We at MCOG hope your summers are going great and that you've all been able to get out in the recent sunshine. Below are some items we wanted to pass along.
Housing Opportunity Grant Application
Thank you all for your support letters in working with MCOG to address the housing issues in your region. MCOG will be submitting an application to the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, in conjunction with the LD2003 legislation, to conduct a housing study, by subregion, that will:
inventory housing supply by type;
identify housing demand by income group, age, householder, and employer need;
Establish a five-year housing need by types of housing in each subregion;
Work with our member communities and housing partners at the subregional level (Waldo County, Knox county, and the Brunswick/Harpswell Sagadahoc region) to assess readiness to meet need; and,
Establish a plan for addressing housing gaps.
The program is expected to be funded by early fall, with work beginning immediately.
Planning Board Basics Workshop with Hancock Regional Planning Commission
On August 29th at 6:00pm, we will be hosting a Planning Board workshop with our friends at HRPC at the Searsmont Town Office. If you have Planning Board members that are interested in getting a free course on how to process an application before, during, and after a meeting, then this workshop would be for them. This workshop is based on similar seminars hosted by the Maine Municipal Association; however, this is free for our member communities.
Please message Max Johnstone (mjohnstone@midcoastcog.com) to RSVP the number of potential attendees from your community.
We will offer a Zoom option for those who are unable to attend in person. The following link is available for members to use the night of the meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88200423056?pwd=K1RVV3gybkdLNkNVS3FjWEtFdTFvdz0
MCOG Workshops for FY24
As part of our Technical Assistance program, the Midcoast Council of Governments will be holding a monthly workshop on the 3rd Tuesday to cover a different topic that has gained some interest in the past.
All workshops will be held in a hybrid session, which means interested members can attend either in-person or on Zoom. We plan on moving the host site throughout the Midcoast.
This document outlines our planned workshops. Please keep an eye out for our newsletters for the times and confirmation of the topics for each month. If you don't see a topic on this list, please reach out so we can find a way to incorporate it in our schedule.
Please contact Max Johnstone (mjohnstone@midcoastcog.com) if there are any workshops you would like to receive reminders on a specific topic or have members in your community that would like to keep in the loop on certain topics.
Workshop Survey
If you haven't done so already, please fill out the survey in the link below so we know what times we should plan for our future workshop sessions, and if there are any topics you would like us to discuss or have a special guest speaker for.
https://s.surveyplanet.com/a3ahrue0
Brownfield Workshop
On July 31st, we had Nick Hodgkins from Maine DEP provide us an overview on the State's Environmental Site Assessment process. We are very thankful that Nick could make time for us, and to the City of Rockland for hosting this workshop. The recording is available for viewing on midcoastcog.com and at this link here: Basics of Brownfields in Maine.
Question: What's one of the best ways to get funding for your resilience projects? Answer: Have a Climate Action Plan.
Assessing your community's vulnerabilities and outlining specific strategies to reduce risk puts you in a better competitive position for receiving funding to implement your projects. A well-crafted climate action plan demonstrates that a municipality has carefully considered its goals, identified specific actions, and allocated resources strategically to address climate-related challenges. Funders support initiatives that have a higher likelihood of being effective in making a real impact on improving resilience to climate change.
Want to get started on a new Climate Action Plan or update a current one? See MCOG's website or email Meg Rasmussen, Community Resilience Planner at mrasmussen@midcoastcog.com
Hub Update:
After awarding New Business Recovery Grants totaling $379,450 to nine Midcoast businesses, MCOG is partnering with Coastal Enterprises, Inc. to provide technical assistance and entrepreneurial training to new and minority-owned businesses. More information to follow, as these programs take shape.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation Program (PROTECT)
This USDOT / Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) program provides funding to ensure surface transportation resilience to natural hazards including climate change, sea level rise, flooding, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters through support of planning activities, resilience improvements, community resilience and evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure.
The PROTECT discretionary program offers two types of awards: planning grants and Competitive Resilience Improvement Grants. Planning grants are no match.
Applications are due August 18, 2023, although future rounds of this program are expected.
Midcoast Regional Transportation Plan [in pre-planning]
MCOG is pursuing funding for a Midcoast Regional Transportation Plan through the PROTECT program in partnership with Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission. Given the growth in the Midcoast region in the last 5-10 years and the rail potential with the Brunswick to Rockland pilot, this regional transportation plan will provide an important look at improving the movement of people and goods throughout our region. A critical component of this project will be incorporating resilience planning to make sure our infrastructure stands the test of time and adverse weather events. The Midcoast Regional Transportation Plan will cover Brunswick through Stockton Spring and be truly multi-modal in focus: it will identify opportunities for bike and pedestrian infrastructure, improvements to make roadways resilient, connections between transit modes, as well as examine rural transit potential.
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