.
“Having the moratorium is essential. It’s essential for this town,” Bracale said.
He believes that extra time would help bring in more citizen involvement in the planning process.
OTHER PUBLIC COMMENT
Eveland said that the Planning Board had received emails about the proposed changes but that a glitch in the town’s system, which they were alerted to on July 1 had prevented the board members from receiving those comments. Hard copies were printed for the members for the meeting. No written public comment was included in the 25-page packet of materials for the meeting. The packet included the agenda and two draft orders of the proposed amendments.
HOW IT WORKS
Ordinances in Bar Harbor can be initiated by the Planning Board, citizens’ initiative, or Town Council.
“We have concluded the discussion about the specific language in these ordinances,” Eveland said.
In this point of the process, that language can no longer be changed by the Planning Board.
The July 1 public hearing was another mandated space that allows people to speak about the proposals.
“We have no further action today,” Eveland said.
The next step is Town Council’s call for a public hearing on the two ordinances at its July 21 meeting. The actual public hearing before the councilors is August 18. This is also when the Town Council would move forward with the ordinances or not.
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