Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor, and Trenton Lead MDI Building Permits in 2025

Jul 06, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Bar Harbor Music Festival.

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MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor, and Trenton issued more residential building permits than any other communities in the Mount Desert Island region during 2025, according to Maine’s first statewide housing production survey.

While the numbers suggest homebuilding continues locally, the broader state data shows Hancock County still fell short of its housing production target—and no affordable housing permits were reported countywide.

The local permit totals tell only part of the story. The new state database also tracks whether counties are meeting housing production goals, how many homes ultimately receive certificates of occupancy and how much of the new housing is considered affordable.

Maine has recently required towns or cities that have more than 4,000 residents to submit information to create the survey.

According to the survey, in 2025, Maine’s municipalities issued 7,499 building permits. It’s estimated that 518 housing units were no longer able to be occupied or demolished.

In 2024, the state had an annual goal of 6,900 building permits.

That goal was exceeded. However, not all counties within the state met their own housing permit goals. Seven, including Hancock County did not meet the goal.

“That goal was set by the Maine Housing Production Needs Study, published in late 2023, which credited the state’s housing shortage to historic underproduction,” the Bangor Daily News’ Kathleen O’Brien wrote.

The hope is that the recent data collection will help the state understand what the state might need to do to reach its 2030 goal of 84,000 new housing units.

“The data shows about half of the counties met building permit goals set by the state two years ago. The new units were largely market-rate housing, with only 13% reported as having some kind of income restriction. The majority of units permitted were single-family homes. Accessory-dwelling units, or ADUs, made up about 7% of permits, something Maine has tried to encourage in recent years,” Caitlin Andrews wrote for the Maine Monitor.

State of Maine Housing Data Portal information was released in late June.

Another metric to consider is how many homes received a certificate of occupancy, which means that they are allowed to be lived in.

In Hancock County, in 2025, there were 121 certificates of occupancy issued.

As O’Brien explains, “A housing project can receive a building permit, but never get created or completed for a variety of reasons, such as budget constraints or pushback from local residents. This metric is important to measure because it’s a marker of how many units of housing were created and cleared for someone to live there.”

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HANCOCK COUNTY

There are multiple projects by both nonprofits and towns throughout the Mount Desert Island region to provide both year-round homes as well as seasonal homes.

Friends of Acadia has been working to provide seasonal homes for Acadia National Park and Island Explorer employees.

According to the organization, “In spring 2025, seasonal employees moved into housing at three brand-new locations: an eight-bedroom housing complex at Dane Farm in Seal Harbor; six renovated, two-bedroom townhomes off Jordan River Road in Trenton; and a 13-pad RV camp at White Birches Camp in Southwest Harbor. Construction at the 56-bedroom Harden Farm campus is well underway.”

That work has often been supported or timed with work in the towns where the building has occurred.

As a federal entity, Acadia National Park does not have to draw building permits for builds within the parks so those numbers are not included in the permit counts.

MD 365 and Island Housing Trust have created year-round homes and/or helped to get 163 people into residences. Mount Desert, the town itself, has supported multiple projects.

Bar Harbor and Acadia are collaborating about a subdivision of homes in Town Hill.

Southwest Harbor’s Sustainability Committee has been inventorying its dwellings to get a better understanding of needs and next steps.

Bar Harbor has tweaked its land use ordinance in hopes of encouraging more home building and continues to support other projects and has a housing and community planner on staff.

In Bar Harbor there has been some tension concerning designated growth areas outside of downtown proper because of ecological concerns and worries about nitrogen loading.

A lack of buildable land on Mount Desert Island, zoning rules, cost of materials, lack of tradespeople and contractors to meet demand, and market prices keeping out median income families and those earning less than median income have all been cited as issues for new residential builds.

Aging housing stock, people staying in homes longer as they age, short-term rentals, and second homes have all been mentioned as compounding components to the overall housing issue in the area.

Other aspects are that throughout the state, of the permitted homes, many are not considered affordable by the state’s metrics. The state data showed no affordable homes permits for the year in Hancock County.

The data showed the median rent throughout the state to be increasing as well.

The median rent in all of Hancock County was $1,061. That’s an increase of 34% between 2014 and 2024. The vacancy rate in the county is 6.7%. The renter cost burden rate is 51%.

The state defines cost burden as “a household is considered cost burdened when 30% or more of household income is spent on gross housing costs (can apply to renters or homeowners).”

Affordability is not defined in the portal’s glossary.

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LOCAL TOWNS

Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor and Trenton led the local building permits issued. All towns had more single-family permits than any other kind of homes. However, if you go by per capita (as in the image above), the leaders are Trenton, Southwest, and Cranberry Isles.

Accessory dwelling unit permits were issued. There’s been recent state legislation meant to encourage those ADUs. Towns have been required to change zoning rules to also encourage them.

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BAR HARBOR

In Bar Harbor, there were 27 building permits issued, according to the survey. There were five accessory dwelling units issued. There were 19 issues for single family residences and three for two-unit buildings.

There were no permits issued for anything over two units.

A snapshot from the town’s 2025 financial audit shows all building permit activity across multiple calendar years. However, those permits don’t reflect just new structures.

CRANBERRY ISLES

There were two building permits issued in town, both were for single-family homes.

FRENCHBORO

The state didn’t have any building permits issued for the town.

MOUNT DESERT

In Mount Desert there were 19 building permits. There were four for accessory dwelling units, 14 permits for single-family homes and one for a two-unit building.

There were no permits for anything more than a two-family home.

SOUTHWEST HARBOR

In Southwest Harbor there were 24 building permits. There were 14 permits for single-family homes and four for two unit-homes. There were six for five-unit or more buildings.

TREMONT

In Tremont there were 16 building permits. There were two for accessory dwelling units, 14 permits for single-family homes.

There were no permits for anything more than a single-family home.

TRENTON

In Trenton there were 23 building permits. There were four for accessory dwelling units, 19 permits for single-family homes.

There were no permits for anything more than a single-family home.

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