Maine's South Portland City Council has passed an electric vehicle charging infrastructure ordinance that will require new/reconstructed parking lots to add EV charging infrastructure at the opportune time to prevent expensive retrofits at a later date.

The new rule is set to go into effect on December 5, 2022. 

New or reconstructed parking structures or lots of 5-plus parking spaces will be required to add EV-capable infrastructure while lots of 25-plus spaces will need to add EV-installed infrastructure.

Exemptions/reductions include:

• Affordable housing projects (120% AMI in 33% of dwelling units) can reduce requirement to 0.5 spaces per unit

• Can substitute with Level 3 at a ratio of 2:1

• Projects of 10+ EV-installed spaces may further reduce panel requirement to 1.4 kW per space

• Planning Board can waive/delay requirements due to supply chain disruptions

• ADUs are exempt

• Motorcycle/moped spaces per exempt