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Happy Friday!

Cloudy skies are moving into the state today ahead of this weekend’s nor’easter, our first of the season.

That storm could dump as much as an inch of rain through Monday, with the heaviest precipitation expected Down East, and hit the state with winds gusting up to 40 mph.

The nor’easter will whip up dangerous seas, with five-to-eight-foot waves near shore and 15-foot swells farther off the coast.

Once the storm passes, the sun likely won’t poke out from behind the clouds until at least the middle of next week.

18 affordable apartments to be built in pricey Maine town

A Portland-based developer plans to build a 15,000-square-foot mixed-use building at 316 Ocean House Road in Cape Elizabeth. The site, called Cape Commons, will hold two retail spaces on the first floor with 18 affordable apartments above. Credit: Courtesy of GreenMars Real Estate Services

Not many Maine towns can serve as shorthand for affluence and exclusivity. Make a list of three, and Cape Elizabeth, where the median sale price for a single-family home is a kitchen remodel shy of a million dollars, is probably in your top 2.

The posh Portland suburb hasn’t had a new building that’s entirely affordable housing since the 1970s, and attempts to bring it in piecemeal haven’t really worked — a rule dating back more than 30 years requiring new housing projects with more than five apartments to include a few cheap ones has yielded just 16 dwellings within the budget of, say, a teacher or firefighter.

Plans for a new development next to the town hall could more than double that number.

The building, which would have commercial storefronts on the first floor and 18 affordable apartments upstairs, cleared the Planning Board last month, and the developer and town officials all have high hopes for it.

That doesn’t mean it will happen — a similar plan approved for the same property in 2004 was never built — but it’s a promising start in a town known for being unaffordable.

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From the Opinion Page

Meta has agreed to a $17 billion settlement after a group of 33 states, including Maine, sued Meta Platforms Inc. for contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. Credit: Thibault Camus / AP

“Social media consumed Frog’s attention, and she quickly became addicted.”

Opinion: Congress must pass a strong online safety act to protect our children