PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 14, 2026
I’ve been watching, first with confusion and then with anger, as a group of homeowners calling themselves the Friends of Belfort sues to block a 50-unit housing development on the vacant lot next to Talbot School. The project was approved by the city’s planning board last July. It meets Portland’s zoning. Thirteen of the units are designated workforce housing. It’s on a bus route, next to a school, on land that’s sitting empty. It’s exactly the kind of development the city needs. The Friends of Belfort say they support housing — just not this housing, not here, not in this way. These are euphemisms from people who can’t say what they really mean: we have ours, and we don’t want to share. ~ Andrew Shuttleworth Fowler, Westbrook