A new house under construction in Scarborough in 2023. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

A proposal to better gauge Maine’s progress in addressing its housing crisis won legislative committee approval Tuesday, but without Republican support or a mandate that all municipalities participate.

As submitted, LD 1184 would have required all cities and towns to report annual home construction data — including building, demolition and occupancy permits — to the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.

The data would be overseen and organized into an online portal by the department’s Housing Opportunity Program, which promotes residential development that’s affordable to low- and moderate-income Mainers.

The goal was to more accurately track Maine’s progress in building 84,000 new homes within seven years as recommended in a 2023 state report.

The Legislature’s housing committee voted 6-4 along party lines to advance the bill with several amendments, including one that would limit the participation mandate to municipalities with 4,000 residents or more. Maine has nearly 500 municipalities, and fewer than 90 have a population of 4,000 or more.

The committee also added language that would require the department to provide financial assistance to cover 90% of the additional costs municipalities would incur by taking on new duties to comply with the legislation. With that funding, the bill won’t need two-thirds approval from both chambers of the Legislature, as required by the state constitution for unfunded mandates.

The amendments were offered by Rep. Traci Gere, D-Kennebunkport, the bill’s primary sponsor, to address concerns of some committee members and others who testified that many municipalities don’t have the staff or technology to participate in the housing count.

Still, four Republicans on the committee rejected the amended legislation, which heads to the House in the coming weeks.

“I don’t see a world in which I can support this as a mandate,” said Rep. Amanda Collamore, R-Pittsfield.

Housing advocates pointed out that the 88 municipalities with 4,000 or more residents are responsible for most of the housing production in Maine.

In gathering more accurate housing data, Maine would become just the second state in the nation to tackle its housing crisis in a more accountable way. Connecticut began closely tracking home construction and demolition data in recent years.

Currently, Maine estimates home production at the state and county levels based on building permit data submitted voluntarily to the U.S. Census Bureau, said Hilary Gove, a Housing Opportunity Program coordinator. Because it’s voluntary, many Maine municipalities don’t collect or report building permit data to the bureau, resulting in data gaps, Gove said.

Supporters of LD 1184 say standardized data collection and reporting is necessary to accurately assess whether Maine succeeds in building 84,000 additional homes, and to address broader barriers to housing production.

“We can’t track progress toward that (goal) without this data,” said Laura Mitchell, executive director of the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition.

Current home production estimates have been shown to be about 15% higher or lower than actual counts and don’t account for housing units that have been lost to demolition or change of use, Mitchell said.

The Maine Association of Planners supported the bill but said it wouldn’t work as an unfunded mandate to municipalities. Instead, the association suggested directing the Housing Opportunity Program to gather a wide variety of data related to home production from municipalities and other sources and compile it into an annual housing report.

“As written, this bill will not produce the desired outcome because most towns and cities simply cannot produce the annual reports proposed,” said Eli Rubin, an association leader who is a community planner in South Portland.

The Maine Municipal Association opposed LD 1184, saying that many municipalities lack the staff and technology to gather the desired information and the state lacks an adequate database for it, said Rebecca Graham, the MMA’s senior legislative advocate.

And while the legislation said the cost to municipalities would be “insignificant,” Graham said, “the technology needs alone for this new activity to occur would be significant.”

“This would be a significant expansion of (code enforcement officer) duties in the vast majority of municipalities,” Graham said. “Officials ask respectfully that you build the statewide plane before you ask local government to fly it, and if you choose to advance this new obligation, that you commit to paying for it as enthusiastically to match the burden it will create statewide.”