PROVINCETOWN — This town has for years led the Outer Cape in the production of state-subsidized rental housing, with 174 affordable units already built here and 65 more to be ready next year. Now, the town’s leaders are focusing attention on the private rental market, aiming to coax property owners to either become year-round landlords or continue renting to year-round tenants.
That shift is important, because with real estate prices soaring ever upward, secure housing is still out of reach for most people who work here, according to an analysis of Cape Cod Commission data.
The main avenue for the effort so far has been Lease to Locals, a program the select board discussed extending and expanding at its Jan. 13 meeting.
Lease to Locals offers one-time payments of $6,000 to $20,000 to landlords who sign new year-round leases for properties that had previously been used as vacation homes or short-term or seasonal rentals. To qualify, their new tenants must live or work on the Outer Cape, be disabled or retired, or contribute to the community by serving on town boards or actively participating in the arts.
That program, begun last April, has resulted in 49 tenants being housed at 28 properties. There are more leases set to begin in the next few months, according to Town Manager Alex Morse, and by the time the program’s first year ends in April, $528,600 will have helped secure leases for 68 tenants at 39 properties.
The California-based company called Placemate that administers Lease to Locals pitched the subsidies as lasting only one year, telling town officials that about 80 percent of landlords wind up continuing their year-round rentals even when the subsidies end. Nonetheless, select board members and people who spoke at the meeting worried that ending the subsidies after one year would result in evictions.
Chase Hiffernan, a Lease to Locals tenant who opened a yoga studio on Commercial Street in 2023, told the select board that if the subsidies were to end this year, current landlords would have to either “evict first-year tenants or massively increase our rent.”
Hiffernan added, “A lot of these leases started in May and June, so if we don’t get renewed we’re going to be displaced at the beginning of summer.”
Hiffernan’s landlord, Jill Rothenberg-Simmons, who owns a property that includes the On Center Gallery, also spoke.
“We had wanted to rent year-round,” Rothenberg-Simmons said, “but it costs a lot of money to own a building in Provincetown. The Lease to Locals program was a win-win for all of us.
“Until we provide more affordable housing — and I know that’s in the works, and that’s great — we need to continue programs like this so that people like myself can afford to rent to the year-round workforce,” Rothenberg-Simmons said.
Select board members agreed, with Leslie Sandberg, Erik Borg, and John Golden all saying that one more year of subsidies was worth it to keep people housed until the Province Post affordable housing complex opens at 3 Jerome Smith Road in 2026.
The select board also discussed whether to keep the program open for new leases after April 1. Placemate had forecast that it could book 53 more tenants into 30 properties.
To support new leases and continue subsidies for older ones would cost $857,550 in the program’s second year, Morse told the select board. The money would come from the town’s 6-percent tax on short-term rental and hotel bookings, which brought in $5.2 million in 2024.
“It’s a big chunk of money,” said Golden, “but to try to find another place in May is ridiculous. Let’s extend this.”
Long-Term Landlords
The board also discussed how to help landlords who aren’t eligible for the program because they have been renting year-round for years. Some long-term landlords have asked the select board why former short-term rental owners should get public funds while they cannot.
Placemate proposed a $100 to $200 per month subsidy for 20 landlords, which it said would cost $95,000, but select board members had other ideas for how to help keep long-term landlords in the rental market.
Board member Austin Miller said that offering forgivable grants for major investments, such as new appliances or roofs, in exchange for a commitment to rent year-round for another 10 years would be better than a monthly subsidy.
“People who have been doing year-round rentals do have costs, and things are getting more expensive,” said Sandberg. “Let’s find out what their needs are. Maybe it’s a grant program.”
An RTE for Landlords
Golden pointed out that both longtime landlords and the newer Lease to Locals landlords are eligible for the town’s “expanded residential tax exemption” for year-round rental properties.
Residential tax exemptions are an option under state law that allows towns to discount the assessed value of the homes of residents when calculating property taxes. In Provincetown, the discount was worth about $2,000 last year, although the actual amount of net tax savings is lower for higher-value properties.
At town meeting in 2017, Provincetown’s voters extended the tax break to properties that house year-round renters; Truro followed suit in 2019. Provincetown’s voters expanded the tax break again at town meeting in 2023, voting to allow the owners of multi-unit properties to take up to four exemptions on one parcel. That expansion just went into effect when Gov. Maura Healey signed the town’s home rule petition on Jan. 6.
The new rules mean that owners who live at their rental properties can now claim one exemption for their owner-occupied unit and up to three more for rental units on the same parcel, said Town Assessor Scott Fahle.
Only 22 properties received the exemption for year-round rentals last fiscal year, according to a list Fahle provided to the Independent. The town has more than 200 privately owned long-term rentals, according to rental certificate records, and now nearly all of them could be eligible for the tax break.
“We need to get this out to homeowners,” Sandberg said.
State Sen. Julian Cyr told the Independent that the residential tax exemption for year-round rentals was not in the state’s initial group of new tools for “seasonal communities” — a designation that includes all the towns on the Outer and Lower Cape — but that it could be added later. “A year-round rental RTE seems like something that would fit well within that umbrella,” Cyr said.
“Provincetown has pioneered a number of crucial policies,” Cyr added. Towns on the Cape and Islands “need to figure out how to subsidize housing for almost all working people who don’t own a home or stand to inherit one.”
